On September 27, 2011, the Education Law Task Force went before the Joint Committee on Education for a hearing on two school discipline bills, H.177 and H.178. These bills were filed to address students' access to educational services and exclusion from school. Massachusetts, during the 2009-2010 school year, of the 60,610 incidents resulting in school exclusion, more than one-half (52%, or more than 31,000) were for non-violent, non-serious "unassigned" offenses. Students missed a total of 199,056 days of school, the equivalent of 1,105 years of school.
Amicus Brief filed
MAC senior staff organized a coalition of attorneys representing three additional public interest offices and two private law firms that filed an amicus brief in the MA Appeals Court on March 31, 2011. Together with MAC, the coalition included CLCM; the EdLaw Project; the Suffolk Juvenile Justice Center; Kotin, Crabtree & Strong LLP, and the Office of Ray Wallace. Our amicus brief addressed the irreparable harm suffered by students who are excluded from school for disciplinary reasons. The Appeals Court has allowed our motion to file the brief.
The Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) of Massachusetts has transferred this case from the Appeals Court to the SJC, and ordered oral argument to take place at the SJC at 9:00 on Monday, October 3, 2011.
On December 21, 2011, the SJC returned this case to the MA Superior Court for a hearing on the student's request for a preliminary injunction. In March 2013, the plaintiff filed a brief appealing in the Appeals Court from an August 2012 ruling by the Superior Court..
Read Amicus brief here
Read Motion for Leave to file brief here
CLE Amicus Brief
Read SJC Opinion
