This full-day session offers five Act 48 credit hours and is dedicated to the legal obligations that schools have with regards to their most vulnerable learners.

Public school legal obligations towards these students have changed dramatically over the past few months, and changes in regulation and policy at the state and federal levels seem to be happening every day.  This session is designed to make sure that educators and school leaders stay informed about all of the changes and have the tools that they need to properly (and lawfully) educate students.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) made significant changes to the McKinney-Vento Act, which provides legal protections and educational safeguards for homeless students. Effective December 12, 2016, ESSA also ushered in an era of new protections for students in foster care.  In this session, our Education Law attorneys explain in detail these new protections, and the obligations the laws impose on public schools, and our esteemed guest presenters explain how the system works in practice within the schools.  Participants will receive timely and helpful information regarding timelines, tools, tips, and best practices for effectively educating homeless students and students in foster care.

In addition, this session will cover the legal rights of another protected class of students – non-citizens, new citizens, and English Language Learners.  Participants will learn about the rights of students with current visa status, such as F-1 and J-1 visas; and the educational rights of undocumented students.  We will discuss strategies for interacting with INS as well as tools for ensuring that school practices do not have a legally-impermissible “chilling effect” on the attendance of undocumented students.  We will also discuss the rights of English Language Learners (including how ELL is defined under the ESSA) as well as the rights of non-English-speaking parents.

Lunch is on your own. Call 610-332-0390 to register or email dloughney@kingspry.com for more information.