News from Thrun Law

In a case handled by Thrun Law Firm, the State Tenure Commission recently upheld a tenured teacher’s discharge for misconduct and insubordina­tion arising from the violation of Michigan’s seclusion and restraint laws. Nichols v Bay City Pub Schs, STC 19-7 (2019).

Kendra Nichols, an elementary special education teacher, worked in a classroom for students with emo­tional impairments. Nichols’s discharge resulted from two separate incidents involving two different stu­dents....

Schools that issued tax credit bonds before December 22, 2017 must annually complete and file Form 1097-BTC with the IRS. For tax year 2019, Form 1097-BTC must be filed by mail by February 28, 2020, or filed electronically by March 31, 2020.

Tax credit bonds differ from conventional school bonds because the bond purchaser receives a tax cred­it in lieu of, or in addition to, periodic interest pay­ments. For schools, tax credit bonds were typically issued as either a Qualified School...

A copyright, often denoted by the © symbol, protects ownership in original works of authorship, including movies. Copyright holders enjoy the exclusive right to publicly perform and display their works. Federal copyright law defines “publicly” as, “to perform or display it at a place open to the public or any place where a substan­tial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances are gathered.” Accordingly, showing a movie as a classroom reward or...

In last month’s edition of School Law Notes, we discussed the importance of filing the Municipal Finance Qualifying Statement form with the Michigan Department of Treasury by December 31 each year. A successful Qualifying Statement submission gives a school “qualified status” for the upcoming year. Obtain­ing qualified status allows schools to issue most types of municipal obligations (bonds, state aid notes, and tax notes) more swiftly and reduces related filing fees. We want to...