News from Thrun Law

Schools are typically required by law, policy, or contract to conduct an investigation before an em­ployee is discharged, suspended without pay, or other­wise deprived of an employment benefit due to alleged misconduct. In light of a significant increase in the number of employee investigations we have seen, this article provides tips for school officials conducting or overseeing investigations. This article is not intended as a checklist for all employee investigations or to enu­...

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) II funds as part of the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act. Many school officials have asked us how they can spend those funds.

MDE, the pass-through entity and funds gatekeeper, issued a memorandum dated February 24, 2021, enumerating the allowable uses of ESSER II funds....

School officials often inquire about whether they can use “cooperative purchasing” to satisfy statutory competitive bidding requirements. Cooperative pur­chasing typically involves piggybacking on an inter­governmental pool, bid cooperative, purchasing consortium, or group purchasing organization. If au­thorized by board policy, cooperative purchasing is permissible to procure supplies, materials, and equip­ment under competitive bidding requirements. Cooper­ative purchasing, however, is not...

Our April 26, 2018 edition of School Law Notes highlighted myriad changes to the Office of Civil Rights Case Processing Manual (CPM) that would directly affect schools. One of the most noteworthy changes to the CPM allowed OCR to dismiss a complaint in its entirety if the complaint was either (1) a continuation of a pattern of complaints previously filed with OCR against multiple recipients or (2) filed for the first time against multiple recipients, and the complaint placed an “an...