The UVM College of Education and Social Services is pround to announce that the Vermont Education Law Institute will be offering two new training opportunities this fall: Bullying and Harassment in Schools and Discipline and the School to Prison Pipeline.
The first workshop will address “Bullying and Harassment in Schools” on Nov. 21 at the Holiday Inn on Williston Road in South Burlington. Sam Abel-Palmer, Director of Vermont Law Help at Vermont Legal Aid and UVM instructor in education law and special education law, will lead this class along with Bernice Garnett, Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont. They will examine the rapidly changing legal issues and new laws related to bullying and harassment. Specific areas of focus include student behaviors off-campus and in cyberspace; the distinction between bullying and unlawful harassment; school obligations for reporting and investigating allegations; investigative methods; and strategies for responding to incidents. Real case scenarios will be reviewed and discussed.
Abel-Palmer and Garnett will lead another workshop titled “Discipline and the School to Prison Pipeline” on Dec. 5 at the Holiday Inn. This day will focus on how school discipline policies can facilitate, rather than prevent, certain students moving from school into juvenile justice systems and adult prisons. Topics include a review of school discipline practices and the juvenile justice system; the statistical correlation between “zero tolerance” policies and students entering juvenile justice; the impact of police and school resource officers in schools; links between discipline, drop-out rates and student outcomes; and the overall impact on student disabilities, foster care and homelessness, and the disconnect between juvenile justice and special education systems.
Please visit the website links below for more details.
Two additional Education Law Institutes on “Section 504 and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” and “Dispute Resolution in Special Education” are being planned for the spring semester.
Information: douglas.gilman@uvm.edu, (802) 656-8352.