On August 11, 2020, California's Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal of Patricia Crawford (Crawford), a certificated guidance counselor for the Jurupa Unified School District (District), on the grounds that her comments on a colleague's Facebook post concerning students were immoral and demonstrated she was unfit for service.
The California Attorney General, in a recent opinion, has concluded that members of legislative bodies may not receive health and welfare benefits not widely offered to the agencies' employees and officers and that mistakes made in determining benefit plans offered to legislative body members can yield serious consequences.
In a series of executive orders addressing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Gavin Newsom has extended a statutorily-imposed timeline significant to public entities.
On July 9, 2020, California's Second District Court of Appeal unanimously held that the City of Santa Monica's (City) at-large elections do not violate the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) (Elec. Code, § 14025, et seq.).
Senate Bill (SB) 98, the Budget Education Trailer Bill, suspends the requirement to adopt a Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) for the 2020-2021 school year. Instead, for the 2020-21 school year, local educational agencies (LEA) will be required to adopt a "learning continuity and attendance plan."
It is sometimes difficult for elected officials to remain unbiased when considering controversial matters, while properly representing their constituents at the same time.
A would-be plaintiff’s ability to obtain relief from the government claim presentation requirement (the Government Claims Act, Gov. Code, § 810, et seq.) has been limited by the California Court of Appeal.
The California Department of Education (CDE) has issued the template for local education agencies (LEAs) to use for their written report to the community explaining their changes to program offerings made in response to school closures to address COVID-19.
In Becerra v. Superior Court of San Francisco, California's First District Court of Appeal broadened the definition of documents that public agencies must provide pursuant to a request made under the Public Records Act (PRA), to include records in the possession of the agency regardless of the record's origin.