Publications

2023 Edition

Prepare your school’s first line of defense, your school secretary, with important and helpful information they can use every day. Provide practical methods for handling issues with legal implications a school’s front office frequently confronts. Our Legal Issues for School Secretaries manual includes the latest on bullying, cyberbullying, reporting requirements for SBEC and CPS, FERPA, and social media issues.

Topics:

• Admissions/Enrollment
• Attendance
• Bullying and Cyberbullying
• Child Abuse
• Family Issues
• Fingerprinting
• First Amendment
• Harassment & Discrimination
• Residency
• Search & Seizure
• Sex Offenders
• Social Media
• Student Records

2024 Edition

This manual provides practical advice for handling often encountered situations by cheerleader and drill team sponsors.

Topics Covered:

• Social Media and Cyberbullying
• Rights Associated with Extracurricular Activities
• UIL and Coaching Requirements
• Options for Selecting Team Members
• District and Staff Liability & Immunity
• Transportation and Other Travel Issues
• Access to Education Records, Score Cards
• Title IX LGBTQ+
• Relevant Federal and State Court Cases
• Extracurricular Codes of Conduct
• Discipline and Removal from Team
• Cheerleader Constitutions
• Student and Parent Complaints

2021 Updated Edition

Superintendents and board members told us they needed a practical guide that explains their roles, responsibilities, and authority. So, after hundreds of hours of legal work and critical input from an Advisory Committee of board members, superintendents, and Education Service Center personnel, we published our Trustee Manual. It is an exceptional product, not simply because it is our product, but because there is nothing else like it.

• The Manual is organized into six sections: Being A Trustee, Board Meetings, Personnel Issues, Student Issues, Business Issues, and Liability
• Each section has its own supplement of sample forms, motion language, resolutions, and notes
• Legal citations do not appear in the text, but in the ‘Becoming An Expert’ pages at the end of each section
• Sold in sets of eight to emphasize the team relationship between the board and superintendent
• Trustees receive one hour of tier-three Board Member training credit for reading the Manual

Updated to include all significant changes from the 87^th Texas Legislative Session. Older versions of this manual may include out of date information and should not be used.

Note: Members may receive additional hours by receiving a board training. For more information please view our training pages or contact us.

A pamphlet for trustees and administrators who need to know the laws that apply to them when using social media. This resource covers district-specific accounts, campaign pages, and how to handle comments you don’t necessarily like to see. This pamphlet instructs on when one can delete tweets, how to handle keeping posts for public records, and when a page is a public forum or not. Posts are put up in an instant, but lawsuits can drag on forever.

A comprehensive resource for handling Public Information Act requests, from the simple to the insane. This resource includes flow charts to guide you through responding to requests, form letters for common situations, and answers to your most pressing questions. Unsure what qualifies as a request for information? Want to charge for fulfillment of requests? This manual lays it all out for you.

Community support organizations for extracurricular activities-or Booster Clubs-are a valuable complement to the school’s athletic, music, and academic competition programs. Their activities often provide additional financial resources and enrichment for the programs they support, but sometimes the lines between a Booster Club and the school district become blurred. This low-cost booklet is the perfect mechanism to communicate, in easy to read language, the district’s rules for Booster Clubs that support its extracurricular activities. It is designed to supplement the information contained in University Interscholastic League’s (UIL’s) Booster Club Guidelines. A must for all Booster Clubs in your district. Topics addressed include:

• Formation, names and registration guidelines
• Becoming a tax-exempt organization
• Fund-raising and accounting
• Booster Club meetings
• Working with school staff
• Field trips and transportation
• Award restrictions

School administrators often are required to “look into” or “investigate” allegations of wrong-doing by students and employees. This manual can be used in non-Title IX investigations to help you understand why it is important to conduct an investigation in a particular way, as well as provide you form documents and scripts to facilitate recordkeeping and information gathering related to the allegations.

Unique to this product is a series of flow charts that guide you through each phase of an investigation so that critical steps or details that might haunt you later don’t get overlooked.

Revised December 2021.

Note: This manual is provided digitally.

When a formal complaint of sexual harassment under Title IX is filed, the Title IX Coordinator must appoint an individual to investigate the allegations. The Title IX Investigations Manual will walk those investigators through conducting a legally-compliant investigation under Title IX.

Note: This manual is provided digitally.

We have reviewed new legislation, case law, and other regulatory actions and determined that there will be no changes to our Contract Package for the 2024-25 school year.

Districts may only order this UPDATE if they have our 2019-20 Contract Package version or newer.

EWHPM’s Contract Package for 2023-2024 includes language to address proposed bills being considered by the 88^th Legislature related to requiring teachers to prepare lesson plans. The package also provides options for districts to choose between offering traditional 10-month contracts to teachers or offering contracts that address the issue of teachers being asked to work slightly beyond 10 calendar months due to unforeseen circumstances or calendar choices. In addition to these updates, the new package contains the same solid contract provisions it always has, along with a publication explaining the contracting process in detail.

NOTE: If your district has never purchased this package or if your copy is older than 2019-20, you must order the full version at a cost of $350. For information on the version your district has, please contact (800) 488-9045 or information@edlaw.com.

We have reviewed new legislation, case law, and other regulatory actions and determined that there will be no changes to our Contract Package for the 2024-25 school year.

EWHPM’s Contract Package for 2023-2024 includes language to address proposed bills being considered by the 88^th Legislature related to requiring teachers to prepare lesson plans. The package also provides options for districts to choose between offering traditional 10-month contracts to teachers or offering contracts that address the issue of teachers being asked to work slightly beyond 10 calendar months due to unforeseen circumstances or calendar choices. In addition to these updates, the new package contains the same solid contract provisions it always has, along with a publication explaining the contracting process in detail.

NOTE: If your district has never purchased this package or if your copy is older than 2019-20, you must order this version. For information on the version your district has, please contact (800) 488-9045 or information@edlaw.com.

The Texas Family Code lays out a complicated set of rules regarding parental rights. We have taken the Family Code and the IDEA and broken it down into an easy-to-use chart to assist special education staff in determining who has the right to participate and /or make decisions. For example, you will be able to determine if a parent, guardian, surrogate parent, foster parent, other family member or advocate is entitled to:

• Receive written notice to attend an ARD meeting
• Receive a copy of a student’s records
• Request a due process hearing

Answers to these and other difficult questions are on our legal size chart. Footnoted explanations are on the flip side.

Eichelbaum Wardell Hansen Powell & Muñoz, P.C., now has commissioned notaries to perform Remote Online Notarizations, including the ability to verify identifications online and sign documents electronically.

What you need:

• Proof of identity
• A computer with a secure webcam and internet access
• PDF or DOC file ready to upload with notarization language

Districts will be charged $31 per document.

If a document requires preparation or editing, additional fees will be billed at the preparer’s hourly rate.

For more information on this service send email to information@edlaw.com.

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