Education Law: Responsibilities and Protections

Welcome to LawShelf’s video-course on students’ rights in education. This course focuses on the rights of students to public or private educations and their rights while participating in the educational process. While most of the course is more relevant to public schools, we will also cover government regulation of the private educational process.

This is a beginner level course and no prior knowledge or experience is required.

The first module looks at the structure of education law, including state and federal sources of such law. It covers compulsory schooling laws and their exceptions, including those required by the Supreme Court. It also briefly covers the extent to which governments may or must support private, parochial and especially, religious schools.

Module two focuses on the right to education. While the federal Constitution does not spell out the right to education, various federal rights, such as due process and equal protection govern how educational systems must be run. Federal law, such as equal education opportunity components of civil rights statutes add to this regulatory framework. Moreover, we will discuss the fundamental right to education that is included in the constitutions of many states.

Module three turns to the rights of students with disabilities. We will look at the various federal statutes that guarantee equal access, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. We will go through the individualized process that must be afforded to each disabled child under various federal statutes and regulations to ensure substantially equal access to education.

Module four, the last of this course, looks at students’ rights while in school, particularly public schools. We will look at the extent to which constitutional rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures apply, albeit in a limited fashion, to public school students.

We are confident that this course will give you a comprehensive overview of constitutional, federal statutory and state rights to education and the rights that benefit students during the educational process.

Best of luck and we welcome your feedback.