EDUCATION PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #3 COURT CASES 1

Education Portfolio Artifact #3 Court Cases

Alayna B. Rivera

College of Southern Nevada

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A middle school student, Ray Knight, was suspended from school. The school sent him

home with a note about his suspension, which he threw away, but nothing else. The school

districts policies require a telephone notification and a written notice by mail to parents when a

student is suspended. While on his first day of suspension, Ray was accidentally shot at his

friend’s house. The question is, does his parents have a right to hold the school liable for not

sending out appropriate notifications about their son’s suspension because they didn’t know he

wasn’t in school?

As found on the Law Justia Website, there was a court case Hoyem v. Manhattan Beach

City School District where a student leaves the school grounds during school hours and was

injured by a motorist. The trial court held the school district under no liability, but if the

plaintiffs can prove that the pupil’s injury was caused by the school district’s negligent

supervision, the court could hold the school district liable for the damages. With this, the parents

could argue that this was an act of negligent supervision of the school because they chose to not

formally contact the parents that their student was not in school. If they knew, they could have

kept this incident from happening.

On the other hand, in Sherrell v. Northern Community School Corp. a high school

student was off campus with his friends and told them that he was going to get his dads gun and

bring it to school and “start with the seventh grade and work his way up”. The court upheld the

school’s decision to expel the student. Although this is pretty different from the case that this

essay is about, the school can argue that something that is done off of school grounds is in the

liability of the student. If the student misbehaved in school and got suspended, what they do

while not under the supervision of the school, it ultimately up to them.

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In conclusion, I believe that the school should be held responsible for Ray Knight’s

incident outside of the school. This is because the school didn’t appropriately contact the parents

like they should have for them to know their child was not in school. As someone who works in

a school, you everyone should know when it comes to students getting in trouble, never trust

them with telling their parents. That’s why there are procedures required for the parents to know

that the student has been suspended or expelled. Students know if they can get away with their

parents not knowing they are in trouble, they will. So it is ultimately up to the school to make

sure that information is out so everyone is safe and accounted for.

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Reference Page

Justia US Supreme Court Center. (1978, October 25). Hoyem v. Manhattan Beach City Sch.

Dist. Retrieved from https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supremecourt/3d/22/508.html

Underwood, J., & Webb, L. D. (2006). School law for teachers: Concepts and applications.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.