Finding Those NYS Bill Jackets

Click here for information about the New York State Library's Bill Jacket Holdings and their digital collection.

Lexis Nexis Academic: How to find regs and statutes. It's pretty easy...

Just choose the right area under US LEGAL on the menu, then make sure you look up the law number following the examples provided.

What to look for

• Make sure you are looking in the right place (Federal v. state)


• Make sure you select the right check box for whether you are looking for a law or a regulation


• Choose "citation" from the pull-down menu next to where you type in the law or reg


• Follow the examples below for the proper format!!!

Begin your search in Lexis Nexis Academic. Select “US Legal” from the menu at left of your screen
To Find….
NYS Consolidated Laws
Select State Statutes, Codes & Regulations from the left menu. Choose “statutory Code” from the bottom check boxes. Then
….type in “NY CLS EDUC” in Citation. A section [“sec. XX”] is optional

NYCRR
Again choose State Statutes, Codes & Regulations. This time, check the box marked “administrative” at the bottom. Then type in “8 NYCRR” in Citation. A section [“sec. XX”] is optional.

CFR
Choose “US Legal…Federal Statutes, Codes & Regulations…” and type in “34 CFR” in Citation. For a fuller citation, just use the numbers: 34 CFR 300.320 for example. DO NOT USE "sec" for CFR!
Public Laws by their PL Number
Again select Federal Statutes, Codes & Regulations. Type in “xx P.L. xx” for that public law e.g. 107-110 should be typed “107 P.L. 110” in Citation
US code
Again select Federal Statutes, Codes & Regulations. Type “20 uscs” in Citation. [sec. is optional] E.g., “20 uscs sec. 81”

Race to the Top Case Study

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or Public Law 111-5
The House Bill (HR 1 or 2009)
34 CFR Subtitle B, Chapter II -- How the application points system works
Recovery act website at ed.gov

Education Law 3641 is about grants in aid.
Education law 3012 -c is about teacher annual reviews
S. 7991, A. 11171 was signed into law 05/28/10 and became chapter 103 of 2010 NY Laws
Search the NYS Register for "teacher Evaluations" or "performance reviews". What do you find?
The Bill Jacket for Chapter 103 of 2010

8 NYCRR 30 - 2 is the section of regulations for Annual professional performance reviews.
Search the NYS Board of Regents website for "annual performance reviews." Can you trace the conversation prior to amendmants to 8 NYCRR 100.2 and the implementation of 30 - 2?

NYS United Teachers et al v. NYS Board of Regents, 33 Misc. 3d 989; 929 N.Y.S.2d 699; 2011 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 4187; 2011 NY Slip Op 21299, decided August 24, 2011
Assembly Bill A07642 is a bill to repeal and alter some of the earlier legislation
Open [NYS] Senate: Find Bills Hearing Transcripts and more

NYC Department of Education Leaders

To update the "Cathie Black Matter" case study that we discussed earlier, here is the current list of leaders at NYC Department of Education, courtesy of the NY Times.

John B. King Jr. is the new NYS Commissioner of Education

Here is an article on his appointment from the Legislative Gazette

A recent NY Times Op ed piece talked about the outcomes of the GOOD NEWS CLUB et al. v. MILFORD CENTRAL SCHOOL US Supreme Court decision 533 U.S. 98

Chapters, etc. I have good news....

A question came up recently whether NYS unchapterd laws -- that is, laws in their original form, not consolidated -- were available online. The answer is yes, at the same website where you can look up bills and other legislative materials.

http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menuf.cgi

From that site, click CHAPTERS and use the search tool. Just limit to "chapter number" and fill it in, along with the year. AND don't forget to click the box marked "text" to see the complete text of the act.



Don't know one or the other? There's a keyword search tool. Or Google the name of the act to discover its chapter number and year, then return and try again.

"Past Practice"

While "past practice" has a definition under the law, it is not a term found in most law dictionaries. It actually comes from Labor: the US Office of Personnel Management
(http://www.opm.gov/lmr/glossary/glossaryp.asp) defines it as

"Existing practices sanctioned by use and acceptance, that are not specifically included in the collective bargaining agreement. Arbitrators use evidence of past practices to interpret ambiguous contract language. In addition, past practices can be enforced under the negotiated grievance procedure because they are considered part of the agreement. ..." Follow the OPM link above to see other definitions and context from the Federal Labor Relations Authority (http://www.flra.gov), where you can search for more information, including decisions involving unions and corporations that may be relevant to your idea.

So Why wouldn't LexisNexis help you much?? As I said, "Past Practice" is a term used most often in labor, especially in contracts and negotiations. Many labor negotiations, arbitrations and other disputes are resolved by independent or governmental boards, rather than the courts. So while you may find a few case decisions on Past Practice, you'd find much more looking at unions', negotiators', and arbitrators' websites. Here are a few to try, all of which allow you to search for decisions relating to labor negotiations (they are not court cases!)

* The National Labor Relations Board [http://www.nlrb.gov/]
* The NYS Public Employees Review Board [http://www.perb.state.ny.us/]
* United Federation of Teachers [http://www.uft.org] Note: Some "members only" portions of this site
* National Education Association [http://www.nea.org]
* AFSCME [http://www.afscme.org]

The NYS Commissioner of Education's Decisions, which contain some uses of the term in context, may be valuable, though the Commissioner is not empowered to hear certain labor matters. Still, it's worth a visit, and you can search for the term there. If you're in the Ed Law class at New Paltz this semester, you'll search the Decisions often. They're found at
http://www.counsel.nysed.gov

The Cathie Black Matter

Shael polakow suransky



hakeem jeffries









Dennis Walcott






Here is the scratch-pad for what's transpired so far. Here, we're deliberately ignoring the media attention, the blogs, etc., in order to focus on the laws, regulations, precedents and filings.

1. The filings: The Eric Snyder Petition, the Hakeem Jeffries Petition. And what's an Article 78 proceeding, anyway?

2. The Commissioner's Waiver Decision

3. NYS Consolidated Laws Education Law sec. 3003. Pay close attention to subsections (1) to (3)

4. The Commissioner of Education's Regulations (8 NYCRR) 80 - 3.10 (b). Browsing? You'll find under Chapter ii, subchapter 3: Teachers...requirements.

5. 8 NYCRR 52.21 (c)(3), which regulates School District Leadership Curricula. Is Ms. Black Qualified?

6. Matter of the Application of the Mayor of the City of New York and Klein, 2002.

7. What are the City of NY Chancellor's duties anyhow? To whom does she report? It's Education Law 2590-h

NYS statutes in Lexis Nexis Academic

FAQ "How do I find NYS statutes...you know, from the McKinney's Black Books, AKA the Consolidated Laws of New York State, in Lexis Nexis Academic?"

A: Once you sign into LNA, select US LEGAL, then
State Statutes, Codes & Regulations. Choose New York from the search box menu, then....

If you have a specific citation, preface the section number with "NY CLS [the law heading] sec. [the number]"

Seem complicated? It's not, really. Example: if you're looking for "education law 3020-a" type in -- with the quotes: "ny cls educ. sec. 3020-a"

Looking for Mental Hygiene Law section 9.09? Type in NY CLS Men Hyg § 9.09.

If you do a keyword search instead, you an limit results to NYS laws (as opposed to the NYCRR regulations) by clicking "Statutory Codes" to the left of the results.

NYCRR is In LEXIS NEXIS!!

You can now find the New York Codes, rules & Regulations in Lexis Nexis Academic! Oce you're signed in to LNA:
Go to US LEGAL, and Choose
State Statutes, Codes & Regulations, then choose New York
To search by citation, type "8 nycrr sec. [the section and subsection]"
EXAMPLE (yes, with quotes): "8 nycrr sec. 80- 1.3"
THEN: click all the Source boxes (administrative codes, statutory codes, etc.)

YOU can also search by Keyword! From your results -- which should include NYS statutes as well as regulations -- click "Regulatory codes" from the left-side menu. Voila! NYCRR regulations!

Supreme Court Dockets Or What Is That Number?

A student writes "I need to find this Supreme Court case...I was given the names of the parties and a number with a dash in the middle. What is that number, and how do I find the decision?"

The number is a Supreme Court Docket Number, the first part of which is the year the case was placed on the docket with the Court, and the second is essentially the case number. It's a case number, not a decision number, really. In principle, it is possible for decisions to be rendered in a different sequence than their docket numbers.

This SCOTUS site explains docket numbers and lets you search for case names and decisions by docket numbers, too.

What to do in Lexis Nexis: the best thing to do is to look by the parties e.g., Locke v. Karass, rather than trying to search them with the docket number (07-610) too.

The only way I'm aware of to search by docket number in Lexis Nexis Academic is to do a US Federal & State Cases search and look for the docket number as a keyword. Limit your search to the court (e.g., US Supreme Court) to avoid a lot of noise. Not nearly as efficient as searching by citation or parties, but it can be done!

Just for fun, try in the SCOTUS Docket Search, then in Google, then in LexisNexis...

• Fitzgerald v. Barnstable 07-1125
• Locke v. Karass 07-610
  

Anyone near Otsego County have Education Department Reports?

According to the SUNY Union Catalog, SUNY's Oneonta and Binghamton have the Judicial Decisions of the Commissioner of Education.

Supreme Court Docket?

A student asks "How do I find out what cases are about to appear before the US Supreme Court, or other courts?"

Good Question. You know that only decisions (not motions or calendars or court dockets) are in Lexis Nexis Academic. And not every court has an updated, online calendar (in some cases, a rip to the local county courthouse is the only way to go.) But here is a short list of tools you might find useful.

• The Supreme Court Docket is the SCOTUS official tracking system. You can search by keywords that might appear in the filing (e.g., "education" "school") but there is no subject access. So try different words. And notice that some of the filings have already been decided!
• The NYS Unified Court System's eCourts tool lets you view pending cases in the NYS legal system.
• Justia's docket search tool enables you to search for pending FEDERAL cases that are being heard in NYS and elsewhere. NOTE: At this time, you can only search by party names (e.g., "school district" as a litigant)
• the Southern District of NY (federal) PACER search: register (free) and search the court calendar and more

Practice ed Law Research Paper

Let's start with an interesting article in the NEA Today. Mary Ellen Flannery, "Address Unknown:
How do you assign homework to a kid without a home?" The article talks about homeless students, and, among other things, school districts and residency. It also mentions the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, known also as the "McKinney Act."

1. Let's Google the Act. We know that the word "Act" should indicate a federal statutory law. Turns out it was originally PL 100-77, and Reauthorized as part of NCLB, as PL107-110, 115 STAT 1989
2. Let's look in the index of our School Law textbook to find if the Act is mentioned and how it's been applied. Turns out, there's a section of the text devoted to homeless education. Fortunate you!
3. You wonder if there are other books that discuss Mckinney-Vento. So you click into the Reference Universe database and search the whole Reference Collection in one search!
   
4. Now that you have the law text and some examples, you should look at what kinds of matters related to homelessness may have been adjudicated by the NYSED Commissioner of Education. You also decide to search the Commissioner's Decisions for "residence"
5. Looks like the School Law textbook mentions some 8 NYCRR regulations and some NYS statutes. Good thing they're online!
   
6. However, because Mckinney-Vento is a federal law, you need to search for court cases, too. Lexis Nexis to the rescue! A Federal & State Cases search on "Mckinney act" should get us started. Too many results? Add words like Children or school or district. Or all of them.
7. That librarian is so cool! You think as you write the paper. Everyone should know a cool librarian.
   

Select cases to practice

• Forest Grove School dist v. T.A. (Special education)557 U.S. ___ (2009), 129 S.Ct. 2484
  
• Safford Unified School District v. Redding (Search & Seizure) 557 U.S. ___ (2009), 129 S.Ct. 2633
• Morse v. Frederick (Freedom of Speech) 551 U.S. 393

Russell v. Devon case found! (Or, You're Welcome, part II)

We discovered the opinion for Russell v. Men dwelling in Devon (1788, 2 TR 667) in John Henry Wigmore's Select cases on the Law of Torts (Northwestern, 1912). see pp. 837-839. Thanks, Google Book project!

You're welcome

NewYork (State). Task Force on School Violence. Safer Schools in the 21st century. Report from 1999. Lovingly preserved through a NYS Library digitization initiative.

Find Paper decisons in the Nassau Area

We used some library catalogs to locate if the older, paper versions of the Commissioner's Decisions AKA the Judicial Decisions of the Commissioner of Education AKA the Education Department Reports were available in the Nassau County Area.

We found them at (Be sure to call or email them before you visit!!!)

• Hempstead Public Library
• Suffolk Community College (yes, we know what county it's in)
• Nassau County Court Library [maybe; we're not sure] in Mineola
• Adelphi University Library
• Dowling College Library
• CW Post Library
• 
  

National Library Week presentation

If you plan to be in the Hudson Valley on the 15th, please consider attending our thought-provoking panel on school libraries. Or invite a library school student!

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You're invited to attend a SUNY New Paltz program celebrating National Library Week 2009:

"Teachers and School Librarians: Partnerships that Work"


School librarians are an extraordinary educational resource. Every day, they introduce students to libraries as important information resources, teach essential information seeking and evaluative skills, and prepare students for higher levels of research. When teachers and librarians work together, they ensure that learning doesn’t end when students leave the classroom.


How do teachers and librarians form working collaborations? What are the benefits and what are the obstacles? As an educator, how can you make these collaborations work? Join us as we welcome four educators from nearby schools who have created exceptional and thought-provoking partnerships.


Dale Thompson, an eighth grade English teacher and Joan Alley, school librarian are from Bailey Middle School in Kingston. Thompson and Alley have collaborated on an innovative Civil War learning unit with their classes. Alley has presented workshops on Big 6, an information and computer literacy program designed for children and teens.


Charlotte Adamis and Victoria Brooks are from Chambers Elementary School. Prior to becoming a librarian, Adamis worked in the arts and in journalism. Brooks is a New Paltz graduate with twenty-two years experience teaching first and second grade. Together, they will discuss how they collaborate on science lessons.


This program will take place on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 4:30pm at SUNY New Paltz, Lecture Center 102.

This event is free and open to the public.


For details please contact Stephan J. Macaluso at (845) 257-2699, macaluss@newpaltz.edu, or Amanda Merritt at (845) 257- 2335, merritta@newpaltz.edu.

This program is sponsored by Sojourner Truth Library, the SUNY New Paltz School of Education and the SUNY New Paltz Career Resource Center.

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