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
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