This text provides a clear and concise view of current perspectives in school
law and makes the all-important leap from theory to practice, with a focus on
the day-to-day realities of school law. Subjects include student rights, teacher
rights, tort action, power and authority, change, and conflict.
While the topics of corporal punishment, free speech, and church and state
have been debated by lawyers for years, the law is ever changing to encompass
new subjects involving handicapped students, AIDS, and more.
Teachers, to be sure, are not expected to be lawyers or to possess a mastery
of the law. They are, however, able to obtain a fundamental knowledge of it,
especially with the assistance of Law in Arkansas Public Schools .
This fundamental knowledge provides teachers with information that today
rivals reading, writing, and arithmetic in importance. In this day and age, when
students and parents sue schools and teachers, the best defense for teachers and
administrators is simply to know the law.
Professor Paul E. Peterson teaches administration and secondary education at
the University of Central Arkansas. A former public school teacher and
principal, he received his Ed.D. in 1983 from the University of Akron. Dr.
Peterson teaches school law at UCA and has presented numerous workshops on this
topic for teachers, administrators, and school boards throughout the state.