Thought Leadership

The Illinois Appellate Court recently affirmed the dismissal of a tenured fifth-grade teacher accused of intentionally breaking the seals on standardized test booklets to help students cheat on the test. This case is certainly not the first time that a tenured teacher’s cheating on standardized testing has been found to be irremediable conduct allowing dismissal […]

In its fourth binding opinion of 2020, the Illinois Public Access Counselor found that a Chicago Public School’s Local School Council violated Section 2(a) of the Open Meetings Act by improperly discussing the timing and process used to evaluate the […]

For-profit daycare centers have a history of being denied property tax exemptions by the Illinois Department of Revenue.  A recent decision from the Illinois Appellate Court upholds another such denial and extends the precedent to include for-profit daycare centers that […]

As you may have heard already, as part of the legislation (HB2455) signed by Governor Pritzker on June 5, 2020, certain non-instructional, non-administrative school term employees (commonly referred to as 10-month employees) may now be eligible for unemployment this summer.  […]

Today, in Bostock v. Clayton County, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling holding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and transgender status in the workplace. The […]

On Friday, June 12, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed Public Act 101-640, which, among other things, amends the Open Meetings Act to allow public bodies to hold virtual board meetings without the physical presence of a majority of a quorum of members during a disaster declaration relating to public health […]

Originally posted on our Title IX Insights Blog. For anyone taking the ostrich approach to the Department of Education’s Title IX regulations—sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that a lawsuit will come along to blow these pesky regulations away—there may be […]

Over the last few months, amid a pandemic impacting the globe, racism has taken center stage. We’ve witnessed the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. These are just a few of the names we know. Countless others have escaped national attention but were witnessed and grieved by their families and communities.