Riverboat School Case Study

Page 2: Tough Times Continue at Riverboat School District The case centers on if it is acceptable to pass out flyers inviting students to a church back to school party. There two considerations that must be wade in order to best seek an answer to this issue: the legal and communal impact. Legally because it was routine for flyers to be passed out by other organizations, like the YMCA, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts, then this organization must be given access as well.
The Equal Access Act mandates that if one non-school affiliated organization is given access to the school then the school must consideration to other organizations. To not do so would be discrimination based on religion. If the principal does not want the flyers to be handed out then she needs to create a policy that bans all non-school related materials from being handed out. This would be an overly harsh policy and would certainly damage school-community relations.
Instead, the school should create a policy that allows students to hand out the flyers during non-instructional time, not in a classroom. The lunchroom or after school would be an acceptable accommodation. Secondly, teachers should not touch or comment on the flyers, unless they are being distributed in the classroom in order to stop a school …show more content…
Kuhlmeir centers on a student’s right to the freedom of speech and freedom of the press in school and during after school activities. Students in the Hazelwood School District decided to write about teenage pregnancy and divorce in the school newspaper. School official believed this to be an inappropriate subject so they decided to delete the article from the newspaper. Student’s involved in writing the newspaper felt that their rights had been violated and sued the school district. After the district court ruled in favor of the school district, then the Court of Appeals reversed the decision in favor of the students, the Supreme Court decided to hear the