Ah, it’s early September and virtually all NAIS schools are officially back in session. Some schools have been back for weeks, others have just started after this late Labor Day weekend. What did you miss over the summer, and what does the new academic year hold for you? Here are some tidbits to get you started on the new school year.
Biggest Summer Legal Happenings from the Federal Government?
This summer the U.S. Department of Labor proposed new regulations that could dramatically impact independent schools. The DOL oversees the tests that employers use to determine who is eligible for overtime. For all but a couple positions, to be eligible for overtime you must be paid a salary (the same amount, every week, regardless of output) of at least $23,660 per year. The DOL is proposing that this amount be raised to roughly $50,000, which is roughly the 40 percent mark on national salary data. As a practical matter, any employee your school sees as exempt from overtime as a result of their current salary being over $23,660 and meeting other aspects of the exemption tests, could become eligible for overtime if their salary is under the proposed amount. This new salary level would NOT apply to faculty and employees who qualify for the education administrative exemption. However, all administrative positions, including those that travel regularly or work evenings, like associates in the admissions and advancement offices, would need to meet this new salary test under the proposal. NAIS worked with NBOA to survey school and file comments. I put together an overview of the proposed regulations for your reading pleasure. For those who have no idea what laws I am talking about, we also have a big document on compliance in this area. These regulations will not go into effect until at least next year, and they may be slightly different from the proposed versions. NAIS is tracking this closely; just remember this issue come budget season.
Small Victories?
As many of you know, NAIS and the American Council on Education (ACE) took the lead on an amicus brief filed with the 2nd Circuit last fall in a case involving one of our schools. The case involved an international trip to China and a tick bite. The 2nd Circuit heard arguments in the case and has certified a couple of state law questions to the Connecticut Supreme Court. In its decision, the 2nd Circuit seemed in line with the public policy arguments in our amicus brief. We anticipate filing another brief with the Connecticut Supreme Court this fall.
Majority Age Student Issues
Schools have always had seniors who were turning 18 years old at some point in that last year of high school. However, in the last year or two, more and more schools have found that students are turning 18 in their junior year. Many of the kindergarten students, particularly boys, who were red-shirted so long ago are now 18 years old for their entire senior years. As your school is cleaning up its policies related to 18-year-olds (signing liability waivers, particularly for school trips, release of education records, signatures on recommendation releases, etc.), do also think about how to inform students and parents that these 18-year-olds are now adults under the law. This shift in age has schools faced with more complicated legal situations with 18 year old students who are being treated as adults, including concerns related to liability for student driving (can vary under state laws), students being tried as adults for drug and alcohol offenses, as well as statutory rape or possession of child pornography for boys and girls. Many students and parents are not necessarily aware of these legal issues triggered by age. Some states have pieces like this that are a helpful starting place. Also, if you are still red-shirting, see this piece that came out this summer.
College Counseling
Hand in hand with our 18-year-old students is their eventual graduation, hopefully to college. I continue to gather student stories from higher education with alarming speed. Independent schools are not immune from the issues we see there: student-on-student sexual assault, mental health issues including depression and anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, and other related topics. We will be working to bring schools more resources on these topics, but schools must also look closely at their programming and how students are being prepared for high school and college. Indeed, some studies show that earlier understanding of consent and sexuality education are likely to have a lasting positive effect. Start to consider taking college counseling beyond the admissions process. If you have a program that does this well already, I would love to hear about it at [email protected] or in the comments to this entry.
The beginning of the year is a good time to start addressing some of the risk behaviors that can be prevalent in our older students, although we see them with our younger ones, too. If you are looking for inspiration, Ann Klotz recently provided excerpts from her Back to School Night talks.
Transgender Students and Staff
This new academic year has a number of schools working with transgender students and some staff. NAIS will be working on this topic more in the year ahead to bring some of the policies, procedures, and practices that schools have been fine-tuning to the wider membership. Until then, this piece from Fisher Phillips on working with employees, and our piece on working with students might be helpful. If you would like to join a working group of schools on this topic later in this academic year, please let me know at [email protected].
Governance Issues Abound
This fall has found me a bit more concerned than usual on the governance front. I have had a few of calls from board members who are getting deep into the management side of the school’s work. When I noted that this involvement was not good governance, their responses were generally that they loved the head of school, but previous situations had led to a loss of trust that the head of school would manage the situation. If you find your board going down these kinds of paths, please work to strengthen this relationship in fairly short order. An unusual number of schools have terminated heads’ contracts in the last few years, a trend that destabilizes schools and families. I wrote about some of the main problems in Independent School magazine last spring. See if any of these situations sound familiar to you.
There is so much more to share, but this does seem enough to get us going for the next week or so.
Welcome back!