9:00 AM - 12:00 PM 

School Law Bootcamp 

Separate Registration Required

Marquette Room

9:00 AM - 11:45 AM 

NSAA Board Meeting

Chouteau room

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM 

You Be the Counsel: Solving Today’s Toughest Special Education Scenarios 

In this interactive session, experienced school attorneys will guide participants through some of today’s most challenging special education scenarios facing school districts that are important for all school attorneys to know and understand. Using realistic hypotheticals, attendees will work through emerging issues involving special education eligibility decisions, post-manifestation determination responses, AI-driven parent complaints, and increasingly expansive records requests, among others. Designed for all school attorneys, the session will focus on practical problem solving and legally defensible strategies for navigating complex special education matters.

Panelists:
Brandon Wright, Franczek IL
Karen Haase, KSB School Law, NE
Michele Eaddy, Thrun Law, MI

Lewis & Clark (4^th floor)

10:10 - 11:10 AM 

Free Speech Speed Dating: First Amendment Strategy for K-12 Counsel

This fast-paced, highly practical session is built for the reality of K-12 First Amendment challenges: you rarely get clean facts (if you even know what they are), and you always get urgency. Like dating, you often have to size things up quickly, watch for red flags, and decide what’s a hard “no,” what’s negotiable, and what needs a careful follow-up conversation. Using a “speed dating” format—short, high-frequency hypotheticals with rapid issue-spotting—we’ll cover the doctrines that most often determine outcomes in K-12 schools: forum analysis, Tinker and its limits, viewpoint discrimination, compelled speech, and off-campus/social media speech. We’ll tackle today’s headline scenarios and how to advise administrators to avoid drifting into viewpoint-based decisions. Finally, we’ll address the hard overlap between protected expression and actionable harassment, including when identity-based hostility implicates civil rights duties and how to respond without creating a censorship narrative. Attendees will leave with a repeatable triage framework, documentation tips, and litigation-aware talking points for administrators and boards.

Presenters:
Jackie Wernz, ECR Solutions, TX
Holly McIntush, Thompson & Horton, TX

Lewis & Clark (4th floor)

11:20 - 11:40 AM 

NSAA Annual Membership Meeting and Elections

Lewis & Clark (4^th floor)

11:40 AM - 12:40 PM 

From Lemon to What? – The Test that will be Applied by the Court and USDOE

The U.S. Department of Education has issued new administrative guidance on prayer and religious expression in public schools, and districts are understandably asking: what rule are we living under now? This session will dive into exploring those changes and how the new guidance aligns or differs from previous guidance under Biden, Obama, and Bush administrations. We will map key Supreme Court and lower-court decisions onto recurring fact patterns: employee religious expression, student religious speech, equal-access/equal-treatment issues, and school-sponsored activities. Participants will emerge with valuable guidelines for Boards of Education in a post-Kennedy era.

Presenters:
Phillip L. Hartley, Pereira, Kirby, Kinsinger & Nguyen, GA
Lauren Atkinson, Georgia School Boards Association, GA

 Lewis & Clark (4^th floor)

9:00 - 10:00 AM 

Friday Night Lights and NIL Rights: A National Overview of Rules on Compensation for High School Student-Athletes and Considerations for School Attorneys

The rapid introduction of name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights has hastily transformed amateur athletics, first at the intercollegiate level with significant with changes to NCAA rules following the United States Supreme Court decision in O’Bannon v. NCAA in 2021. Since then, dozens of state legislatures and state high school athletic associations have passed laws and adopted policies aimed at providing analogous compensation opportunities for interscholastic student-athletes, resulting in a fragmented, state-specific framework. During this presentation, attendees will learn about the history of amateurism and the rise of NIL, understand the similarities and variations in the laws and policies across the country, and come away with practical guidance for advising school clients on common compliance pitfalls, eligibility risks, and enforcement challenges.

Presenters:
Emily Bothfeld, Hogan Marren, Babbo, & Rose, Ltd., IL
Todd Bowyer, Poyner Spruill, NC

Lewis & Clark (4^th floor)

10:10 - 11:10 AM 

Who’s on First – How Do Federal Civil Rights & Privacy Laws Protect the Rights of All?

The presenter will help participants identify, and successfully manage, current legal issues in federal civil rights and privacy laws. Given the nature of many recent investigations that may implicate federal education funding, school attorneys must be well-versed in a broad range of federal laws. The presenter will provide an overview of key federal laws, including the U.S. Constitution, grants law, IDEA, Title IX, FERPA and the PPRA. This will be followed by a presentation of common scenarios that raise these issues and which school districts are currently facing. Participants will identify (1) the federal laws that are implicated in day-to-day practice; (2) the key issues to track in this rapidly-changing legal landscape; and (3) resources that can help you guide school staff through complex situations.

Presenter:
Kala Shah, Education Law Services, DC

Lewis & Clark (4^th floor)

11:20 - 12:20 PM

Lawyer, Lawyer, Who’s Got the Lawyer? Navigating representation in the school setting

Every state has adopted rules of professional conduct to guide attorney practices and protect client interests. In the school context, identifying and serving "the client" is rarely straightforward. School attorneys often receive direction from multiple voices, including superintendents, board presidents, and administrators, while their true client remains the district, or board, as an entity. Based on the model rules, and drawing from real world examples, this session will focus on key concepts that apply in most states, including avoiding conflicts, protecting confidences, and centering the client when representing an organization.

Presenter:
Jennifer Hardin, Sara Clark, Ohio School Boards Association, OH

Lewis & Clark (4^th floor)