Education Law: A Year in Review

11:00 a.m. – 11:05 a.m. Welcome and Introduction

• Miranda Johnson, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Education Law and Policy Institute, Loyola University Chicago School of Law

11:05 a.m. – 11:35 a.m. School Discipline and Student Civil Rights: The Role of the Illinois Attorney General’s Civil Rights Bureau (PowerPoint)

• Amy Meek, Civil Rights Bureau Chief, Illinois Attorney General’s Office

11:35 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.  National Trends: Legislation Regarding LGBTQ+ Identities in Schools (PowerPoint)

• Sacha Coupet, Associate Dean of Mission Innovation and Morris I. Leibman Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Break and boxed lunches available

12:30 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.  Title IX Update (PowerPoint)

• Amy Kosanovich Dickerson, Partner, Franczek P.C.

1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.  Student Behavioral and Mental Health Challenges: How Should Schools Respond? (PowerPoint)

• Jennifer Rose, PhD, Lead Psychologist and Clinical Training Director, Advocate Trauma Recovery Center, and Adjunct Faculty, Loyola University Chicago School of Education

Break

2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.  Supreme Court Update

• Mark Walsh, Contributing Writer, Education Week, ABA Journal, and SCOTUSblog

3:15 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.  Special Education Update (PowerPoint)

• Mark Weber, Vincent de Paul Professor of Law, DePaul College of Law

Break

4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.  Illinois Education Law & Policy Update (PowerPoint)

• Jeremy Duffy, Chief Legal Officer, Illinois State Board of Education
• Jennifer Saba, Interim Executive Director, Legislative Affairs, Illinois State Board of Education
• Brian Metcalf, EdD, Director, Student Care Department, Illinois State Board of Education

5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.  Reception

Sacha Coupet is Associate Dean of Mission Innovation and Morris I. Leibman Professor of Law and at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Her research focuses on the regulation of families, including the privileges, rights and interests of those within the family. Her scholarship on policy and practice issues in child and family welfare have been published in, among other journals, The Michigan State Law Review, American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law and the New York University Review of Law & Social Change.

Professor Coupet presents nationally on issues related to family law, child welfare, children’s rights, LGBTQ youth and diversity & inclusion in law practice.  Her research aims to incorporate empirical inquiry into legal discourse with a particular emphasis on the use of social science in the development of law and policy. Professor Coupet co-founded the AALS Section on Children & the Law in 2006 and previously served as Chair of the Section.  In 2011, Professor Coupet served as the Reporter for the American Association of Matrimonial Lawyers, Child Custody Evaluation Standards. Prior to joining the law school, Professor Coupet received her Ph.D. in Psychology (Clinical) from the University of Michigan.

Jeremy Duffy is currently the Chief Legal Officer and serves as General Counsel to the Illinois State Board of Education, supporting ISBE in statewide education initiatives. He previously advised school boards and provided support as an attorney to Illinois K-12 school districts in all areas related to school law for over a decade. During his time as an attorney, Duffy worked at private law firms and in local government in the Chicagoland area where he advised school boards and their administrators in a wide range of areas related to education. Prior to becoming a lawyer, he was an elementary and middle school teacher in Los Angeles and Chicago. Duffy holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Master of Arts in Elementary Education from Loyola Marymount University, and a Juris Doctor from DePaul University College of Law.

Miranda Johnson is a clinical professor of law and the director of the Education Law and Policy Institute at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She teaches education law classes and supervises the representation of parents and students in school discipline and special education cases. She has presented at national conferences and training programs in Illinois on prevention-oriented approaches to reduce the use of exclusionary school discipline practices. Professor Johnson co-edited the book Discipline Disparities Among Students with Disabilities: Creating Equitable Environments (Teachers College Press, May 2022). She received a J.D., magna cum laude, from NYU School of Law and a Master in Public Affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Amy Kosanovich Dickerson is a partner at the law firm Franczek P.C., where she serves as co-chair of the firm's K-12 Education Practice Group. Amy represents educational institutions, including public school districts, charter schools, private schools, and higher education institutions, as well as education-related organizations, in a variety of education law matters. Amy primarily counsels clients in student and labor and employment issues including student rights, student discipline, bullying, discrimination and harassment, civil rights, residency and homelessness, abuse and neglect and other matters involving the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), student accommodation issues, Title IX complaints and investigations, education reform initiatives, employee and teacher evaluation, employee discipline and dismissal, and policy and governance issues.

Ms. Dickerson received her JD from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She leads the Firm’s Education Law Practicum program with Loyola and frequently serves as a faculty member for Loyola’s Childlaw Trial Practice course. She is an active member of the Illinois Council of School Attorneys and currently serves as the co-chair of the Council’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Amy Meek currently serves as Civil Rights Bureau Chief at the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, where she works to further the Civil Rights Bureau’s mission to protect the civil rights of all in Illinois. She also serves on the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes.

Before joining the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, Ms. Meek was Senior Counsel at Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, where she led education equity efforts. Prior, she was Senior Attorney at ACLU of Illinois. She has taught at Loyola University of Chicago School of Law as the Civitas ChildLaw Center’s Policy and Legislation Clinical Teaching Fellow. She has also served as Reentry Coordinator and Deputy Chief of Staff for the Mayor’s Office of the City of New Haven, Connecticut. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and her B.A. from Swarthmore College.

Brian Metcalf is the Director of Student Care at the Illinois State Board of Education. In his role he leads the Agency's work related to Restraint and Time-Out, Exclusionary Discipline, Bullying Prevention, Student Contests, Student Advisory Council and LGBTQIA initiatives. With more than two decades in both public and charter education, Dr. Metcalf is passionate about supporting students, teachers, parents and communities to strategically provide wrap around supports that guarantee student success regardless of their zip code.

Dr. Metcalf is an adjunct professor at American University in the School of Education. Prior to his tenure at the Illinois State Board of Education, he has held many roles, including teacher, principal, and senior leadership.

Jennifer Rose, PhD, is Lead Psychologist and Clinical Training Director at Advocate Trauma Recovery Center and Adjunct Faculty at Loyola University Chicago School of Education. She has provided psychological services for students in diverse settings including traditional K-12 buildings, juvenile corrections, alternative schools, and psychiatric facilities. Dr. Rose is also a nationally certified school psychologist (NCSP).

Dr. Rose believes that the provision of academic equity for minority and low-income students is a powerful demonstration of social justice. Her efforts in this area are focused on consulting with public schools to assist in the engagement and empowerment of families of color; the implementation of interventions to help reduce the disproportionate application of exclusionary discipline for students of color and students with Individual Education Plans (IEPs). Dr. Rose’s work relating to increasing academic equity also include co-authoring several articles including, The Overrepresentation of African American Students in Exclusionary Discipline: The Role of School Policy. She has also delivered numerous presentations on the topics of equity and dis-proportionality.  

Jennifer Saba currently serves as the Executive Director of Improvement and Innovation at the Illinois State Board of Education. In this role she leads the work of five ISBE departments focused on school and district support and improvement, general compliance oversight for various school entities, and alternative school programs and charter schools. From April 10 through June 30, 2023, she also served as ISBE's Interim Executive Director for Legislative Affairs and led the agency's legislative strategies and initiatives. Ms. Saba previously served as the Director of Performance and Accountability in CPS where she and her team oversaw and monitored charter, contract, and options school performance throughout their contract terms. Ms. Saba earned her J.D at DePaul University College of Law and her B.A. at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Mark Walsh is a contributing writer to Education Week, where he has covered education issues in the Supreme Court and lower courts for more than 25 years. He previously served as Washington editor of Education Week, in which he supervised coverage of federal education policy matters, as well as the 2004 and 2008 presidential and congressional elections. Mr. Walsh also writes the Supreme Court Report column for the ABA Journal, the magazine of the American Bar Association. He is a regular contributor to the SCOTUS blog, the website devoted to coverage of the Court. For that website, he writes the “View from the Courtroom” feature, which documents unusual occurrences in the courtroom such as dissents from the bench. Mr. Walsh has a degree in journalism, with a minor in political science, from Northwestern University. He has also studied political science at Georgetown University and lectured at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Mark Weber has worked in the field of special education law for many years. He is the author of four books: Special Education Law: Cases and Materials (Carolina Academic Press) (previous editions with Mawdsley and Redfield), Special Education Law and Litigation Treatise (LRP Publications), Understanding Disability Law (Carolina Academic Press), and Disability Harassment (NYU Press). He frequently speaks on disability law issues at national and international programs and is active in community service and legislative initiatives. Before joining the DePaul University College of Law faculty, he worked as a staff attorney at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and as a clinical fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. He was named Vincent de Paul Professor of Law in 2004. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Yale Law School.

School Discipline and Student Civil Rights: The Role of the Illinois Attorney General’s Civil Rights Bureau

Amy Meek, Civil Rights Bureau Chief, Illinois Attorney General’s Office

National Trends: Legislation Regarding LGBTQ+ Identities in Schools

Sacha Coupet, Associate Dean of Mission Innovation and Morris I. Leibman Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Title IX Update

Amy Kosanovich Dickerson, Partner, Franczek P.C.

Student Behavioral and Mental Health Challenges: How Should Schools Respond?

Jennifer Rose, PhD, Lead Psychologist and Clinical Training Director, Advocate Trauma Recovery Center, and Adjunct Faculty, Loyola University Chicago School of Education

Special Education Update

Mark Weber, Vincent de Paul Professor of Law, DePaul College of Law

Update: New Legislation and Student Care Department, Illinois State Board of Education

Jeremy Duffy, Chief Legal Officer, Illinois State Board of Education
Jennifer Saba, Interim Executive Director, Legislative Affairs, Illinois State Board of Education
Brian Metcalf, EdD, Director, Student Care Department, Illinois State Board of Education