Teachers, school administrators, students, attorneys, and many others gathered last week for the Martha McCarthy Education Law and Policy Institute conference, an event that works to increase the legal literacy of educators while honoring the legacy of Professor Emerita Martha McCarthy.
Hosted every other summer, the conference invites educational leaders, attorneys, policymakers, professors, and others to the in-person event, where they discuss hot topics in education law.
This year, almost 200 people from around the country attended, a testament to the topics and experts who spoke. Organizer and associate professor Janet Decker even said people left the conference wishing it was longer.
The event started with Dean Anastasia Morrone awarding McCarthy the Dean’s Medallion. Keeping with this year’s conference theme of special education law and policy, keynotes and discussion topics included state policy updates, religion in public schools, increasing legal literacy of educators, discipline of students with disabilities, and research with AI and how it can help school leaders and educators better understand the laws surrounding education.
Increasing that understanding remains the thread that connects the many topics and efforts of the event.
“We know when teachers increase their legal literacy, they become empowered, so the goal is to provide this for a variety of people involved in education so they can feel better about the decisions they make,” Decker said.
