Virginia Education Law

With experienced lawyers who do special bond, tax, and employee benefits work, The Virginia Education Law Group℠ provides a full spectrum of legal services, saving education leaders from having to juggle among different law firms or risking fractured advice and advocacy. The result is greater effectiveness and efficiency. 

With experience in handling legal issues in employment (EEOC, FLSA, VEC, etc.), special education, procurement, contracts, construction, environmental, constitutional, and other areas that are common points of legal reference and tension for any school board, The Virginia Education Law Group℠ brings its collective experience of more than 50 years to engagement that respects the unique nature of the professional relationship. Clients appreciate the problem-solving orientation of such a group, which advocates strongly for local board prerogatives in governing a community education system. We also respect that lawyers do not make policy. Client boards do - and our role is to advise about legal parameters.

Because education law often can involve other local and regional governmental entities, education law clients also benefit from having attorneys with hands-on experience in municipal law more broadly. With one of its lawyers serving as general counsel to a municipality and several others doing ongoing financing work for many localities and authorities and lease-purchase deals for school boards, The Virginia Education Law Group℠ is positioned to understand the dynamics of inter- and intra-governmental relationships and use a collaborative, holistic approach to legal problem-solving and risk management in these sometimes sensitive contexts.

The Virginia Education Law Group℠ has state-wide standing and its lawyers have appeared in state and federal courts in Virginia. Lindsay C. Brubaker and Douglas L. Guynn are co-authors of the extensive legal outline found in the Finance Manual (3d ed. 2013). Ms. Brubaker, drawing on her experience on a wide variety of education law matters, chairs the Virginia Education Law Group℠.

One or more lawyers now with our law firm represented the following education-related clients or interests at various times in different roles as general or special counsel: 

• County of Albemarle
• County of Alleghany
• County of Augusta
• County of Bath
• County of Buckingham
• City of Buena Vista
• County of Clarke
• City of Covington
• County of Culpeper
• County of Fauquier
• County of Frederick
• County of Greene
• City of Harrisonburg
• County of Highland
• County of Henrico
• City of Lexington
• County of Loudoun
• County of Louisa
• County of Madison
• City of Manassas
• City of Martinsville
• County of Nelson
• City of Norton
• County of Orange
• County of Page
• County of Prince William
• County of Rappahannock
• County of Rockbridge
• County of Rockingham
• County of Shenandoah
• City of Staunton
• County of Surry
• County of Tazewell
• City of Waynesboro
• City of Winchester

The following cases are ones which, over the years, are representative of work by the lawyers now with our law firm: 

Shenandoah County School Board v. Timothy C. Carter, Sheriff of Shenandoah County, CL 16-79 (Shenandoah County Cir. Ct. April 29, 2016) (granting injunctive relief in favor of the School Board, in furtherance of its Art. VIII, § 7 constitutional authority, directing the Sheriff to make available to the School Board its own digital property, currently in the possession of the Sheriff, for purposes of the School Board’s student disciplinary proceedings)

Swiger v. Swiger, CL 15-753 (Frederick County Cir. Ct. Mar. 29, 2016) (granting Division Superintendent’s Motion to Quash witness subpoena in child custody proceeding in which the Division Superintendent had no knowledge of the parties, their children or circumstances of the proceeding and directing instead that the Division Superintendent appear via telephone conference for a few minutes during the trial to explain school attendance areas)

Matko v. Cooley, et. al, GV 16000140, Frederick County General District Court, March 23, 2016 (granting the School Board’s Motion for Protective Order related to the documents responsive to Plaintiff’s subpoena duces tecum in the exercise of its Art. VIII, § 7 constitutional powers to protect the safety and security of its employees)

Facchetti v. Bridgewater College, et al, Civil Action No. 5:15-cv-00049 (W.D. Va. 2016) (Title IX, in role as general counsel to College and its senior leadership) 

Augustine v. Winchester Public School District, Civil Action No. 5:13-cv-00025 (W.D. Va. 2013) (SPED-§ 1983 civil rights claim involving public school student who, by guardians, allege various theories of liability related to assertions of failure to intervene in student-on-student harassment) 

Waldruff v. Winchester City School Board, Civil Action No. 5:12-cv-00021 (W.D. Va. 2012) (Title IX and § 1983 civil rights, etc. action by former student (and claims by other female students) related to alleged male teacher misconduct and harassment, resolved post-mediation) 

Fairfax County School Board v. Zurita, Record No. 101810 (Va. S. Ct., Va. Ct. App. 2010) (Virginia constitutional case for the Virginia School Boards Association asamicus curiae in appellate injunction proceedings, with reversal and dissolution of circuit court injunction by both the Virginia Supreme Court, by panel, and the Virginia Court of Appeals, by judge) 

Bates v. Houck, No. CH03004105 (Clarke County Cir. Ct. 2003) (Virginia Freedom of Information Act litigation upholding public body’s actions in giving notice and holding special meeting despite challenge from news media corporation) 

Bates v. Houck, No. CH03004101 (Clarke County Cir. Ct. 2003) (sustaining public body’s motion to strike and demurrer, based on procedural grounds, in Virginia Freedom of Information Act enforcement proceeding brought by news media corporation) 

Hewitt v. First Union National Bank, CH01-432 (Frederick County Cir. Ct. 2002), petition for appeal refused (Va. S. Ct. 2002) (defense of scholarship applicant’s suit against educators who served on testamentary charitable trust scholarship selection committee, with judgment for the educator defendants and for separately represented trustee bank) 

Newton v. Slye, 116 F. Supp.2d 677 (W.D. Va.  2000) (First Amendment Free Speech Clause claims of teacher, students, and national publishers brought by state and national ACLU interests and advocates that included First Amendment legal scholar-professor, against educators and school board, rejected on preliminary injunction request in nationally-followed litigation) 

Sullivan v. School Board for the City of Winchester, Law No. 2001-L-240 (Winchester City Cir. Ct. 2001) (defense of injunction litigation by parents and student as challenge to long-term suspension of student, with judgment for the school board) 

McNew v. Surry County School Board, Civil Action No. 3:99cv381 (E.D. Va. 1999) (constitutional and § 1983 Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process TRO litigation by the ACLU involving Goth-like attired, blue-haired student suspended post-Columbine, with TRO granted to student but school defendants entitled by order to have student submit to somatic search to verify no means of adversely affecting the safety of the faculty, staff or students, with the matter ultimately settled) 

Woods v. Winchester School Board, 49 Va. Cir. 330 (Winchester City Cir. Ct. 1999) (litigation challenge to student expulsion for e-mailed bomb threat upheld, with school board constitutional and statutory authority upheld to act despite student’s and parents’ tactical attempted pre-expulsion withdrawal from attendance to avoid discipline) 

A. V. v. Dingledine, No. 98-0006(C) (W.D. Va. 1998) (Fourth Amendment constitutional challenge to school staff’s alleged strip search of students, with resolution through judicial mediation) 

Crisp v. Bridgewater College, No. 96-0141(H) (W.D. Va. 1997) (Bench Op.) (ADA private employment discrimination case raising estoppel issue for inter-relationship between ADA and social security disability status and related issues, with judgment for the college employer) 

Williams v. Charlottesville School Board, 940 F. Supp. 143 (W.D. Va. 1996), aff’d. 149 F.3d 1172 (4th Cir. 1998) (Fourteenth Amendment constitutional and civil rights § 1983 and employment contract claims involving teacher performance as well as supervisory role of Virginia school board following almost week-long, public grievance dismissal hearing and also state court proceedings) 

Elmquist v. Webb, Chancery 94-161 (Shenandoah County Cir. Ct. 1995) (litigation challenging state Article VIII, Section 7 constitutional and statutory right of school board to control property and close school) 

Williams v. Charlottesville School Board, Chancery Nos. 7981 & 7996, (Charlottesville City Cir. Ct. 1994) (writ of prohibition and writ of mandamus litigation after almost week-long, public school board grievance hearing for teacher recommended for dismissal by division superintendent of schools, as referenced above) 

Williams v. Augusta County School Board, 248 Va. 124 (1994) (watershed Supreme Court interpretation and application of anti-nepotism provisions of the Virginia State and Local Government Conflict of Interests Act to Virginia school boards, in defense of school board that challenged decades-long statutory interpretation by the Virginia Attorney General, with ultimate ruling in favor of the school board’s position to deny employment consideration of sister-in-law of school board chair) 

Combs v. Rockingham County School Board, 15 F.3d 357 (4th Cir. 1994) (special education litigation addressing school board liability for legal fees under “catalyst theory” in context of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—IDEA, with judgment for the school board) 

Bailey v. Page County School Board, (Page County Cir. Ct. 1993) (teacher grievance litigation involving final determination that circuit court lacked jurisdiction to review school board decision on procedural compliance with grievance regulations) 

Armentrout v. Kuczko, Oct. 9, 1992 (Carrico, C.J., Compton, Hassell, J.J., Va. S. Ct.) (extraordinary emergency Virginia Supreme Court proceeding dissolving Wise County Circuit Court injunction blocking disciplinary suspension of employee who was regarded by division superintendent as allegedly having used racial epithet as to student) 

Shupe v. Norton City School Board, No. C92-367 (Wise County Cir. Ct. 1992) (action by teacher challenging school board’s determination of grievability, with judgment sustaining school board’s determination of complaint as not grievable under Virginia law and school board policy and regulations) 

Frederick County School Board v. Garris, Feb. 21, 1992 Mem. (Carrico, C.J., Compton, Hassell, J.J., Virginia Supreme Court) (extraordinary emergency Virginia Supreme Court proceeding dissolving Frederick County Circuit Court injunction blocking disciplinary suspension of student after student had been afforded administrative due process at several levels) 

Tazewell County School Board v. Gillenwater, 241 Va. 166 (1991) (employment litigation over the proper application of the Commonwealth's teacher grievance procedure/regulations, with favorable decision for the school board) (amicus curiaeappearance for the Virginia School Boards Association) 

Archie v. Bradt, Civil Action No. 91-0015-H (W.D. Va. 1991) (student  litigation involving Hall v. Tawney constitutional Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claims and Eighth Amendment considerations for alleged corporal punishment used by elementary school principal, with judgment for the school defendants) 

Rhyne v. Synod of the Mid-Atlantic, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Remedial Case 202-2 (Permanent Judicial Commission 1990) (prosecution of alleged ecclesiastical violations in adversary proceeding before Presbyterian Church’s highest judicial tribunal over threatened removal of ordination of several trustees for the Massanetta Springs conference center property, with resolution by internal mediation just prior to trial) 

Luckett v. School Board of the City of Harrisonburg, Chancery No. 12030 (Rockingham County Cir. Ct. 1988) (Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process, liberty, substantive due process, contract, tortious interference, and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims by continuing contract teacher whose position was abolished, with favorable outcome for school board defendants) 

Lee v. Albemarle County School Board, 648 F. Supp. 744 (W.D. Va. 1986), aff'd, 829 F.2d 1120 (4th Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 108 S. Ct. 2905 (1988) (constitutional § 1983 civil rights and employment contract litigation involving school board's authority and action with respect to high-level administrator recommended for dismissal by the division superintendent and ultimately dismissed by the school board upon further recommendation of an advisory, fact-finding panel, with judgment for the school board and panel defendants) 

In re:  B.S., a minor, Juv. No. 1249 (Rockingham County Cir. Ct. 1986) (student challenge to expulsion from school, with judicial review pursuant to Va. Code § 22.1-87, with judgment for the School Board) 

School Board of Rockingham County v. Enamel Products & Plating Co., Law No. 6990 (Rockingham County Cir. Ct. 1985) (plaintiff school board’s commercial product failure/liability action, involving failed, delaminating high school building roof panels, against general contractor, subcontractor, and manufacturer, with favorable settlement for school board) 

Breitling v. Solenberger, 585 F. Supp. 289 (W.D. Va. 1984) aff'd, 749 F.2d 30 (4th Cir. 1984) (Fourteenth Amendment constitutional and § 1983 civil rights action involving due process implications of then-school board legal counsel's dual roles in the grievance teacher dismissal process and decision making deliberations by Virginia school board, with judgment for the school board defendants)