California Business Litigation Blog

Student's False Arrest Leads to Lawsuit

Fri, 11 May 2012 15:43:12 -0800

The daughter of Debashish Biswas, the Vice-Consul in the Consulate General of India in New York, has filed a $1.5 million suit against the city of New York. Krittika Biswas alleges that she was taken from her high school classroom in handcuffs and imprisoned after she was falsely accused of sending sexually threatening emails to a teacher.

Even after another student from John Browne High School in Queens admitted to the crime and all charges against Biswas were dropped, the honor student was suspended from school and forced to attend what the suit calls the equivalent of a reform school.

Biswas’ lawsuit was filed in the US District Court Southern District of New York. It alleges that the plaintiffs, including the city of New York, the Department of Education, specific officials from the Department of Education, the principal of John Browne High School, the teacher who received the emails and Raymond Kelly, police commissioner of the city of New York, violated 26 state and federal laws during the incident.

According to court documents, Biswas was arrested, handcuffed, processed and imprisoned for more than 24 hours. The suit alleges that she was arrested and mistreated in spite of the fact that there was no evidence against her as a result of ethnic bias. Court papers also state that Biswas was denied the opportunity to consult her parents or to meet with Indian diplomats while she was in custody. When Biswas refused to confess, a police officer attempted to intimidate her by telling her she would be jailed with inmates who were HIV-positive.

Included in the documents are allegations that Biswas suffered from so much mental distress as a result of the incident that she left the United States and returned to India. She is currently a college student in that country, and is majoring in science and engineering.

Attorneys for the city of New York declined to comment, stating that they had not had a chance to review the suit.

Teenager Sues Classmates for Cyberbullying

Fri, 04 May 2012 15:54:28 -0800

Alex Boston, a 14-year-old girl from Georgia, has filed suit against two other teenagers and their parents for libel after the pair impersonated her online, depicting her as a sexually active, marijuana-smoking racist.

Court documents allege that the two were classmates of Boston who opened a Facebook account containing racist video. Additionally, the two posted messages on the walls of Boston's friends in which she appeared to admit to abusing drugs and having sex. All these characterizations were untrue and the defendants knew it, according to Boston's attorney, Natalie Woodward.

Boston first came across the Facebook page last year. She says that the account, which appeared to belong to her and to reflect her views, was very upsetting. The fake page was so well executed that Boston's other classmates believed that they represented the real Boston, and she was subjected to “hatred, contempt and ridicule" as a result. In her suit, she accuses the defendants of intentional infliction of emotional distress, as well as defamation.

Boston's parents initially went to school officials, who were unable to help because Georgia law does not allow schools to punish students who bully other students off-campus. Internet bullying initiated outside of school does not meet the Georgia requirements for on-campus bullying.

Local police were also unable to help because Georgia had no applicable law against cyberbullying. They suggested the Bostons ask Facebook to close the account and remove the page. When Facebook failed to take action, the Bostons brought suit against the teenagers behind the hurtful account. Ironically, once news of the lawsuit was featured on CNN, Facebook removed the page.

According to Woodward, the attack was unexpected. The defendants reportedly told adults from school that they simply didn't like Boston.

Federal courts have historically toed a fine line in such cases. In a case from 2005, a federal judge ruled that a school in Pennsylvania erred when they suspended a student for creating a MySpace page that parodied the school’s principal but didn't disrupt school. However, a similar suspension was upheld by a federal judge in a West Virginia case involving a student who implied through a website that another student had an STD.

School District Settles First Amendment Lawsuit with Union

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:45:18 -0800

A lawsuit claiming the Sumner County (TN) Board of Education violated the First Amendment rights of teachers union members will be settled out of court, according to representatives for both sides.

The action, which was filed in September 2011 in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee by the Sumner County Education Association (SCEA), claimed the district violated rights granted to its members by the Professional Employees Collaborative Conferencing Act (PECCA) of 2011.

According to court documents, the district's Director of Schools, Del Phillips, had refused the union permission to participate in an event for new teachers and then issued a letter forbidding SCEA members from engaging in union-related activities on school grounds or using school bulletin boards or email to distribute SCEA business. The letter also tried to limit the union's ability to solicit new members. According to the suit, the refusal and the subsequent restrictions violated state law as well as the First Amendment.

The court ordered the board to drop some of the restrictions in December of 2011. The current settlement will remove the rest of them. As part of the settlement, Phillips will send a letter explaining that the law requires the board to allow activities it had attempted to restrict. The board also agreed to begin withholding payroll deductions for union fees and other eligible groups and to pay $50,000 to the union for legal fees. The board agreed to quarterly meetings between SCEA representatives and Phillips.

SCEA president, Alzenia Walls issued a press release stating that she was pleased with the settlement, which she views as vindication of the union's stance on the issue. Walls expressed hopes that the agreement would result in a better relationship between the school board and union members.

Art McClellan, legal counsel for the school, said the settlement did not mean the board was out of line. He called the decision to settle an economic one, citing the potential cost of defending a First Amendment case.

Although McClellan took responsibility for the decision to settle out of court, the final settlement was approved 7-4 in a vote by school board members.

School District Settles Bully Lawsuit for $4.2 Million

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:12:14 -0800

The Ramsey School District in New Jersey has settled a lawsuit brought by a former student who was paralyzed by a bully at Eric Smith Middle School. The district will pay $4.2 million to the family of Sawyer Rosenstein, who was paralyzed from the waist down after the last in a series of attacks by a bully.

Rosenstein was 12 years old when he was attacked for the final time by the other student. In spite of reaching out to school staff, including sending an email pleading for help from a school counselor just three months before the attack, the middle-school student was punched in the abdomen in May of 2006. The blow brought Rosenstein to his knees, but he was able to get back up afterwards. Although he experienced back pain that evening, he seemed fine otherwise.

Two days after the attack, Rosenstein screamed and collapsed. He never walked again. The attack had led to a blood clot, which starved his spine of blood and resulted in permanent paralysis.

The suit cited the email as well as attacks on other students as evidence that the school knew or should have known that the bullying was taking place. It further alleged that the school failed to take proper actions necessary to comply with state law.

The Ramsey Board of Education issued a statement in which they deny the allegations that they handled the situation improperly and stated that the decision to settle the lawsuit was made by the school's insurance company.

Rosenstein, who currently studies communication at Syracuse University, said in an interview that he considers it important to speak out about his case so that other children who are victimized by bullies will know that they can go on to lead normal lives. He also wants to warn bullies that their behavior can have devastating consequences for their victims.

For Rosenstein's bully, justice was slow in claiming its due. The district treated the situation lightly and meted out only a brief suspension for the attack that changed Rosenstein's life forever. Recently, however, Rosenstein settled out of court with the attacker's family.

Florida Whistleblower Alleges Misconduct at Charter School

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:54:21 -0800

The embattled for-profit organization that runs the new Mavericks High School in Palm Springs is the subject of yet another lawsuit filed on behalf of a former employee. Mavericks in Education Florida LLC is being sued by a former teacher who claims the school administration regularly forges enrollment records and gives students credit for classes that aren’t even offered at the school.

Angenora Mechato is the third employee to file court documents alleging misconduct on the part of the school. The company, which runs a number of charter schools in Florida, has yet to respond to the latest lawsuit, which claims that Mechato was fired for refusing to falsify documents so that the school could get more state funding.

According to Mechato, the school inflates its enrollment numbers to gain funding to which it is not entitled and enrolls students and gives them grades in courses that don’t exist outside the school's paperwork.

Lauren Hollander, one of the company’s managers, said in an interview that the lawsuit is baseless and pointed out that the new lawsuit is identical in some places to the earlier suits, which were filed by the same attorney, Dale Morgado.

The three former employees named as plaintiffs in the cases are not alone in expressing concerns over the company’s practices. Two Florida counties recently rejected Maverick’s bid to open schools in their areas. The Palm Beach County School District also refused to approve the company’s applications to open more schools in the district on the grounds that the company’s existing schools have not achieved their goal of improving student performance.

Every Mavericks school is geared towards students who are considered to be at risk of failing to graduate. Students are offered a hybrid teaching approach that divides their time between traditional classrooms and independent lessons delivered via computer.

Fired Coach Alleges Pattern of Discrimination

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:33:03 -0800

A coach at a California High School who alleged in a suit against his former school district that he was fired because of his sexual orientation is now claiming that his was not an isolated case. Mitch Stein claims that he has uncovered evidence that the district has a history of systematic discrimination against homosexual employees.

Stein, the former water polo coach for Charter Oak High School, originally filed suit in the Los Angeles Superior Court in an attempt to force the Charter Oak School District to give him back his job. Once the suit became public knowledge, however, he says he began hearing from other homosexual employees who had stories of discrimination to tell. "They have a history of this. That's when I realized this is bigger than just me," Stein said.

Stein not only led his players through an unbroken string of wins but managed to persuade a department store chain to provide financial support for the team. His troubles at the school began when he disciplined a player for failing to turn in his physical form. The parents became angry when his son was excluded from a practice session and came to the school, where he made homophobic slurs and issued a warning about pictures.

A few days later, the school received an anonymous letter that included a Facebook photo of Stein eating a corn dog at a local fair and one of him in the company of drag queens. The sender wrote that if the coach was not fired, the school board would be notified. Stein offered to take the photos off his Facebook page, but principal Kathleen Wiard fired him.

In his lawsuit, Stein related two cases that he claims demonstrate a double standard in favor of heterosexuals. One teacher published a photo of himself drunk and shirtless but was allowed to keep his job. A former coach who admitted that she drank with underaged team members was actually rehired afterwards.

The coach's former team and many of their parents, along with several gay rights groups, have publicly declared their support for Stein. The former educator says he feels an obligation to other victims of discrimination and his own daughter to press forward with the case. "It's not a fight that we asked for and it's certainly not one that we wanted, but we're certainly not going to back down from a bully," he said.

School Punishes Off-Campus Speech; Students Sue

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:06:06 -0800

A Missouri school district is being sued after a district employee punished two students for their off-campus speech. Lee's Summit R-7 School District is accused of violating the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of two honor roll students. The suit was filed in federal court by Brian and Linda Wilson, the parents of the students.

According to court documents, the district suspended the students, who are twin boys, for six months for creating a nonviolent blog. The court is being asked to dismiss the suspensions and expunge them from the boys' school records.

The blog, northpress.tk, was a satirical site that the boys created and maintained on their own computer away from school outside of school hours. According to the suit, the students went to great lengths to prevent the site from being accessed by the general population of their high school, even using a Dutch domain name to make it difficult to find through an Internet search.
The school became involved when administrators learned of the site on the same day that a reader, unbeknownst to the students, posted a racial slur in the comments section of the blog.

Although another student promptly removed the slur, the incident appears to have spurred the district's superintendent, David McGehee, to suspend the boys on the grounds that they were involved with the blog.

In their suit, the parents of the students state that the boys were offered the chance to attend an alternative school for at-risk students. However, the alternative school does not have programs capable of meeting the academic needs of honor students, according to the Wilsons. In addition, the alternative school does not have its own band and will not allow the boys to continue to maintain the leadership roles they have earned in their regular high school's band.

According to court papers, the parents fear the suspension will interfere with the students' chances of being accepted by colleges. In addition, the suit maintains that allowing the school district to punish legal speech that took place away from school will have far-reaching negative consequences. If the district's actions go unchecked, the suit alleges, “The result would be an impermissible chilling effect on speech.”

12-Year-Old Sues School for Facebook Privacy Violations

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:27:53 -0800

A Minnesota mother has filed suit against the Minnewaska School District on behalf of her 12-year-old daughter. The suit, which has the support of the American Civil Liberties Union, is expected to have an impact that reaches far beyond the grounds of Minnewaska Area Middle School. At issue is the length schools and employers can go to in order to control private speech.

The girl at the center of the case, known only as R.S., alleges that school officials punished her multiple times for her private Facebook activity and then staged a mock police detainment in order to coerce her into revealing her Facebook and email passwords. The suit claims that school employees used the information to read the girl’s private emails and posts.

R.S. believed she was being targeted by a school monitor, so she posted a message on her Facebook wall saying that she hated the monitor for being mean to her. Facebook does not allow public viewing of the walls of minors, so there was no way for the monitor or school officials to see the message. Someone showed a screenshot of the girl’s wall to school officials, however, and R.S. was punished and forced to apologize to the monitor.

Afterwards, R.S. posted a message expressing her anger at the “friend” who had told on her. She was suspended from school for this post. Later, the guardian of another student complained to school officials that R.S. had discussed sex in a private Facebook conversation with another child. Neither the posts nor the conversation was conducted on school grounds or using school equipment.

After the last incident, R.S. claims she was detained in a small room in the presence of a police officer and two school employees and told she had to reveal her Facebook login information and her email password. The suit alleges that R.S. sobbed with fear and humiliation as the officer and school employees read her private conversations and emails and berated her for their contents.

The suit alleges that the district violated the student’s First and Fourth Amendment rights. According to court papers, the girl’s mother was not informed of the interrogation and never gave anyone permission to look at her daughter’s private communications.

The school district contends that its actions were reasonable and legal. According to a district spokesperson, “The district is confident that once all facts come to light, the district's conduct will be found to be reasonable and appropriate.”

Student Claims School Violated Her First Amendment Rights

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:09:45 -0800

A Missouri high school student has filed a lawsuit against her high school for violating her First Amendment rights. The suit, which was filed in federal court against the Dixon R-I School District, claims the student was forced to remove posters that supported a pro-life day of silence even though other students were allowed to display posters supporting other causes.

The student attends Dixon High School and is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). The ADF accuses the school district of censorship in the case. “The case law in this is really clear. The supreme courts down to the local courts have held when a student is in school they don’t give up their First Amendment rights,” said Matt Sharp, the ADF attorney who is handling the case.

This is not the first time the ADF has defended a student who was censored for sharing written material that promoted the student's personal beliefs. In 2011, the organization prevailed in a case that concerned a student who was forbidden to give information about his church to fellow students at a Little Rock, Arkansas, school.

The school district has not issued a public statement regarding the lawsuit. According to district superintendent Dawna Burrow, the district has yet to be served with the suit. Once served, the school district must file a response within 20 days.

Official district policy forbids students from promoting any events or activities that are not sponsored by the school or that further the school's curriculum. However, the ADF alleges that school officials have been willing to look the other way when students have promoted other events and activities that were not school-related. In fact, the student at the center of the lawsuit was allowed to display posters for the same event during the prior school year.

The ADF has stated that if the school district relents and approves the display of the posters, it will consider dropping the lawsuit.

Proposed Indiana Law Seeks to Allow Schools to Punish Off-Campus Speech

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:56:17 -0800

In Indiana, lawmakers are considering new legislation that would give schools the power to punish students for legal behavior that occurs away from school, including statements and opinions they post on personal blogs or Facebook accounts.

The bill was approved by the State’s House of Representatives in January 2012 and is now in the hands of the Indiana Senate, according to the Student Press Law Center. It has been justified as an attempt to prevent cyberbullying and school cheating.

Indiana law already allows students to be disciplined for illegal behavior that occurs off campus, as long as the behavior could reasonably be considered to interfere with “school purposes or educational function.” State representative Eric Koch wants to amend the existing law to cover legal behavior, as well.

The new law has Ken Falk of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana concerned about conflicts with the Constitution. “From a First Amendment perspective,” he said, “if the student engages in lawful activity off of school grounds, there’s a very high standard that has to be applied before that can somehow lead to discipline.”

The Indiana School Boards Association supports Koch, who is not concerned about conflicts with the First Amendment. He cited Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools, in which a federal appeals court upheld a school’s right to punish disruptive speech that occurred away from school. “I wouldn’t knowingly promote anything that would infringe First Amendment rights,” he said.

Falk questioned the need for a law concerning cheating and cyberbullying. Cheating should continue to be handled as it has been in the past, he said, and cyberbullying should only be punishable when there is an imminent threat of violence. The proposed legislation is ripe for abuse, according to Falk, who said that a student who belongs to a gay rights group, for example, could be punished if the school decides the activity is troublesome.

Frank LoMonte, of the Student Press Law Center, said that the law could set a bad precedent. “This could be like a bad cold that gets passed from state to state,” he said. He warned that the law could be abused by schools that could use it for image control.

Judge Rules Deleting Facebook Photos is Tampering with Evidence

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:35:11 -0800

“Spoliation of evidence" is a legal phrase describing the deliberate destruction of evidence that would impact a trial. Although spoliation of evidence is a rare finding in civil cases, it was the finding of a state district judge in Virginia, who imposed fines totaling $522,000 on attorney Matthew Murray. Murray’s client was also fined $180,000 for acting on his lawyer’s advice to break the law. The case, Lester v. Allied Concrete Co., was a wrongful death suit filed on behalf of a bereaved husband.

The court found that Murray grew concerned that pictures Lester had posted on his Facebook account contradicted the pair’s claims in their case. The case was ultimately decided in Lester’s favor and $10 million in damages was awarded to him by a jury.

The deleted photographs came to light when an attorney for the defense managed to view Lester’s Facebook page through a mutual friend’s account. The page contained pictures that presented Lester engaged in various activities. Murray became concerned that some of these photographs, including one of Lester holding a beer and wearing a T-shirt proclaiming his admiration for “hot moms,” might cast doubt on Lester’s claim to be distraught over the loss of his wife. He advised Lester to remove the pictures.

Allied Concrete’s attorney was able to establish in court that Lester deleted the pictures, and the defense was furnished copies of them before the trial. After the trial, the judge ruled that all emails that had been exchanged between Murray and Lester were not protected under attorney-client privilege laws and demanded copies of them.

As a result of the evidence contained in the photographs, the judge decided that Lester was dishonest about his depression and the treatment he was receiving for it. Based on the emails exchanged between Lester and Murray, Lester was also found to have lied to the court about the existence of his Facebook account, and then lied about his attempts to delete it and its contents. In addition, the judge determined that Murray’s actions amounted to spoliation of evidence, and further found that he had attempted to cover his tracks by submitting incomplete evidence and blaming the act on a paralegal. After the ruling, Murray resigned from his law firm.

Indiana School Favors Boys Team, Suit Alleges

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:05:10 -0800

A lawsuit claiming that an Indiana school district violates federal laws has been reinstated. The suit charges that a school in Franklin County, Indiana, favors the boys’ basketball team over the girls’ team when it comes to scheduling games. A lower court had dismissed the suit, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit disagreed. If the district loses the case, the decision will likely have an impact on public schools across the state.

Two parents with daughters on the girls’ basketball team, including a former girl’s basketball coach for the district, allege that the school gives precedence to the boys’ team when it comes to scheduling games. Boys’ games are more frequently scheduled on Fridays and Saturdays, while girls’ games often get weekday slots.

The parents believe this practice violates Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which stipulates that school programs that take federal money cannot discriminate based on sex.

Paul Neidig, the school's athletic director, did not deny the practice, focusing instead on efforts made in the last ten years to cut down on discrimination against girls’ teams. "Years ago it was not uncommon that girls never played on Fridays and Saturdays," he said.

Neidig defended the school’s practice of reserving coveted slots on the calendar for the boys’ basketball team’s games. According to Neidig, the school has other concerns besides providing equal opportunity to male and female students. In Indiana, he said, athletic programs rely on ticket sales and fundraisers for some of their funding. In defense of the school's practice, he pointed out that attendance is lower at weeknight games than at Friday games, a point also made by the plaintiffs.

According to Neidig, each school's athletic director, along with coaches, determines game schedules. Most of his school's games are on Tuesdays, Fridays or Saturdays, he said. Away games must, of course, be coordinated with the schedules of other teams. Neidig says that his school has a policy of alternating away games between the boys and girls teams.

"We're always trying to balance that schedule," said Neidig. "We don't want parents and school administrators to have to choose which home game they go to."

Ohio Student Beaten Unconscious at School Sues District

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:03:04 -0800

A lawsuit has been filed in the Miami County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court against the Bethel Local School District’s Board of Education as a result of an attack on a student. The suit maintains that the assault occurred at Bethel High School. The suit, filed by a student and his mother, alleges that the claimant was viciously attacked in April of 2011 by a fellow student who hit the boy and kicked him in the head until he lost consciousness. The victim and his alleged assailant have not been named because they were both minors at the time of the incident.

The original suit accuses the school of providing inadequate supervision. It contends that no faculty or staff was in the vicinity of the attack and no one intervened to stop the assault. According to court documents, the injured boy sustained permanent, severe injuries and is expected to incur ongoing medical expenses as a result of the attack.

The plaintiffs in the case are asking for punitive damages in addition to expenses. The suit also names the parents of the alleged aggressor as parties to the lawsuit. The parents of the student who is accused of attacking the injured boy are pointing the finger at the school district, claiming that the attack is the fault of the school district.

In addition, the parents of the boy who is accused in the attack have filed a countersuit against the victim and his mother. They claim that the alleged victim was actually the aggressor in the incident, and that their own son suffered severe injuries at his hands. They also allege that another child from their family was also the victim of an ongoing pattern of abuse, including bullying and assault, at the hands of the plaintiff.

In the school district’s response to the suit, the district maintains that it acted in good faith and behaved reasonably. The board of education claims that the district had no control over the independent actions of the students involved and has asked that the suit be dismissed.

Suit Alleges Violations of California Education Code

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:25:53 -0800

A lawsuit recently filed against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) accuses the district of breaking California state law by failing to take student achievement into account during teacher evaluations. Filed by educational reform advocates in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of the parents of six LAUSD students, the suit also originally named the teachers’ union and LAUSD superintendent John Deasy as defendants.

Although California’s Stull Act explicitly states that schools must consider student achievement as part of a teacher’s performance, the suit claims that the LAUSD ignored the law in favor of the terms of the district’s union contract. Instead, the district allegedly conducted only cursory evaluations that consisted of a brief, previously announced visit by a principal to observe a pre-determined lesson. The parents charge that these evaluations are ineffective and result in the failure of only one percent of the teachers who undergo them.

The lawsuit came at a critical juncture for the district, which is in the midst of negotiations for a new contract with the teachers’ union. Although a tentative agreement between the schools and the union was reached shortly after the trial date was set for June of 2012, the agreement made no mention of the evaluation process.

There is little doubt that changes are needed to California’s education system. One in three California students fail to complete high school and many colleges are compelled to offer remedial education to entering freshmen. Enforcing compliance with existing laws would seem to be a reasonable place to start.

Bill Lucia of EdVoice, which filed the suit, has said that the vast majority of California’s schools utilize evaluation procedures that violate the state’s education code. This may be at least partially due to the fact that the unions have a track record of vigorously fighting all attempts to judge the performance of teachers based on the progress of their students. If the LAUSD loses the current suit, it will have little choice but to bring its procedures for evaluating teachers into line with the law. However, California law does not specify how much emphasis a district should put on student performance when evaluating the performance of teachers, leaving observers to speculate as to what effect a victory for the plaintiffs will have.

Prayer Banner Still Hangs on Cranston West High School Wall

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:19:20 -0800

The prayer banner (see photo) that has graced Cranston West High School for nearly five decades still hangs on a wall of the school. Although the banner is now covered, the Cranston School Committee put off making a decision about what to do with it at a meeting following a court order to remove it. A rally that had been planned to show support for the banner never got off the ground, but local residents crowded a school committee meeting to express their points of view on the matter.

Police officers attended the meeting as a precaution as angry residents who disagree with the court’s ruling voiced their disappointment. Many residents also expressed their anger towards Jessica Ahlquist, the student who sued the school to have the banner taken down. Ahlquist herself spoke at the meeting in between Tweeted communications with fellow students who were also upset by the decision.

Ahlquist, who is an atheist, has been the target of online threats. Cranston West’s superintendent, Peter Nero, said in an interview that a police officer accompanied Ahlquist throughout the day as students returned to school on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2012, which was the first regular school day after the ruling. However, he said, Ahlquist has not been the target of any threats or violence inside the school.

In a video posted online, Ahlquist said she never expected what she saw as a simple request to have the banner removed to turn into such a firestorm.

"I'd just say, 'Guys, it's a prayer in a public school. Obviously, that doesn't belong.' And the grownups would be like, 'Yeah, obviously, it's separation of church and state. That makes sense.' And it would just come right down," Ahlquist told viewers.

The school committee is planning another meeting on Jan. 24. Residents will be welcome to express their opinions. However, the decision about whether to remove the banner or to appeal the court ruling will be made by the school committee in a private meeting.