Convocation

Please complete the training as a Municipal Employee

Chapter 28 of the Acts of 2009, the ethics reform law, imposes education and training requirements on public employers and public employees. The law authorizes the Commission to establish procedures to implement and ensure compliance with these requirements, and these Implementation Procedures are issued pursuant to that authority. The requirements can be summarized as follows: Each year, every state, county, and municipal employee must be given a summary of the conflict of interest law prepared by the Ethics Commission and, every two years, they must complete an online training program prepared by the Commission. Every municipality must designate a liaison to the Commission. All records of compliance with these requirements must be retained for six years. These requirements apply to all public employees, as defined by the conflict of interest law and described below, except to the extent that an employing public agency exempts certain categories of employees from these requirements in accordance with the guidelines set forth below (see section 2). These requirements also apply to regional public entities, as discussed below in section 6. Former public employees are not subject to these requirements.
 

The Attorney General’s Office and the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office have worked with the Middlesex Children’s Advocacy Center to create an online training program for mandated reporters. The free training is designed to help mandated reporters understand their legal obligations; recognize possible signs and symptoms of maltreatment; know how to respond to a child who discloses abuse; know how to file a 51A report; and understand what happens after a 51A report is filed.

The Massachusetts Legislature has designated teachers, social workers, doctors, nurses, child care providers, police officers, foster parents, and others as mandated reporters. The training has been updated to include information about the Department of Children and Families’ new protective intake and supervisor policies, parental discipline, educational neglect, and medical neglect. It also includes additional case studies and pop quiz questions.
 

Notification to school personnel of reporting requirements for child abuse and neglect and fires; reports of students possessing or using dangerous weapons on school premises; transferred students’ school records

• MGL c.71 sec.37L

Access To Equal Educational Opportunity
Promulgated to insure that the public schools of the Commonwealth do not discriminate against students on the basis of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation, and that all students have equal rights of access and equal enjoyment of the opportunities, advantages, privileges and courses of study at such schools. 603 CMR 26.00 shall be liberally construed for these purposes.

Prevention of Physical Restraint and Requirements If Used
The purpose of 603 CMR 46.00 is to ensure that every student participating in a Massachusetts public education program is free from the use of physical restraint that is inconsistent with 603 CMR 46.00. Physical restraint shall be used only in emergency situations of last resort, after other lawful and less intrusive alternatives have failed or been deemed inappropriate, and with extreme caution. School personnel shall use physical restraint with two goals in mind:

• To administer a physical restraint only when needed to protect a student and/or a member of the school community from assault or imminent, serious, physical harm; and
• To prevent or minimize any harm to the student as a result of the use of physical restraint.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”), 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., is a Federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities. All public and private elementary and secondary schools, school districts, colleges, and universities (hereinafter “schools”) receiving any Federal funds must comply with Title IX. Under Title IX, discrimination on the
basis of sex can include sexual harassment or sexual violence, such as rape, sexual assault, sexual
battery, and sexual coercion.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.

FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children’s education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level. Students to whom the rights have transferred are “eligible students.”