The Legal Ledger

On Jan.

On Jan. 7, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) published its final rules for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The rules take effect on Mar. 8, 2021. The rules are important because businesses and organizations must comply with the wage and hour provisions of FLSA for employees but not for independent contractors. Although school districts do not routinely deal with the scenario of questioning whether someone is an employee or independent contractor, it does come up on occasion.

Over the last few weeks, it seems like everyone is talking about vaccines. "Have you gotten it?" "Are you a 1a or a 1b?" "How do I get my shot?"

New Classroom Quarantine Guidelines 

The Ohio Department of Health issued a new fact sheet  K-12 School Quarantine Guidelines. The new guidelines stem from a study that showed children who had close contact (defined as within six feet for 15 minutes) to infected individuals and appropriately masked had rates of COVID-19 that were similar to children with no known COVID-19 exposure in school.

The joint OSBA/OASBO workers’ compensation program is excited to announce that CompManagement Health Systems, Inc. (CompManagement MCO) is merging with CareWorks of Ohio, Ltd. (CareWorks MCO), effective Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. This merger accompanies a name change to Sedgwick Managed Care Ohio (Sedgwick MCO).

Sedgwick, CompManagement’s parent company, acquired CareWorks in 2019. For the past 16 months, the teams at CareWorks and CompManagement have partnered to develop best practices to ensure outstanding outcomes remain available to school district.

Pursuant to RC 3313.14, school boards must set the date of their January organizational meeting by Dec. 31.

In November, Governor DeWine appointed John Logue as the new Administrator/CEO of the Bureau of Workers Compensation. Earlier in his career, John worked for CompManagement and was the program administrator assigned to work with the OSBA/OASBO workers’ compensation program.

The restriction on gatherings of ten or more people was first introduced in the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) Director’s Mar. 22 “Stay at Home Order.” The ban on gatherings of ten or people has been extended through various orders and an exception was never given to boards of education.  

Last week, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued a decision in one of the cases supported by the Ohio School Boards Association Legal Assistance Fund (LAF). The case,  

Many schools began the year using remote, hybrid, or blended models of instruction for the first time this year.  These new educational settings caused schools and districts to rethink educator evaluations.