News Releases

Sacramento High Schoolers Perform Play on Teen Suicide at Education Law Conference

July 23, 2004

The University of Southern Maine will host the eleventh annual Education Law Conference on the Portland campus beginning Monday, July 26. About 250 participants are expected from across the country for the conference designed for educators, school board members, advocates for children and parents, school attorneys, and anyone with an interest in state and federal laws and regulations impact schools.

Workshop topics range from performance pay for teachers to high-stakes testing, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), "Constitutionally Protected Prayer in Public Schools," school reform and bullying.

Maine Attorney General Steven G. Rowe will be the noon keynote speaker in Rooms ABC of Woodbury Campus Center, Portland, on Monday, July 26. Other speakers of note include: Steve Wessler, director of USM's Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, who will take part in a pre-conference, daylong session on bias, harassment and hate crimes on Monday, July 26. Judge Roger Gregory, 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, will be the Tuesday morning keynote at 9 a.m. in Luther Bonney Auditorium, Portland.

A highlight of the conference will be a performance of the latest William Mastrosimone play about teen suicide, "Sleepwalk." The play will be performed by a troupe of students from Sacramento (Calif.) High School's drama class at 9 a.m., Thursday, July 29, in Luther Bonney Auditorium. Mastrosimone is the author of "Bang Bang, You're Dead," a play performed by high school teens nationwide about school shootings.

The conference is sponsored jointly by the University of Southern Maine College of Education and Human Development, the University of Maine School of Law, the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, and the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University.

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