Spring 2027

Public School Law

Public School Law examines the legal aspects of K-12 education, covering legal structures, employee and student rights, discipline, special education, torts, contracts, and religion.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Matthew Bell

Summary

1 / 5

Past student reviews · Julie Mead

The class involved lots of reading, though students found the topic fascinating and the instructor knowledgeable.

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Graduate/professional standing

  • Graduate/professional standing
ELPA 840 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Graduate/professional standing

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2023: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=13 letter grades); Spring 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=15 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JULIE MEAD is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Spring 2007, Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2020, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MATTHEW BELL is recorded teaching in Spring 2023, Spring 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 240
LEC 002Online Only0 / 240

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Julie Mead

Students described the course as very useful and noted that the historical instructor made the material easy to understand.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=23 letter grades); Spring 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=50 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.93 GPA, 97.7% A/AB (n=43 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Julie Mead

The class involved lots of reading, though students found the topic fascinating and the instructor knowledgeable.

Past student reviews · Julie Mead

One student felt that all educators should take the course because it was highly useful.

Topics

  • Legal structure, employee rights and discipline, curriculum, student rights and discipline, special education, torts, contracts, and religion.
  • Impact of federal and state constitutions, statutes, and court decisions on education.

Skills

  • Analyze legal aspects of public K-12 education including employee and student rights, discipline, special education, torts, contracts, and religion.
  • Evaluate the impact of federal and state constitutions, statutes, and court decisions on education.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
ELPA 840 · Spring 2027

Public School Law

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:305:005928",
    "course_id": "ELPA 840",
    "course_uid": "course_f69e219f9d06bab1213ee9d8",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "005928",
    "source_subject_id": "305",
    "title": "Public School Law",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Occasionally"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "7492f28b08b8546c06a45958d40926c287b4c32a024df4c560d67125d3c815f7",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}