Delaware Middle and Elementary School Defense
Delaware middle school and elementary school officials discipline students all the way up to suspension or expulsion. Don't lose your elementary school or middle school student's early education years to the setback and embarrassment of discipline. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team to help you and your student defend Delaware elementary school and middle school disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 now or complete this contact form for our skilled and experienced representation. Preserve your student's future.
Delaware Middle and Elementary Schools
Delaware can be an excellent state in which to raise your elementary school or middle school student, with the state's natural beauty and fine cities and towns like Wilmington, Dover, Newark, Middletown, Bear, Glasgow, Brookside, Hockessin, Smyrna, Milford, Pine Creek Valley, Odessa, Claymont, and North Star. Delaware's larger school districts include the respected Red Clay Consolidated School District and Brandywine School District in Wilmington, Capital School District in Dover, Christina School District in Newark, Appoquinimink School District in Odessa, Indian River School District in Selbyville, Colonial School District in New Castle, and Caesar Rodney School District in Wyoming. You know the value of your student's enrollment in a middle school or elementary school in one of these districts or another fine Delaware school district. Protect that value with our defense of school misconduct charges.
Delaware Middle and Elementary School Discipline Authority
Delaware middle school and elementary school officials have clear statutory authority to discipline students all the way up to suspension and expulsion, and alternative disciplinary placement in reform school. If your Delaware middle school or elementary school student faces disciplinary charges, the school officials seeking discipline will have the law, rules, regulations, and policies behind them to proceed. 14 Delaware Administrative Code Section 616 authorizes school officials to suspend students both short-term and long-term for violations of the school's student code of conduct. Another regulation, Section 614, authorizes school expulsion and alternative disciplinary placement. Allegations of your student's unsafe, bullying, harassing, disruptive, or insubordinate conduct could get your student suspended or expelled from middle school or elementary school.
Delaware Middle and Elementary School Discipline Grounds
Delaware's Department of Education adopted the above administrative rules authorizing discipline on certain disciplinary grounds. Those grounds include suspensions, expulsions, or other discipline for firearms, explosives, or other weapons possession on school grounds, possession, use, or distribution of controlled substances on school grounds, alcohol possession on school grounds, disruptive behavior that seriously interferes with instruction, bullying, cyberbullying, sexual and other harassment, hazing, property theft, arson or interference with fire safety equipment, and other forms of unsafe or disruptive misconduct. If your Delaware middle school or elementary school student faces any such charges, get our defense help. Don't leave your student's future to the whims and caprice of school officials. Defend the charges.
Delaware Middle and Elementary Student Defense
You may wonder what our skilled and experienced attorneys can do to help your Delaware middle school or elementary school student defend against disciplinary charges. You might think that a parent would have all the needed legal knowledge and procedural skills. Think again. Academic administrative proceedings generally require knowledge of administrative law, rules, and regulations, which are different from court procedures. Lay persons do not generally have that knowledge. Even lawyers in general practice do not ordinarily have that skill and experience. Administrative school matters can also depend on customs, diplomacy, and traditions unique to the school's academic culture and environment. Our attorneys know those conventions. They have diplomacy and skill. We can help with any or all of the following actions in defense of your Delaware middle school or elementary school student:
- letting the school principal and district officials know that we represent you and your student and that they should communicate with us;
- getting the school to specify and detail the disciplinary charges so that you really know what they claim your student did or did not do;
- presenting your student's side of the story so that school officials get the full picture and can consider early voluntary resolution;
- arranging and attending informal resolution conferences and mediations to negotiate favorable compromises and dismissal of charges;
- invoking formal hearings to present your student's evidence and challenge the school's allegations and evidence of misconduct;
- taking appeals of any adverse decisions to higher authorities outside the school so that your student gets a fair decision;
- seeking administrative agency review and even court review in appropriate cases; and
- seeking alternative special relief through the school district's general counsel or other oversight officials, even if you have already lost all hearings and appeals.
Delaware Middle and Elementary School Misbehavior
Delaware middle schools and elementary schools generally divide misconduct into two different categories, either behavioral misconduct or academic misconduct. At the middle school and elementary school level, behavioral misconduct is usually the more serious form of misconduct, more likely to result in disciplinary charges, suspension, and even expulsion. The above-cited Delaware administrative regulations clearly define several common forms of behavioral misconduct, including not only the above-listed bullying, hazing, harassing, assaults, and weapons, drug or alcohol possession, but also gang activity, tobacco possession, and even possessing pornographic material. Your student may be too young or immature to understand the school's standards and conform conduct to those standards. But the school may still label your student as a wrongdoer and seek discipline rather than educate your student in appropriate behavior.
Delaware Middle and Elementary School Academic Misconduct
A second form of student misconduct that Delaware middle schools and elementary schools may charge involves academic rather than behavioral misconduct. Academic misconduct commonly involves actions like exam or assignment cheating, plagiarizing materials when submitting writing assignments, accepting help from other students on assignments, quizzes, and tests when the teacher has prohibited collaboration, and other activities that disrupt the classroom and undermine the integrity of instruction and assessment. The above Delaware administrative regulations do not directly address these forms of academic misconduct. Schools at the elementary and middle school level may usually treat these forms of academic misconduct as an educational rather than a disciplinary matter. However, some school teachers and officials will nonetheless charge academic misconduct as disruptive and insubordinate. The school may seek discipline for missed assignments and exams, failure to complete schoolwork, attendance issues, and truancy.
Premier Delaware Middle and Elementary School Student Defense
Whether you are in Wilmington, Dover, Newark, Middletown, Bear, Glasgow, Brookside, Hockessin, Smyrna, Milford, Pine Creek Valley, Claymont, North Star, or another Delaware location, the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team can help your middle school or elementary school student defend misconduct charges. We have defended hundreds of students nationwide against misconduct charges of all kinds. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form.
