Colorado Middle and Elementary Education Student Defense
Disciplinary charges could lead your student's Colorado elementary or middle school officials to sanction your student right up to suspension or expulsion. Your student's elementary and middle school years are too important to lose to discipline. The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available to help you and your student defend and defeat Colorado elementary and middle school misconduct charges. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form. We are here to help. Your student needs and deserves the best protection against disciplinary charges.
Colorado Middle and Elementary Education
Colorado has great middle and elementary schools with skilled, dedicated, caring teachers, administrators, and officials. Your student may have had the benefit of the quality education that Colorado primary schools can provide, whether located in Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood, Thornton, Arvada, Westminster, Pueblo, Greeley, Centennial, Boulder, Highlands Ranch, Longmont, or another of the state's urban and suburban cities and towns, or in rural or mountain areas. The state certainly has large and sophisticated school districts like the Denver Public Schools, Colorado Springs Schools, Boulder Valley School District, Jefferson County Public Schools, Cherry Creek School District, Thompson School District, Pueblo County School District, and Littleton Public Schools. Don't undervalue that education. Keep your student on track with our disciplinary defense.
Colorado Middle and Elementary School Discipline Authority
Colorado public and private elementary and middle school officials take student misconduct seriously. State laws, school district policies, teachers, and parents of other students all combine to hold elementary and middle schools accountable for safe and orderly student conduct. Colorado's legislature has enacted Colorado Statute Section 22-32-109.1, requiring local elementary and middle schools to create and enforce safe school plans. Colorado Statute Section 22-33-105 authorizes local elementary and middle schools to suspend and expel students who violate the terms of those safe school plans. Colorado Statute Section 22-32-109.1 requires elementary and middle school officials to uniformly and fairly enforce those plans with appropriate student discipline right up to suspension or expulsion.
Colorado Middle and Elementary School Disciplinary Grounds
Colorado laws require school district boards to back up local school officials with disciplinary procedures and other means to carry out student discipline. The statutory grounds for discipline, listed in Colorado Statute Section 22-32-109.1 and elsewhere, include bullying, harassment, disruption, insubordination, weapons, tobacco, alcohol, or drug possession, violence, and other activities in which elementary and middle school students can engage. Some of those grounds for discipline, if established, require school suspension or other removal. Don't take disciplinary charges lightly. Your student's Colorado middle or elementary school has the statutory authority and responsibility to pursue discipline. Get our help to defend the charges.
Colorado Middle and Elementary Student Defense
Fortunately, the attorneys on our Student Defense Team, available in any of the above Colorado cities or school districts and across the rest of Colorado and the nation, have the knowledge, skill, and experience to defend elementary and middle school disciplinary charges effectively. You might wrongly assume that parents would be capable of invoking the disciplinary laws and procedures necessary to protect their young students from unfair or unnecessary discipline. But those laws, rules, and regulations can be complex. Academic administrative matters can further depend on unpublished customs, conventions, and practices that only experienced education lawyers would know. Our attorneys may be able to provide you with any of the following services to effectively defend your Colorado middle or elementary school student:
- notifying school officials of our appearance on your student's behalf, requiring school officials to communicate with and through us toward a favorable resolution of the disciplinary charges;
- helping you obtain and evaluate the school's information and evidence supporting or contradicting the disciplinary charges so that you know what the school believes your student has done and whether the school can prove it;
- sharing with the school your student's explanation and other exonerating and mitigating evidence, along with your student's legal defenses, so that the school considers an early dismissal of the charges or other favorable resolution;
- requesting and attending a formal hearing on your student's behalf, at which to present evidence while challenging the school's evidence of wrongdoing, possibly including cross-examination of adverse witnesses;
- evaluating, drafting, and pursuing an appeal to the school district board, state supervisory officials, or other administrative bodies to overturn any adverse finding against your student if your student has already lost the formal hearing; and
- seeking special alternative relief through your school district's general counsel office or similar oversight office, even if your student has already lost all appeals, or pursuing court relief in appropriate cases.
Colorado Middle and Elementary School Misbehavior
Middle and elementary school misconduct falls into two broad categories. The first category involves behavioral misconduct. As indicated briefly above, Colorado Statute Section 22-32-109.1 authorizes discipline right up to suspension or expulsion for a wide range of student misbehaviors including trespass, vandalism, alcohol, tobacco, weapons, or drugs on school property, fighting, bullying, harassment, and sexual touching. Gang activity and cyberbullying are other statutory grounds for discipline. Keep in mind that your young student is still developing socially and emotionally. Your student likely does not understand the full range of behaviors that school officials may construe as dangerous, inappropriate, or disruptive.
Our Student Defense Team can help you and your student give appropriate context to the actions that school officials charge as the basis for discipline. Our attorneys may even be able to show that school officials have failed to provide appropriate accommodations and services for mental or emotional disabilities or have failed to protect your student against bullying or other misconduct, causing your student to act out in self-defense and other forms of self-protection.
Colorado Middle and Elementary School Academic Misconduct
The other form of misconduct that Colorado elementary and middle school officials may charge involves academic misconduct. Academic misconduct, or cheating, can occur in elementary and middle school. Students of that young age do not always know the academic standards that schools attempt to impose in various forms of discipline for academic misconduct. Your student may not have known what constituted cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized use of materials, unauthorized collaboration, or another form of academic misconduct. Your student's school may also have owed your student a manifestation determination review before imposing discipline if your student was on an IEP. Our attorneys can help you and your student raise appropriate defenses to avoid unfair and unnecessary discipline for academic misconduct. Our attorneys can also help fight discipline for academic progress, truancy, attendance issues, and the like, all grounds for discipline under Colorado law.
Premier Colorado K-12 Student Defense Team
Whether you are in Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood, Thornton, Arvada, Westminster, Pueblo, Greeley, Centennial, Boulder, Highlands Ranch, Longmont, or another Colorado location, the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available to help your middle or elementary school student defend misconduct charges. We have successfully defended hundreds of students nationwide against all school misconduct charges. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form.
