Parents of Alaska high school students have every good reason to expect their students to earn the valuable, lifelong credential that a high school education and traditional diploma represent. Alaska shares the same strong commitment to compulsory education of the young through a free high school program that other states reflect. However, in Alaska, like in other states, high school disciplinary charges and academic progress issues can interfere with your student earning that lifelong credential. If that's your student's situation, the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team is available in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Badger, Knik-Fairview, College, North Lakes, Tanaina, Wasilla, Meadow Lakes, Sitka, Kalifornsky, Ketchikan, and any other Alaska location for your student's effective defense of high school misconduct or academic progress issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for the highly qualified representation your student needs for the most favorable outcome to Alaska high school disciplinary or academic progress issues. Preserve and protect your Alaska high school student's future.
Alaska High School Education
Alaska has generous state funding and strong public commitment for sound and valuable high school programs. Leading high school programs in the state include the Cordova Senior High School, Mat-Sut Middle College School and, Mat-Sut Career & Tech Ed High School, Eagle River High School, Juneau-Douglas High School, Thunder Mountain High School, Steller Secondary School, Sitka High School, Homer High School, Chugiak High School, Petersburg High School, and Ben Eielson Senior High School among other high schools across Alaska. Alaska's large and well-funded school districts include the Anchorage School District, Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District in Palmer, Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District in Soldotna, Galena City School District, Juneau Borough School District, Lower Kuskokwim School District in Bethel, and Yukon-Koyukuk School District in Fairbanks. Our attorneys can help your student take advantage of the valuable education these schools and districts offer for your student's best future.
Alaska High School Parent Commitments
We know how highly committed to your Alaska high school student you must be. Parents have a special role during their student's high school years. High school is a critically important transitional period for youths moving into young adulthood. Your high school student may sound and appear mature but does not yet possess the full skills and mature character of an experienced older adult. You know that your student needs your involvement in your student's Alaska high school disciplinary or academic progress matter. Without your involvement and support, your student won't exercise the communication, advocacy, and negotiation skills, and won't maintain the balance and exercise the discretion and judgment needed for your student's best outcome. Your student is likely emotional, anxious, embarrassed, angry, and concerned over your student's school issues in ways that can affect your student's better navigation and judgment. By contrast, you have the maturity, resources, and wisdom to retain our highly qualified attorneys for your student's skilled and sensitive representation. You know your student's need for our strategic and effective advocacy. Fulfill your parental commitments and role by getting our help for your student's best disciplinary outcome.
Alaska High School Discipline Impacts
Short Term Discipline Impacts
You may have already begun to see the short term impacts that Alaska high school discipline can have on your student. High school students can depend heavily on routines and structure to remain organized, disciplined, and invested in their development during an especially challenging time of physical, mental, emotional, and social growth. Even a short interruption in your student's school schedule and studies can set your student back, increasing the struggles your student already faces from the disciplinary matter. If the school suspends your student for even a few days while investigating and concluding the matter, your student will also lose peer, teacher, and advisor support. Your student is already likely embarrassed and may have withdrawn from peer and teacher relationships. If the school imposes a loss of athletics, club, or social privileges or revokes honors and rewards, your student may further withdraw and self-isolate. Beware the mental, emotional, psychological, and physical impacts of the anxiety and stress that can come with Alaska high school disciplinary charges.
Long Term Discipline Impacts
Alaska high school discipline can also have severe long term impacts. The biggest impacts can come not just from school suspension, loss of privileges, or other interruptions but more so from the record of discipline that those actions leave. Your student may expect to attend the University of Alaska–Fairbanks, University of Alaska–Anchorage, University of Alaska–Southeast, Alaska Pacific University, Ilisagvik College, or an equally fine and competitive out-of-state college or university, maybe even your own alma mater. A record of Alaska high school discipline can close doors to preferred educational programs. If, instead, your student intends to pursue a competitive vocational training program, discipline can disqualify your student and even interfere with your student's ability to obtain a vocational certification. Military academies and services, trade associations, and volunteer, charitable, recreational, and religious organizations can all hold a record of discipline against a candidate, especially when the record suggests endangerment or corrupt, untrustworthy, or dishonest character. Let us help your student avoid those long term impacts with a strategic and effective defense to your student's disciplinary charges.
Alaska's High School Discipline System
Alaska's state legislature has empowered your student's Alaska school district and high school officials to discipline your student if investigation shows that your student committed certain wrongs. Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.045 authorizes discipline up to suspension or expulsion on any of the following grounds:
- continued willful disobedience of school authorities;
- open and persistent defiance of teachers or other school authorities;
- behavior adversely affecting student welfare, safety, or morals;
- a physical or mental condition making the student unable to reasonably benefit from school programs;
- a physical or mental condition adversely affecting the welfare of other students; or
- conviction of a felony adversely affecting the welfare or education of other students.
Other Alaska statutes add other grounds for high school student discipline. For example, Alaska Statutes Section 14.03.160 requires suspension or expulsion for weapons possession. Alaska Statutes Section 14.33.200 requires discipline for harassment, bullying, or intimidation. Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.030 authorizes discipline for chronic tardiness, absences, or truancy. Don't doubt the state power and authority of your student's Alaska high school officials to impose discipline for alleged misconduct. Instead, get our help defending the misconduct charges.
The Alaska State Board of Public School Education
The Alaska state legislature has also given the Alaska State Board of Education and its administrative Department of Education & Early Development a role in public school student discipline including the power to adopt regulations implementing the legislature's school discipline laws. The Alaska Department of Education has acted on that authority. For example, 4 Alaska Administrative Code Section 06.060 is the Department of Education's rule authorizing local school districts and high school officials to suspend and expel students who violate the state discipline law and related school rules. The Alaska Department of Education's role can also include providing guidance and resources to the local school district and high school. While you and your student will deal primarily with local school officials, our attorneys can invoke Department of Education regulations and procedures, and recruit Department resources and guidance, to your student's best advantage in a favorable disciplinary outcome.
Alaska Local School District Authority
Both Alaska state law and state agency regulations point to the local school district board and superintendent, and the high school principal and other officials, to implement the state's student discipline system. Our communications, advocacy, and negotiation on your student's behalf will primarily be with high school and district officials. Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.045 authorizes suspension or expulsion of students without designating the disciplinary authority, but the Alaska Department of Education regulation 4 Alaska Administrative Code Section 06.060 designates the district superintendent or high school principal as the appropriate official with suspension and expulsion powers. The same administrative regulation requires the local district school board to approve suspensions and expulsions while giving the accused student a direct appeal from the decision of the superintendent or principal to the school board.
Qualified Attorney Representation at the Local Level
Our attorneys know the procedures, practices, and preferences of Alaska local school district and high school officials dealing with disciplinary matters. We know the words to use, the tone to adopt, and the resolution options to propose, negotiate, and advocate. Academic administrative proceedings differ markedly from court proceedings. Do not retain unqualified local criminal defense counsel for your student's Alaska high school disciplinary matter. Get our highly qualified representation for your student's best disciplinary outcome with local school officials.
Alaska Local School District Student Codes of Conduct
To carry out the duties and exercise the powers that Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.045 authorizes for the suspension or expulsion of students, your student's Alaska local school district or high school will very likely have adopted a student code of conduct. Alaska Statutes Section 14.33.120 requires local school districts to adopt a written school discipline program and plan. The same statute requires the district's discipline program to set behavioral standards and provide procedures for determining their violation and imposing punishment. Alaska high schools and local districts routinely fulfill this statutory obligation by adopting a student code of conduct like the following examples:
- the Anchorage School District High School Student Handbook provides a long list of prohibited behaviors with related progressive sanctions;
- the Kenai Peninsula Borough Parent-Student Handbook includes a detailed Discipline Guide that enumerates dozens of offenses, each with recommended sanctions; and
- the Mt. Edgecumbe High School Student Handbook includes a Code of Conduct with a rubric of major and minor infractions.
Alaska High School Behavioral Misconduct
Behavioral misconduct is a first concern for Alaska high school students and their parents. As every parent of a teenager knows or soon learns, high school students may test the boundaries of permissible conduct, adopting or experimenting with adult habits for which they are not yet prepared. That conduct can extend to experimentation with drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pornography, fireworks, explosives, and weapons, property misconduct such as trespass, vandalism, theft, and computer hacking or other misuse, and horseplay, fighting, hazing, bullying, cyberbullying, harassment, intimidation, and other physical violence or threats. The misbehaviors may have nothing directly to do with the Alaska high school's academic program but instead, interfere with and disrupt that program, either by endangering students, undermining student morals and welfare, or disrupting school operations. Alaska high school officials may charge a student committing serious behavioral misconduct with offense levels warranting school suspension or expulsion.
Definitions of Alaska High School Behavioral Misconduct
In enacting Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.045, stating the grounds for suspension or expulsion, the Alaska legislature did not define specific misbehaviors. The statute instead uses broad categories like continued wilful disobedience, open and persistent defiance, and behavior inimical to student welfare. Your student's Alaska high school and district officials will thus first likely point to the specific forms of misconduct that your student's high school or district handbook lists, falling back on the broad statutory definitions only if the handbook does not cover your student's alleged specific wrongs. The Kenai Peninsula Borough Parent-Student Handbook is an example, listing such specific violations as assault, arson, gambling, profanity, hazing, insubordination, trespass, gang behavior, vandalism, and fighting. The Mt. Edgecumbe High School Student Handbook is a similar example, including most of the same prohibitions while adding general major and minor infraction categories as catch-all provisions.
Punishments for Alaska High School Behavioral Misconduct
While Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.045 and related laws authorize Alaska high school and district officials to impose school suspension, expulsion, and transfer to an alternative disciplinary school, Alaska school officials have a much broader available range of sanctions than the statutes clearly reflect. One turns instead to the Alaska high school and district student codes of conduct to see a wider range of penalties, including lesser sanctions like reprimands, probation, loss of privileges, loss of honors and awards, and imposition of school or community service. Some school officials will also accept remedial measures like counseling, training, extra school assignments, and reconciliation as restorative means in place of punitive measures. Remedial measures can keep your student's Alaska high school record clear of discipline, preserving your student's preferred college, university, and vocational training opportunities. In this case of sanctions, the discretion of Alaska high school officials can work in your student's favor with our effective advocacy and negotiation.
Alaska High School Behavioral Misconduct Defense
Our attorneys can invoke the above, due process procedures to ensure that your Alaska high school student has the best possible outcome to behavioral misconduct charges. Your student's goal should be to avoid a disciplinary record while remaining in the traditional school program with grade peers and on track toward regular graduation. We may be able to arrange conciliation conferences and make other communications to advocate and negotiate for early voluntary dismissal of the charges in favor of remedial measures that your student is readily able to perform and from which your student can benefit. If, instead, school officials insist on pursuing formal charges, then we can invoke your student's hearing rights to present exonerating and mitigating evidence while challenging the school's allegations and evidence of wrongdoing. We can also take the promised district board appeal and seek other state-level appeal and review, if your student has already lost the formal hearing. We may also be able to negotiate alternative special relief through the district's general counsel or obtain court relief if your student has already lost the appeal.
Alaska High School Sexual Misconduct
Behavioral misconduct charges can be serious, as you've seen above. Sexual misconduct charges, though, can raise your student's stakes even higher. Alaska high school officials must take sexual misconduct allegations especially seriously. Federal Title IX regulations threaten federal school funding if the school fails to prohibit, prevent, and punish sexual misconduct. Your student's Alaska high school officials could also face personal liability for harm due to sexual misconduct that they could have prevented but instead knew about and yet ignored. Alaska high school officials also generally have grave concern for student safety and morals when sexual misconduct is the subject and can be especially sensitive to parent and public pressure and condemnation for ignoring sexual misconduct allegations. Thus, beware of a potential knee-jerk reaction, even to sexual misconduct allegations that lack credibility and supporting evidence.
The Impact of Sexual Misconduct Discipline
Another thing about which to be concerned is the serious potential impact of Alaska high school sexual misconduct discipline. Colleges, universities, training programs, employers, and others whose hands may hold your student's future can hold against your student a record of sexual misconduct. Your student could lose every significant opportunity for which your student has worked and has planned to pursue. Sexual misconduct findings can also affect peer, teacher, advisor, and mentor relationships while seriously interfering with your student's confidence, motivation, mental and emotional health, and self-image. Let us help your student avoid the potentially serious impacts of Alaska high school sexual misconduct charges.
Definitions of Alaska High School Sexual Misconduct
Federal Title IX sexual misconduct definitions can have a surprisingly broad reach. Alaska high school and district student codes of conduct can further expand Title IX definitions to cover non-Title IX sexual misconduct. The Anchorage School District High School Student Handbook is an example, both incorporating Title IX regulations and procedures while also adopting the district's own anti-sexual harassment policy that in some respects goes beyond Title IX's reach.
In any case, Title IX covers more than direct sexual assaults. Title IX's sexual misconduct definition also includes stalking, domestic or dating violence, and two forms of sexual harassment, both a quid pro quo form and the hostile environment theory. Alaska high school students may especially run afoul of hostile environment sexual harassment protections. That theory prohibits sexual slurs, jokes, epithets, advances, and other sexually offensive or disparaging communicative acts that are severe and pervasive enough to interfere with equal access to education.
Punishment of Alaska High School Sexual Misconduct
You should expect your student's Alaska high school officials to take swift action to protect the putative victim complaining of Title IX or other sexual misconduct. Title IX may require the school to take emergency and interim action, suspending your student and banning your student from the high school even before your student has had the chance to contest the allegations. If your student does not come forward with a sound and convincing defense case, high school, and district officials are likely to suspend your student and may even expel your student to an alternative disciplinary boot camp.
Alaska High School Sexual Misconduct Defense
Our attorneys can help you and your student invoke Title IX's procedural protections and the similar protections available under Alaska state law and local district procedures. Those protections generally require due process, meaning that school officials should notify your student of the details of the charges including the alleged time, place, and nature of, and participants in, the alleged wrongdoing. Your student then has a right to a formal hearing before a fair and impartial decision maker, where we can help your student present exonerating and mitigating evidence while cross-examining adverse witnesses and challenging other incriminating evidence. And again, if your student has already lost the formal hearing, we can take available appeals, seek court relief if necessary, and advocate and negotiate with the district's general counsel for alternative special relief. Let our attorneys help you and your student exhaust all avenues to achieve your student's best disciplinary outcome.
Alaska High School Academic Misconduct
Next to the above behavioral and sexual misconduct forms, academic misconduct may seem and feel like an afterthought, a minor concern without potentially severe impacts. Think again. Competitive colleges and universities can be especially sensitive to the qualifications of candidates for admission who have a record of high school academic misconduct. Do not let your student's Alaska high school officials impose academic misconduct discipline, even of a minor form such as probation and reprimand, without retaining us to preserve your student's clean academic record if possible. We may be able to negotiate alternative remedial relief that keeps your student's record clear of academic discipline.
Alaska High School Academic Misconduct Definitions
Alaska's school discipline laws and regulations do not define academic misconduct or even expressly identify it as grounds for discipline. Alaska high schools student codes of conduct, though, routinely include prohibitions on academic misconduct. The Mt. Edgecumbe High School Student Handbook, as an example, prohibits cheating, without further illustration or definition. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Student Code of Conduct likewise prohibits forgery, cheating, and misrepresentation, again without further illustration or definition. Teacher syllabi and instructions may become the grounds on which your student's high school officials pursue cheating charges, often taking one or more of the following forms:
- unauthorized assistance on homework, quizzes, or tests;
- use of unauthorized electronic services on papers;
- use of unauthorized materials or devices during exams;
- unauthorized collaboration on projects, papers, and homework;
- copying of another's work without proper attribution (plagiarism);
- falsifying or altering research or experiment data; and
- altering scores or grades after already assigned.
Factors Aggravating Alaska High School Cheating Charges
Certain factors can turn a garden variety cheating allegation into a much more serious matter, approaching the dreaded willful disobedience that Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.045 condemns. Those factors may begin with a repeated offense against which the teacher has already warned the accused student or a flagrant offense flying in the face of clear teacher instructions. But the accused student who acts as a recruiter and ringleader in a broader cheating scandal can also aggravate the cheating charge from a minor offense to a major offense. If the accused student discloses online or to other students a confidential exam, answer set, or scoring rubric, ruining the substantial value of that assessment material, then once again, school officials may punish the academic misconduct much more severely.
Punishing Alaska High School Academic Misconduct
Alaska state laws and regulations say little to nothing specific about punishing academic misconduct, instead focusing on endangering and disruptive conduct. That said, Alaska high school officials may construe repeated and flagrant cheating and other forms of academic misconduct as continued wilful disobedience, open and persistent defiance, or even behavior inimical to student welfare, punishable under Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.045 by suspension or expulsion. Beware the prospect of serious punishment up to and including school suspension, expulsion, and alternative disciplinary placement.
Alaska High School Academic Misconduct Defense
If your student faces suspension or expulsion over aggravated cheating charges, our attorneys can invoke the same protective procedures as discussed above for behavioral misconduct charges. We may be able to arrange an early conciliation conference at which to advocate for remedial measures, keeping your student's academic record clear. We may alternatively be able to show, using forensic computer and handwriting consultants as necessary, that your student did not commit the cheating at all. Another student may have committed the wrong and tried to cover it up by blaming your student. Let us help your student fashion an appropriate defense to avoid the stain of a permanent record of academic misconduct.
Alaska High School Academic Progress Issues
Alaska high schools can also impose rigorous academic progress requirements that can impede your student's advancement and prevent your student's graduation. In the worst case, Alaska high school officials may even treat academic progress issues as a disciplinary matter, blaming your student for willful disobedience in order to impose a school suspension or expulsion. Alaska has adopted state academic standards to which the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development holds local school districts and high schools accountable. Alaska high schools report academic statistics to the Department of Education for analysis and publication. Your student's high school officials cannot simply advance your student on through grades and to graduation, if your student is not meeting content standard benchmarks. Your student's school may thus try to label your student's academic progress issues as misconduct in order to remove your student from the school.
The Context for Alaska High School Academic Progress Issues
Our attorneys know how to help you and your student hold the high school to its educational mission. While your student's Alaska high school officials may try to blame your student for academic progress issues, we may be able to help you identify areas where the school itself has failed to support your student's instruction. Indeed, the school may have actively discouraged your student from persevering by failing to provide aligned and achievable instructional goals and methods. Let us help you analyze your student's rights and the school's obligations to ensure that your student is getting the instruction your student needs and that the school does not unfairly blame your student and charge your student with discipline.
Addressing Alaska High School Academic Progress Issues
We may be able to deploy additional legal theories to help your student regain satisfactory academic progress. The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates special education accommodation and services for students with qualifying disabilities. Other Alaska state laws require your student's Alaska high school officials to protect your student from bullying, harassment, and intimidation that may be the cause of your student's academic progress issues. Let us help enforce your student's full rights to academic support and a safe and effective learning environment.
Premier Alaska High School Student Defense
The Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team is available in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Badger, Knik-Fairview, College, North Lakes, Tanaina, Wasilla, Meadow Lakes, Sitka, Kalifornsky, Ketchikan, and across Alaska for your student's disciplinary or academic progress defense. We represent hundreds of students in Alaska and nationwide, successfully defending school disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain our skilled and experienced attorneys for your Alaska high school student's best possible outcome.
