Your Arizona high school student needs your help and guidance when facing school disciplinary charges. Arizona high schools regularly discipline students right up to school suspension, expulsion, and disciplinary placement in reform schools for academic, behavioral, and sexual misconduct, academic failure, truancy, absenteeism, and other progress issues. These disciplinary actions can harm your student. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team to protect your student against undue harm and unfair and unnecessary discipline. Our highly qualified attorneys are available in Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Scottsdale, Peoria, Tempe, Surprise, San Tan Valley, Goodyear, Yuma, Buckeye, Avondale, Flagstaff, and other Arizona locations for your student's best defense. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to get the help your student needs for the best possible outcome.
An Arizona High School Parent's Interest
Parents know how important the high school years are to their students. A positive Arizona high school experience can be the launching pad for your student's college, university, vocational, and other success. High school students are still growing mentally, physically, academically, socially, and in other important developmental ways. Your interest as a parent is to see that your student's growth continues at the greatest rate and in the most positive direction, unmarred and uninterrupted by school suspension, expulsion, or other unwise, unnecessary, and harmful disciplines. Your student likely has ambitions to enter a special college or university program, for vocational training, and to pursue healthy family, recreational, and social opportunities. You want to see your student flourish, not just in high school but beyond into adult life. Keep those goals and interests in mind when helping your student navigate Arizona high school disciplinary charges and academic progress issues.
Arizona High School Discipline Impacts
Don't minimize or ignore the potentially devastating impacts of Arizona high school suspension, expulsion, alternative disciplinary placement in boot camp or reform school, or even lesser forms of discipline clouding your student's school record. Studies show how high school discipline, imposed in unfairly discriminatory ways, often against male students, students of color, bullying victims, and students with disabilities, can lead to lost opportunities affecting the course of a student's life. Your high school student may lose admission to a preferred college or university program, vocational program, or other special opportunity. Your student may also suffer ostracization, isolation, anxiety, eating disorders, depression, and other harms to which youth and young adults face special risks. Don't leave your student's future to chance. Let our skilled and experienced attorneys ensure that your student's disciplinary charges result in the best possible outcome without a disciplinary record, and without long-term negative impacts.
The Arizona Educational System
The Arizona legislature has enacted the statutes providing for the state's education system. Those statutes govern not only the structure and operation of the schools but also the school discipline system, from the elementary to the secondary school level, including Arizona high schools. For example, Arizona Statutes Section 15-110 guarantees the rights of high school students and other public school students in their education, including in disciplinary matters. For another example, Arizona Statutes Section 15-153 provides for the discipline of students violating school policies or committing crimes punishable under the state's statutes. If your student faces Arizona high school disciplinary charges, school officials will rely on these and other state statutes to pursue those charges and punish your student. Let our attorneys help you and your student enforce the reciprocal rights to procedural protections, to ensure your student's best disciplinary outcome.
Arizona Board of Education Authority
Arizona's legislature created both a state-level Board of Education, with powers and duties defined under Arizona Statutes Section 15-203, and a Department of Education. The Arizona Board of Education has the legislature's authority to enact administrative rules and regulations governing, among many other things, the discipline of your Arizona high school student. For instance, Arizona Administrative Code Sections R7-2-701 et seq. provide for the procedures the school, district, and Board of Education must follow in contested cases of student discipline. Statutes, rules, and regulations address a host of other disciplinary issues, including weapons, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, bullying, hazing, and other misconduct in Arizona high schools and other public schools. If your student faces disciplinary charges, our attorneys can investigate, confirm, or challenge the Board of Education's authority to pursue those charges and may invoke the Board's protective procedures to ensure that your student does not suffer unnecessary, unlawful, and harmful discipline.
Arizona School District Authority
Arizona's education laws also authorize local school district powers, including the authority and responsibility to govern student conduct. Arizona Statutes Sections 15-341 et seq. provide that the local school district board and the superintendent may adopt rules, standards, and procedures for the discipline of students engaged in disruptive or endangering conduct and for academic failure, chronic tardiness, and absenteeism, truancy, and related academic progress issues. Arizona Statutes Section 15-342 states simply that the district's governing board may “expel pupils for misconduct.” Related statutes authorize discipline for prohibited items in the school, sexual misconduct, and even dress codes and their enforcement. The school district may be a buffer to unfair treatment of your student by the high school, or district officials may themselves carry out or sustain and support unfair treatment by the high school teacher or principal. Our attorneys can invoke district procedures and state-level review to hold the district accountable to your student and for your student's best disciplinary outcome.
Arizona Local High School Authority
Arizona's education statutes and Board of Education regulations also authorize discipline at the local high school level. Those laws, rules, and regulations authorize school districts and local high schools to adopt, publish, and enforce student codes of conduct. Your student's Arizona high school likely has a student conduct code authorizing the school to discipline your student up to suspension and expulsion for academic misconduct, behavioral misconduct, sexual misconduct, or failure to progress academically. Your student may have to conform conduct to rules, standards, and policies like those published in these district and high school codes:
- the Phoenix Central School District Code of Conduct;
- the West Mesa High School Student Handbook;
- the Tucson Unified School District Code of Conduct;
- the Chandler Unified School District Student Handbooks; and
- the Glendale Union High School District Parent/Student Handbook.
Arizona High School Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct can be a serious concern for Arizona high school students, especially those hoping to continue their development with a college or university education. Academic misconduct on a high school transcript or school record indicates to admissions officers that an applicant may have significant character issues that could undermine the integrity and reputation of their academic program. Arizona high schools have the duty and interest to ensure that their graduates know academic norms, customs, and standards, including those having to do with cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic dishonesty. The Chandler High School Handbook, for instance, prohibits “lying, cheating, forgery, or plagiarism.” The Tucson Unified School District Code of Conduct likewise prohibits academic “dishonesty” in each of those four forms. You can expect your student's high school to have a similarly broad prohibition against taking undue academic advantage in violation of teacher instructions or the student code of conduct. High school cheating charges typically involve one or more of the following allegations:
- using answer keys, study guides, or other unauthorized materials during an exam, quiz, or test;
- working with another student on an assignment when the teacher has required work alone, constituting unauthorized collaboration;
- getting answers or other assistance from another student during an exam;
- getting answers or other help from a parent, sibling, or other person on a homework assignment when supposed to work alone;
- copying paragraphs or sentences from other writings without giving proper attribution, constituting plagiarism; or
- changing or fabricating experiment data or observations, to falsify results in a submitted work.
Punishing Arizona High School Academic Misconduct
Punishment for high school academic misconduct can run the gamut from a slap on the wrist all the way to suspension or expulsion, depending on a range of factors. Arizona high school teachers and principals may regard a first cheating offense as requiring nothing more than caution, warning, correction, repeating the assignment or exam, or, if the matter involves plagiarism, remedial training in the proper citation. The Tucson Unified School District Code of Conduct, for instance, treats cheating as an action level 2, with mostly remedial sanctions. But deliberate violations of clear instructions, for the purpose of gaining an undue advantage while avoiding appropriate work, can result in written reprimands, loss of academic credit, lowering of a grade or class rank, and disqualification from honors. Repeated cheating, combined with soliciting other students to participate and thus disrupting instruction, can lead to out-of-school suspension and expulsion. Don't let your student suffer unfair and unwarranted discipline for false or exaggerated cheating charges. Even if your student engaged in cheating, let us help you advocate effectively for remedial relief rather than punishment that leaves a permanent mark on your student's academic record.
Impacts of Arizona High School Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct findings can have longer-term adverse effects than any short-term remedial terms and conditions. Even as little as a reprimand, reduced grade, and notation on a high school transcript could keep your Arizona high school student from getting into the college, university, or vocational training program you and your student preferred. Program applications generally require students to disclose high school discipline. Failure to disclose information on a college or other program application can lead to charges of falsifying the application if the college or other program later discovers the discipline from high school records. Academic discipline could also lead to your student's loss of athletic team participation, club participation, and other privileges. Your student may lose mentors, teacher relationships, and supportive peer relationships.
Defending Arizona High School Academic Misconduct Charges
Our highly qualified attorneys have the skill and experience to navigate Arizona high school policies and procedures, and communicate and negotiate with high school disciplinary officials, for your student's best outcome to academic misconduct charges. We know what high school officials may accept to achieve their corrective and integrity interests, short of discipline that would remain on your student's school record. If school officials do not agree at a conciliation conference to remedial relief rather than punitive measures, then we can help you and your student invoke district or state protective procedures to ensure a fair and favorable outcome. You and your student have options. Even if you and your student have already lost all school and district hearings, we may be able to help you take appeals to state agencies, pursue court review, or negotiate alternative special relief with district or state oversight officials.
Arizona High School Behavioral Misconduct
Academic misconduct is one thing. Behavioral misconduct is another thing. Arizona high school officials may take behavioral misconduct much more seriously than academic misconduct, when the behaviors disrupt school operations, endanger students or staff, damage or destroy school property, or cause the school to lose public trust and reputation. Arizona high school student codes of conduct generally include long lists of behaviors that the school prohibits and will punish to prevent. The Phoenix Central School District's Code of Conduct, for instance, prohibits such varied behaviors as running or wandering in halls, abusing hall passes, making unreasonable noises, using vulgar or lewd language, or engaging in insubordinate or disruptive conduct. Other common prohibitions include guns or other weapons on school premises, tobacco, alcohol, or drug possession, gang activity, school violence, bullying, or hazing. Expect your student's high school student code of conduct to include these prohibitions:
- conduct annoying, disturbing, harassing, injuring, intimidating, or otherwise offending students, including bullying, cyberbullying, and hazing;
- violent conduct, including fighting, shoving, striking, kicking, and other physical assaults, threats, coercion, blackmail, and gang activity;
- discriminatory conduct based on race, sex, religion, disability, and other protected classes and characteristics, including offensive, demeaning, or denigrating slurs, suggestions, and jokes;
- endangering conduct such as guns, knives, or other weapons on school premises or at school events, explosives, and setting off, disarming, or otherwise interfering with fire alarms or fire suppression equipment;
- morally unfit or degrading conduct such as bringing pornography, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or vaping materials onto school premises for use or distribution, or promoting lewd conduct;
- conduct that steals, damages, or destroys property, fixtures, or equipment, including student and staff personal property such as computers, other electronic devices, backpacks, clothing, purses, and other valuable items;
- conduct involving unauthorized access to facilities, classrooms, offices, computers, electronic files, or school records, along with eavesdropping, voyeurism, sexting, and other invasions of privacy; and
- conduct that disrespects teachers or other school staff, or disobeys school authorities, including chronic tardiness and absenteeism or violation of truancy laws.
Arizona High School Behavioral Misconduct Impacts
Behavioral misconduct charges and findings may result in serious punishment, especially if the misconduct injures or otherwise harms other students or significantly disrupts school operations. Beware behavioral misconduct charges involving weapons, drugs, alcohol, or gang activity, which Arizona high school officials may severely punish with presumptive suspension and expulsion. Your student could end up in an Arizona alternative high school or other disciplinary programs, where your student may not receive appropriate instruction and find supportive students and structure. Graduation rates at alternative high schools can be much lower, and incarceration, substance abuse, and other adverse impacts are much higher. Even if your student doesn't get kicked out of the traditional high school, behavioral misconduct findings could effectively curtail the sports, club, honors, advance-placement, social, and instructional-support programs on which your student depends. Beware of these adverse impacts.
Defending Arizona High School Behavioral Misconduct Charges
Behavioral misconduct charges against your student are surely daunting. You have every right and reason to be concerned. However, our attorneys may have several opportunities to advocate effectively for the dismissal of those charges. We may be able to arrange conciliation conferences with school officials, at which we can propose the sort of remedial and protective terms that assure school officials of student safety and the school's orderly operation, while providing your student with a positive, non-disciplinary regime of remedial relief, whether school service, mentoring, training, disability accommodations and services, or other acceptable and helpful measures. If school officials do not agree to a positive program for relief from the charges, then we can invoke the district's protective procedures. If you and your student have already lost all hearings, then we may be able to take appeals, seek court review and reversal, or negotiate alternative special relief through district and state oversight channels. Don't give in or give up. Get our help.
Arizona High School Sexual Misconduct
Sexual misconduct allegations and charges can be among the most serious with which to deal. Sexual misconduct findings are a distinct possibility under the federal Title IX regulations that Arizona's public high schools enforce. Arizona high school student codes of conduct, like the Chandler High School Student Handbook & Parent Guide, routinely adopt those Title IX prohibitions, which extend not only to sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence but also to sexual harassment. The Glendale Union High School District Parent & Student Guide is another example, extending sexual misconduct definitions even to include “the use of verbal, written, electronic or physical actions or any language that is sexually demeaning.” These broad definitions can implicate virtually any conduct that another student might construe or misconstrue as sexual in nature. The vague definitions add to your student's risk of adverse findings, further warranting our skilled and strategic representation.
Arizona High School Sexual Misconduct Impacts
Sexual misconduct findings against your student can lead to immediate school suspension, even before the protective hearing. Your student could also face school expulsion and referral to the alternative disciplinary high school program. You also do not want your Arizona high school student to carry a sexual misconduct record out of high school and into life. College and university admissions committees do not easily look past sexual misconduct discipline. Instead, they tend to prefer to protect the institution's students and reputation against a possible repeat offense. Your student could also lose entry into valuable internships and other vocational programs. Mentors, advisors, peers, friends, and even family members may pull back, leaving your student without a supportive network. Your student could also suffer depression, anxiety, demotivation, and other adverse psychological, social, and emotional effects.
Defending Arizona High School Sexual Misconduct Charges
Your best move if your Arizona high school student faces sexual misconduct charges is to retain our skilled and experienced defense attorneys to represent your student. We may be able to arrange informal conferences at which to exchange information and propose alternative remedial relief. But we can also invoke the district and state procedures that protect your student against a rush to an unfair and unnecessarily harsh judgment. We can help your student present defense testimony and evidence, while cross-examining or otherwise challenging the allegedly incriminating evidence. We can also take appeals or even seek court review if you and your student have already lost all Title IX or other sexual misconduct hearings.
Arizona High School Academic Progression Issues
Your Arizona high school student may be of perfectly good character, engaging only in compliant conduct. However, your student could still face academic failure, chronic absences or tardiness, and related academic progression issues. Arizona high school students must generally make the grades. Your student's teachers may recommend that the school hold your student back a year, refuse to advance your student to the next grade level or to graduation, or even suspend and dismiss your student from the school, if your student does not complete assignments, complete and pass exams meeting school academic benchmarks, and otherwise show the reasonable motivation and effort that teachers expect or demand. Let us help you advocate for your student on academic progress issues that threaten your student's high school enrollment and graduation.
Causes of Arizona High School Academic Progression Issues
A degree of academic striving and self-discipline is indeed appropriate and necessary, but school officials can too often mistake other interfering issues for bad character, laziness, or simple lack of commitment on the part of the failing student. But often, a student's failure to progress academically is much more complex than simply a lack of appropriate motivation. Don't let Arizona high school teachers and other school officials mislabel your student as lazy or uncaring, when your student may have an undiagnosed learning disability, may need disability accommodations, or may lack educational support that the school should be providing. Your student's academic issues could even be due to poor or improper instruction, or to illness, injury, or school bullying, ostracizing, harassment, or hazing.
Addressing Arizona High School Academic Progress Issues
Get our help to evaluate and address your student's academic progress issues and to ensure that your student's Arizona high school provides the educational support, services, and accommodations your student needs and deserves. We may be able to communicate, advocate, and negotiate with your student's school principal and other officials to avoid academic progress discipline. We can also invoke district and state procedures to protect your student and ensure that the school meets its legal obligations to accommodate and educate your student. Academic progress issues may be on the school as much or more so than on your student. Let us help hold the school accountable to educate your student.
Arizona High School Disciplinary Sanctions
Your student's Arizona high school officials can impose a range of disciplinary sanctions against your student if they find the justifying grounds. Arizona Statutes Section 15-841 expressly authorizes Arizona high school officials to suspend and expel students and send expelled students to reform school for many of the misbehaviors or failures described above, including “continued open defiance of authority, continued disruptive or disorderly behavior, violent behavior” such as display of a weapon or dangerous instrument, and excessive absenteeism. The school may alternatively or in addition reprimand your student, withdraw athletic or other school privileges, remove your student's class rank, refuse academic honors, require school or community service, impose financial restitution, require in-school, after-school, or Saturday detention, and impose other terms and conditions for continuing in school. Beware the breadth and impact of the available sanctions.
Arizona High School Disciplinary Sanction Issues
The nature, duration, and severity of the sanctions that your student's Arizona high school proposes to impose can raise significant issues. Discipline can do much more than guide and correct a student. Discipline can, when improperly imposed, degrade, demean, and discourage students, harming rather than helping their education. If, for instance, your student's school disciplines your student for conduct that your student did not commit, your student would have every reason to distrust and disrespect the commitment of the school. If, for another example, your student's school imposed unduly harsh discipline, then your student may grow bitter and resentful rather than strive to comply and conform. If, for another example, the school imposes discipline in a discriminatory fashion based on your student's race, sex, religion, or disability, then your student may rightfully withdraw from engaging the school's resources and personnel. Let us help if your student faces any of these or other sanctions issues. We may even be able to correct improper discipline already imposed.
Arizona High School Discipline Limitations
Arizona Statutes Section 15-844, for instance, prohibits the high school from imposing discipline on a disabled student served by an individualized education program (IEP) without first conducting the federally required manifestation determination review. Similarly, Arizona Statutes Section 15-843 requires the school district to promulgate procedures for any use of corporal punishment, meaning paddling or other use of force against the student, as a discipline within the high school. School districts may accordingly strictly prohibit corporal punishment, as the Phoenix Central School District does. Our attorneys can investigate and enforce these and other limitations and conditions on student discipline, to protect your student against inappropriate and harmful student sanctions.
Arizona High School Student Defense Rights
Your student has constitutional and statutory due process of law rights, but when facing school discipline, that may remove your student from the school for more than a brief duration. Arizona Statutes Section 15-843 and other laws refer to those due process rights to protective procedures, guaranteeing your student fair notice and an opportunity for a fair hearing before an impartial decision maker. All of the above Arizona high school and school district student codes of conduct refer to and incorporate those procedural protections, ensuring your student a fair disciplinary process. Don't assume that disciplinary charges mean disciplinary sanctions. The school must instead prove those charges in a fair proceeding. Our attorneys can appear on your student's behalf to ensure that the school's officials consider appropriate alternatives and to challenge any evidence the school may present that might warrant discipline. Let us assert your student's due process rights both sensitively and strategically for your student's best outcome.
Arizona High School Student Defense Services
You must not, though, assume that you and your student can simply stand idly on the above due process rights. Generally, you and your student must assert those rights in a timely and proper manner, invoking the protective procedures that the school, district, state, and courts offer. If you do not act timely and properly in response to the disciplinary charges, your Arizona high school student may suffer a default on the charges and face discipline without having told your student's side of the story. Let us help you and your student invoke those rights. We can request all appropriate conciliation conferences and hearings, and take all appropriate appeals, while also seeking court review when available. We may also be able to help negotiate alternative special relief through the district's general counsel's office or other oversight channels, even if you and your student have already lost all hearings and appeals.
Premier Arizona High School Student Defense
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available in Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Scottsdale, Peoria, Tempe, Surprise, San Tan Valley, Goodyear, Yuma, Buckeye, Avondale, Flagstaff, and other Arizona locations for your student's best defense of Arizona high school disciplinary charges. Do as hundreds of students nationwide have done, in trusting our attorneys for successful defense. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your Arizona high school student's case.
