District of Columbia high school students pursue their education in one of the world's most exciting environments, the capital of the world's leading nation. Yet, District of Columbia high school students can also face greater than usual challenges in completing that education. District of Columbia high schools can be especially rigorous, technical, challenging, and diverse. District of Columbia high school students may have greater opportunities but also greater temptations and distractions than high school students elsewhere. If your District of Columbia high school student faces disciplinary charges or academic progress issues, then retain the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team for your student's defense. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our skilled and effective representation of your District of Columbia high school student. Protect your student's educational and vocational future. Don't let a disciplinary record limit your student's opportunities.
District of Columbia High School Opportunities
The District of Columbia offers many tremendous high school education opportunities. You have every right and reason to expect the best high school experience for your student from one of the District of Columbia's fine high schools, whether your student attends the Benjamin Banneker Academy High School, BASIS DC Public School System, School Without Walls High School, District of Columbia International School, McKinley Technology High School, Washington Latin Public Charter Upper School, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Woodrow Wilson High School, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School Kansas Avenue High School, Columbia Heights Educational Campus, Phelps Architecture Construction and Engineering High School, Friendship Public Charter School Woodson Collegiate Campus, or another fine District of Columbia high school. Don't let that great opportunity go to waste because of high school disciplinary charges or academic progress issues. Get our defense help.
District of Columbia High School Parent Commitments
District of Columbia parents rightly have high expectations for their high school students, given the high quality of the available high school programs. Parents also know that high school is a launching pad into higher education and beyond into jobs and careers. Sometimes, though, parents fail to appreciate the help that their high school students need with adult responsibilities, especially the daunting fact of school disciplinary charges. No matter how mature your student may appear, your student is still developing adult social skills, strategies, character, and reasoning. If your student faces District of Columbia high school disciplinary charges or academic progress issues, the rules, customs, conventions, and procedures are certainly complex and subtle enough to need your adult involvement, assessment, wisdom, and experience. Indeed, you and your student need our attorneys' premier academic and administrative knowledge, skills, and experience. Let us help you fulfill your parental commitments to your beloved District of Columbia high school student. Your student needs you, and you need our highly qualified attorney services.
District of Columbia High School Discipline Impacts
Short Term Discipline Impacts
District of Columbia high school students have a lot on the line when facing disciplinary charges or academic progress issues. The negative impacts of school discipline are well documented. Even a short term school suspension can severely impact your student's motivation, confidence, self-image, and peer, teacher, advisor, and mentor relationships. The embarrassment and disruption of school discipline of any kind, including as little as a reprimand, reassignment, or loss of athletics, club, or social privileges, can cause a student to withdraw, self-isolate, and put forth less than the necessary effort. High school years are transitional years when a student's stable peer relationships and school structure can be critical to the student's maximal academic, social, emotional, mental, psychological, and physical development. Let us help you protect your student against the short term harms of school discipline.
Long Term Disciplinary Impacts
School discipline can also, in retrospect, be the unfortunate turning point toward longer term negative impacts. Competitive colleges, universities, military academies and services, internship and other vocational training programs, and other premier developmental programs can all refuse admission to their preferred programs simply because of a record of high school discipline. Your student may desire to attend one of the District of Columbia area's many outstanding higher education programs like the ones at Georgetown University, George Washington University, Howard University, American University, the Catholic University of America, Gallaudet University, Trinity Washington University, the University of the District of Columbia, Strayer University, or the University of the Potomac. Or your student may have the ambition to attend another fine institution of higher education outside the District of Columbia, perhaps your own alma mater. Don't let a record of high school discipline affect those lifelong goals and rich opportunities. Let us help you preserve and protect the full and appropriate arc of your District of Columbia high school student's life.
District of Columbia's High School Discipline System
The District of Columbia Municipal Code Section 38-236.03 authorizes the District's local education agencies to establish school policies for student discipline. While the code section requires that those policies be “individualized, fair, equitable, developmentally appropriate, proportional to the severity of the student's offense, and, if appropriate, restorative,” the policies may also provide for the suspension and expulsion of disruptive students. Other District of Columbia code sections require the District's high schools to maintain and enforce anti-bullying policies, mandatory attendance and truancy policies, policies against sexual assaults, and other policies governing student conduct. Your student's District of Columbia high school officials have abundant District authority to charge your student with misconduct and impose discipline up to suspension and expulsion. Don't doubt that authority. Instead, retain our high skilled attorneys for your student's effective defense to the disciplinary charges. Treat disciplinary charges with the seriousness they deserve. Your student's future is on the line when facing District of Columbia high school discipline.
The District of Columbia Department of Education
While you and your student may deal primarily with the teachers, principal, and other officials of your student's District of Columbia high school, the District of Columbia has both a State Board of Education and an Office of the State Superintendent of Education, each having some involvement in student disciplinary matters. The D.C. State Board and Office of the State Superintendent develop and implement District of Columbia Municipal Regulations carrying out the above District of Columbia code sections for student discipline. For instance, District of Columbia Municipal Regulation 5-B2503 lists literally hundreds of grounds for disciplinary action, organizing them into Tiers I, II, III, IV, and V, each with progressively more-severe discipline. Other District of Columbia Municipal Regulations state the procedures for student suspensions and expulsions, how to conduct formal hearings on suspensions and expulsions, and other details relating to student discipline. Our attorneys can help you and your student identify the applicable District of Columbia regulations and strategically invoke the District's protective procedures for your student's best disciplinary outcome.
District of Columbia Local School District Authority
While the District of Columbia's State Board of Education and Office of the State Superintendent of Education have promulgated student conduct rules and procedures, local education agency and high school officials should play the main role in your student's disciplinary or academic progress matter. District of Columbia Municipal Code Section 38-236.06 expressly authorizes and requires the State Superintendent of Education to assist and support local education agencies and high schools in carrying out school discipline to achieve positive school climate goals. That support includes training, guidance, restorative practice models, and behavioral interventions. Your student's local education agency must also follow the Municipal Code provisions and State Board of Education regulations governing student discipline, such as enforcing the anti-bullying measures.
District of Columbia Local School District Student Codes of Conduct
Local officials in your student's District of Columbia high school and local education agency will handle your student's disciplinary or academic progress matter. We can help you deal with those local high school and education agency officials. The District of Columbia Municipal Code Section 38-236.03 expressly authorizes and requires the local education agency to adopt a code of student conduct for the local education agency's District of Columbia high school “in consultation with school personnel, students, and parents” “to promote the safety and well-being of students and staff.” Your student's disciplinary matter may thus fall primarily under the local education agency or high school's student conduct code. We can help you identify and interpret the applicable code, which may look like one or more of the following examples of District of Columbia local high school student conduct codes:
- the Benjamin Banneker Academy High School Student Handbook includes several provisions on attendance, dress code, and security and then ends with a lengthy Student Discipline Policy listing dozens of prohibited actions, organized into five tiers tracking the District of Columbia Municipal Regulation 5-B2503;
- the District of Columbia International School Student / Family Policies include four tiers rather than five tiers of prohibited behaviors, each with its own progressively more severe sanctions;
- the Schools Without Walls Senior High School Student Handbook includes a long list of prohibited behaviors under a Student Code of Conduct with its own procedures for enforcement and
- the Columbia Heights Educational Campus Student Handbook contains many prohibitions under a dress code and student code of conduct while also including five tiers of progressively more severe misconduct, like those in the District of Columbia Municipal Regulation 5-B2503.
The District of Columbia High School Environment
Your District of Columbia high school student studies in a most highly regulated environment. The student code of conduct at your student's District of Columbia high school will likely approximate the student codes of conduct in place at the above four example District of Columbia high schools. Your student's code of conduct must at least meet the minimum requirements of District of Columbia Municipal Regulation 5-B2503 with its five tiers of dozens of progressively more severe offenses. What your student does at home or outside the home off school premises may meet your standards and expectations but may nonetheless violate your student's high school rules, leading to disciplinary charges. Let our attorneys help you and your student demonstrate that discipline is unnecessary and unwarranted.
District of Columbia High School Behavioral Misconduct
District of Columbia high schools first discipline for behavioral wrongs. Schools must be reasonably safe and orderly places if they are to achieve their educational goal. Be assured that your student's District of Columbia high school officials are prepared to impose discipline against students who disrupt school operations and endanger students and other members of the school community. Common behavioral wrongs include things like setting off school fire alarms, interfering with school fire suppression equipment, vandalizing school lockers or other property, and misusing school computers for cyberbullying, pornography, or hacking of academic resources and school records. Behavioral misconduct charges can also include fighting, gang activity, and possession of tobacco, vaping products, alcohol, drugs, or weapons on school grounds or at school activities. Behavioral misconduct on your student's school record can carry a long-lasting stain, interfering with your student's preferred opportunities for higher education, vocational training, and professional licensure or vocational certification, especially when the misconduct is endangering.
Definitions of District of Columbia High School Behavioral Misconduct
You've seen above that the District of Columbia high school student codes of conduct generally track the five tiers of offenses in District of Columbia Municipal Regulation 5-B2503. The student codes of conduct within the Benjamin Banneker Academy High School Student Handbook, District of Columbia International School Student / Family Policies, Schools Without Walls Senior High School Student Handbook, and Columbia Heights Educational Campus Student Handbook are all examples. Notably, District of Columbia Municipal Regulation 5-B2503 places many of the more common forms of behavioral misconduct at the highest Tier V level, warranting the most severe discipline up to suspension and expulsion. Those Tier V offenses include vandalism, fighting, alcohol possession, drug possession, possession of explosives or fireworks, arson, bomb threats, and several other serious misbehaviors. But beware of behavioral misconduct charges. The District's regulation includes as a Tier V offense any other acts “that are illegal, cause significant disruption to the school operation, or cause substantial harm to self or others.”
Punishments for District of Columbia High School Behavioral Misconduct
Your District of Columbia high school student could indeed face school suspension or expulsion as the penalty for a behavioral misconduct finding. Keep in mind, though, that behavioral misconduct charges are not the same thing as a finding that your student committed the alleged misconduct. Charges are also not the same thing as a sanction. Charges are instead only allegations. The school must find that your student committed the alleged misconduct and may then determine whether or not to impose a penalty. District of Columbia Municipal Regulation 5-B2503 authorizes the widest possible range of penalties from verbal redirection up through oral or written reprimands, counseling, loss of privileges, loss of honors and awards, and school or community service, all the way up to in-school or out-of-school suspension, expulsion, and alternative disciplinary placement in boot camp or reform school. That wide range of penalties may seem daunting but can provide our attorneys with the opportunity to argue for lesser sanctions or no sanction at all, in favor of remedial relief like additional education or training.
District of Columbia High School Behavioral Misconduct Defense
When your District of Columbia high school student faces disciplinary charges, our attorneys can invoke your student's procedural protections for the best possible outcome. District of Columbia Municipal Code Section 38-236.03 expressly refers to your student's rights to due process. Due process generally means fair notice of the charges and a fair hearing before an impartial decision maker. We can use those procedural protections to arrange conciliation conferences, negotiate for early voluntary dismissal, or request a formal hearing at which to present exonerating and mitigating evidence, whatever the circumstances of your student's case require. If your student has already lost the hearing on behavioral misconduct charges, let us take your student's appeal. If your student has already lost the appeal, let us seek alternative special relief through the District's or local education agency's general counsel's office.
District of Columbia High School Sexual Misconduct
Behavioral misconduct charges involving the above types of wrongs are one thing. Sexual misconduct charges are another thing. While sexual misconduct is another form of misbehavior, District of Columbia high school officials are likely to take sexual misconduct allegations against your student especially seriously. Do not let your student face those allegations without our highly qualified representation. Federal Title IX laws, rules, and regulations require District of Columbia high schools to protect students against sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment. District of Columbia officials who ignore complaints of sexual misconduct can face civil liability, as well as risking their school's public reputation, student enrollment, and federal funding. Beware a rush to judgment against your student if your student faces sexual misconduct allegations. Let us help you ensure that your student gets to present the appropriate exonerating evidence and mitigating information. We may be able to head off formal charges and hearings if you retain us early enough to intercede and arrange a conciliation conference.
Definitions of District of Columbia High School Sexual Misconduct
The same federal Title IX laws that require your student's District of Columbia high school officials to prevent and punish sexual misconduct also define what constitutes Title IX sexual misconduct. The Title IX definition reaches not only a violent sexual assault but also non-consensual sexual touching, stalking, and domestic or dating violence. Title IX also includes sexual harassment involving sexual jokes, slurs, and unwanted sexual advances that are so pervasive as to create a hostile environment interfering with a student's access to educational programs and services. District of Columbia High School student conduct codes may incorporate those Title IX definitions or may define sexual misconduct on their own, or both. The School Without Walls Senior High School Student Handbook is an example, incorporating Title IX prohibitions while also providing a lengthy definition for prohibited sexual harassment, similar but not identical to the federal Title IX definition. Beware of broad definitions of sexual misconduct. What once passed for high school hijinks, horseplay, hazing, or teasing may today constitute sexual harassment. Get our defense help to challenge sexual misconduct allegations.
Punishment of District of Columbia High School Sexual Misconduct
School suspension is a default sanction in the District of Columbia high school disciplinary cases involving sexual misconduct allegations. If your student does not mount a prompt and credible defense, your student is likely to suffer an out-of-school suspension of some length and potentially school expulsion. Campus bans and no-contact orders protecting the putative victim or victims are also common, sometimes on an emergency basis and, in the worst cases, permanently, so far as the school is concerned. All of the above District of Columbia high school codes of student conduct treat sexual misconduct as a Tier III, IV, or V misbehavior, as they must under District of Columbia Municipal Code Section 38-236.03, warranting the most severe sanctions up to suspension and expulsion.
District of Columbia High School Sexual Misconduct Defense
As serious as District of Columbia high school sexual misconduct charges are, they do not necessarily mean that your student will suffer discipline. Title IX has more extensive procedural protections than some state laws, rules, and regulations would require. Our attorneys know how to strategically invoke those protections for your student's best outcome. We may, for instance, get a specification of the charges disclosing the time, date, place, nature, and participants allegedly involved in the misconduct. We may be able to arrange an early conciliation conference to avoid formal charges and a full formal hearing. In the best case, we may be able to negotiate early voluntary dismissal of the allegations in favor of remedial relief like training, counseling, or school or community service. If your student's case goes to a formal hearing, we may be able to present witnesses and other evidence that exonerates your student or mitigates any potential sanction. Your student's goal, as always, should be to avoid a disciplinary record.
District of Columbia High School Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct is another disciplinary charge that District of Columbia high school officials may pursue against students. Academic misconduct generally involves some form of cheating, whether seeking unauthorized assistance on an exam or paper, using an unauthorized device or service to answer problems or complete exams or papers, or copying the work of another without proper attribution, known as plagiarism. Academic misconduct may seem like a less serious disciplinary charge than behavioral or sexual misconduct. District of Columbia high school officials may treat it as less serious. But beware of cheating charges that appear to involve flagrant misconduct, repeated offenses, the disclosure and destruction of confidential scoring rubrics or exam or problem answers, and the involvement of other students disrupting instruction. Also, the more public the cheating, the greater impact the allegations may have on the school's reputation, requiring a disciplinary response. Let us help if your student faces academic misconduct charges. Don't let a record of academic misconduct destroy your student's educational future and vocational prospects.
Definitions of District of Columbia High School Academic Misconduct
District of Columbia Municipal Code Section 38-236.03 defines academic dishonestyand lying to school staff as Tier III offenses. The District regulation does not further define what may constitute academic dishonesty, leaving it to the District's high schools to do so in their student codes of conduct. The Benjamin Banneker Academic High School Student / Parent Handbook is an example, providing elaborate definitions and several examples of academic dishonesty. The examples include giving or receiving unauthorized assistance on tests or exams, giving a teacher a false excuse for missing an exam or assignment, fabricating or altering data in an assignment, sabotaging academic materials to frustrate the studies of other students, and unauthorized access to confidential computer files containing academic information. Your student may find other restrictions in the teacher's syllabus or instructions. Beware the breadth and variety of academic misconduct charges.
Punishing District of Columbia High School Academic Misconduct
District of Columbia high school teachers and principals may initially treat cheating charges with remedial instruction and extra or repeat academic work. But keep in mind that District of Columbia Municipal Code Section 38-236.03 treats academic dishonesty as a Tier III offense, well above the minor Tier I and Tier II offenses that generally carry only a proverbial slap on the responsible student's hands. The District's code section authorizes out-of-school suspensions of short and even medium duration for Tier III offenses. Keep in mind, too, that repeat cheating offenses may rise to the level of insubordination, disobedience of school officials, and interfering with school operations, warranting a higher Tier IV or even Tier V disciplinary charge and sanction. Cheating isn't serious until it is. Let us help you and your student evaluate the charges on all the evidence to determine not only how to contest the charges with exonerating evidence, if available, but also how to advocate for remedial measures rather than punitive sanctions.
District of Columbia High School Academic Misconduct Defense
Academic misconduct allegations often involve forensic issues, including the authorship and originality of printed or handwritten materials and how students use their computers or other electronic devices. Our attorneys know the forensic computer and handwriting consultants with whom to work, and the other means of gathering and analyzing the evidence. We also know how to obtain supportive witness statements or testimony and how to challenge false, mistaken, or exaggerated testimony from adverse witnesses. Let us invoke your student's District of Columbia high school procedures to present your student's best defense case. If your student has already lost the disciplinary hearing, we may be able to pursue a timely appeal. If your student has already lost the appeal, we may be able to obtain alternative special relief from the local education agency's general counsel.
District of Columbia High School Academic Progress Issues
The District of Columbia State Board of Education publishes content standards that District high school students must meet across their subjects to progress through the high school curriculum and graduate. District officials hold the District's high schools accountable to those content standards, meaning that your student's teachers and principal cannot give your student a free pass if your student is failing to make satisfactory academic progress. Your student's academic progress issues can also become behavioral discipline issues if high school officials construe your student's lack of progress as related to chronic tardiness, truancy, disrespect, disobedience, and insubordination. Your student's high school officials could hold your student back a grade, require your student to repeat failed courses, refuse to allow your student to graduate, and even transfer your student to an alternative disciplinary high school in the worst case.
Addressing District of Columbia High School Academic Progress Issues
Our attorneys may have additional legal tools to help your student if your student faces District of Columbia high school academic progress issues. Your student's academic struggles could be the result of unlawful bullying, hazing, or sexual harassment by other students, for which the high school must provide prompt relief. Alternatively, your student's academic progress issues may be the result of undiagnosed educational disabilities for which the high school should be providing an individualized education plan (IEP) and special education accommodations and services under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Or your student may already have an IEP that the school is not following. In any of those cases, we can invoke the appropriate procedures to enforce your student's legal rights to relief. These are just a few of the alternative measures we may be able to pursue to keep your student in school and on track toward graduation.
Premier District of Columbia High School Student Defense
No matter the nature of your student's District of Columbia high school issues, the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team is available for your student's disciplinary defense across the District of Columbia. We have successfully represented hundreds of students nationwide to achieve their best possible outcomes for all kinds of school disciplinary and academic progress issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain us for your District of Columbia high school student's best possible outcome.
