Florida, like other states, strictly regulates its K-12 schools, colleges, and universities to achieve the legislature's stated goal, codified in Florida Education Code Section 1000.02, of “a seamless academic educational system that fosters an integrated continuum of early learning through graduate school education for Florida's students.” Our attorneys are available across Florida, including in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Broward County Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Orange County Public Schools, Palm Beach County Public Schools, and Duval County Public Schools. We can also enforce your education rights and claims at the University of Florida, Florida State University, University of Central Florida, University of South Florida, Florida International University, and any other college, university, graduate, or professional program. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team.
Common Florida Education Rights and Claims
Our attorneys have the strategic skills and effective experience to help you with any of your education law rights and claims at the college or university level, as well as any of the education law rights and claims of your Florida K-12 student. Florida state law, federal law, school administrative procedures, state and federal agencies, and state and federal courts across Florida together ensure that we can get you and your minor student the legal relief you deserve. Below are some of the common areas in which our attorneys advocate and negotiate for your legal and financial recovery and enforcement of your education law rights.
Florida Disability Accommodations & Rights
Your Florida college or university and your minor student's Florida K-12 school must respect your rights as individuals with qualifying disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to reasonable accommodations. Florida schools must ensure equal access to students with disabilities, which affects their ability to walk, stand, sit, hear, see, read, process thoughts, and otherwise regulate their learning in the school environment. Your reasonable accommodations may include handicap ramps, lifts, readers, modified lights, modified seating, readers, note-takers, testing in isolated rooms, extra exam time, and relief from schedules, among many other accommodations.
Our attorneys stand ready to notify your school officials of our appearance on your behalf to advocate and litigate for your full ADA rights. Your Florida college or university and your minor student's Florida K-12 school district will maintain an ADA officer and disability office through which we can work for your prompt relief. For example, the Palm Beach County Schools acknowledges its obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to reasonably accommodate its students with qualifying disabilities unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the district's business operations. Florida International University, for another example, acknowledges its ADA obligations to ensure equal access for disabled students. Let our attorneys show you the prompt and effective action they can take to gain the needed accommodations and access for you or your minor student. Don't let disabilities interfere with your educational rights.
Florida Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) & 504 Plans
Your minor student's Florida K-12 school district must also comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as well as the supporting Florida special education regulations. The Florida State Board of Education has promulgated elaborate regulations for your students in its Part B of Rules Pertaining to Exceptional Student Education. Your minor student may already have the individualized education program (IEP) that the IDEA law requires or a 504 plan under the Rehabilitation Act. If your student doesn't have an IEP or 504 plan, don't let your student's K-12 officials ignore their duty to identify your student's disability with an appropriate referral for diagnosis at school expense. Florida school districts receive substantial federal funding for special education services.
Our attorneys are available in any Florida school district to enforce your student's special education rights through the district's special education offices and procedures. See, for example, the Hillsborough County Schools' Exceptional Student Education Department with district officials whose obligation is to implement the state and federal special education laws. Our attorneys communicate, advocate, and negotiate with school officials in IEP and 504 plan meetings and invoke the district's dispute resolution procedures when local school officials do not live up to their obligation to provide appropriate special education services. Give your student the legal advocacy and enforcement support your student needs. Get our help.
Florida School Discipline & Expulsions
Our attorneys also stand ready to defend you at your Florida college or university and your minor student at your student's Florida K-12 school against disciplinary charges and academic progress issues threatening school suspension and expulsion. Florida Education Code Section 1006.09 requires Florida K-12 school principals and district officials to adopt and enforce policies to maintain safe, secure, and orderly schools. Florida K-12 schools routinely maintain student codes of conduct, like the Miami-Dade County Schools' Student Code of Conduct, prohibiting all kinds of disruptive acts, from possession of guns, drugs, or alcohol to gang activity and acts of violence. Florida's colleges and universities maintain similar student codes of conduct, like the one in place at the University of Central Florida.
Yet you and your minor student have constitutional rights to due process, meaning fair notice and a fair hearing before an impartial decision-maker before the school deprives you of substantial educational rights. To carry out that obligation, Florida Education Code Section 1006.09 expressly requires the K-12 school principal or other district official to offer your student an administrative hearing after appropriate notice, before punishing your student with school suspension or expulsion, or promptly after an emergency removal. Your Florida college or university will have similar due process procedures to protect you. Our attorneys stand ready to defend you or your minor student through these procedures to ensure your best disciplinary outcome. Get our help to avoid crippling discipline.
Florida School Bullying & Harassment
Your minor student also has the right to attend a Florida K-12 school free from bullying, harassment, hazing, and other forms of intimidation. Florida Education Code Section 1006.147 expressly prohibits bullying and harassment. Florida Education Code Section 1006.135 expressly prohibits hazing, while Section 1006.13 requires school districts to maintain zero-tolerance policies against crime and victimization in schools. Federal Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prohibits sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating violence, and stalking. Florida school districts routinely maintain Title IX coordinators and implement Title IX policies, like the one for the Miami-Dade County Schools, to carry out these federal duties and enforce equivalent state law provisions.
If your student's K-12 school officials are not protecting your student against bullying, harassment, hazing, or other forms of intimidation, let our attorneys enforce the above laws, rules, and procedures. We can not only pursue relief through the school's administrative procedures but can also pursue monetary recoveries for injuries your student sustains in violation of your student's safety rights. Monetary recoveries for bullying, hazing, and other harassment have run into the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Get our skilled and experienced help.
Florida School Discrimination Cases
You, as a college or university student and your minor K-12 student, also have the right not to face discrimination in your Florida educational programs. Florida Education Code Section 1000.05 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or marital status. Federal Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 likewise protects you and your minor student from sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating or domestic violence, and stalking. These protections apply not only to equal rights in admission, participation, advancement, and graduation but also to protect you and your minor student against discriminatory discipline and ensure equal access to facilities, programs, and other privileges.
Florida schools enforce and even expand these anti-discrimination protections with codes of conduct, policies, and rules. For example, Miami-Dade County School Board Rules 6Gx13-4A-1.01, 6Gx13-4A-1.32, and 6Gx13-5D-1.10 prohibit discrimination and harassment against students based not only on the above characteristics but also gender, sexual orientation, color, ethnic or national origin, political beliefs, marital status, age, social and family background, language, and pregnancy. Miami-Dade County also maintains an Office of Civil Rights Compliance to enforce an elaborate Title IX policy.
Our attorneys have the skill, experience, and commitment to enforce these rights on your behalf or for your minor K-12 student. We are available across Florida to pursue your claims through the school's administrative procedures and state and federal agencies, and we can be in the courts if necessary. We can pursue injunctive relief to end the discriminatory practice affecting you and obtain monetary relief for significant violations of your rights. Get our help with discrimination issues.
Florida Student Rights & Free Speech
Students do not lose their First Amendment free speech rights when walking through the schoolhouse doors. You and your minor student continue to have free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom of expression rights at your Florida college or university and your minor student's Florida K-12 school. The Supreme Court of Tinker v Des Moines long ago recognized injunctive and monetary relief for students facing violation of their First Amendment rights. Florida school officials may only restrict student free speech when the speech materially and substantially disrupts the educational process, as the more recent Supreme Court cases Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier and Morse v Frederick have confirmed. See, for example, the Orange County Public Schools' Student Code of Conduct, assuring students of their free speech rights other than for disruptive conduct.
You and your minor student have other civil rights beyond your free speech rights under the First Amendment. The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments also protect you against unreasonable search and seizure while guaranteeing your due process rights in school removal proceedings. Violations of your constitutional and statutory rights can lead to civil money damages recovery under 42 USC Section 1983, as well as injunctive relief to end the unlawful practice. Let our attorneys help you or your minor student enforce these and other civil rights, including pursuing your claims for monetary damages.
Our Role Enforcing Your Education Law Rights
Our attorneys have the skills, experience, and commitment to strategically and effectively enforce the above rights and claims. When you retain us, we first notify the school of our appearance on your behalf or your minor student's behalf. Our appearance relieves you of the concern of communicating and advocating with school officials while alerting school officials that you are taking the enforcement of your rights most seriously. With our reputation and relationships with Florida school officials, we are often able to promptly negotiate the appropriate relief without resorting to formal procedures. But if school officials do not do as the law requires, we can invoke the school's formal procedures to ensure that we have a hearing at which to present your evidence and arguments.
If you have already lost your hearing, retain our attorneys to pursue school administrative appeals. If you have already lost your appeals, retain us to evaluate your right to court review and relief. We may also be able to negotiate alternative special relief through a general counsel's office or other oversight office. Do not give up until we have exhausted all formal and informal avenues and obtained the best possible outcome of your Florida education law issue.
Premier Florida Education Law Attorneys
If you face education law issues at your Florida college or university, or your minor student has Florida K-12 education law issues, you can do no better than to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team to pursue and enforce all claims and rights. Do not retain unqualified local criminal defense counsel, personal injury attorneys, or transactional attorneys who lack the necessary skill and experience. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our strategic and effective representation of disability rights, discrimination, harassment, bullying, hazing, free speech rights, or other education law issues.
