Indiana schools at all levels, from K-12 programs to colleges and universities, keep a close eye on students. Indiana schools impose a thicket of rules, conduct codes, policies, and regulations, not only to keep basic order but also to closely shape student academic conduct and common behavior. If you or your minor student break one of those rules or codes, whether through academic failure, academic misconduct, or behavioral misconduct, you could face serious disciplinary charges. But on the other hand, your Indiana school may, on its own, fail to live up to its many statutory and regulatory obligations. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team if your minor student faces issues in the public or private schools of Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Gary, Marion, West Lafayette, Bloomington, Decatur, South Bend, Evansville, Carmel, Noblesville, Terre Haute, Kokomo, Elkhart, or other districts, or if you face issues at Indiana University, Indiana State University, Purdue University, the University of Notre Dame, Ball State University, Valparaiso University, or another Indiana college or university. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for help from our highly qualified attorneys.
Common Indiana Education Rights and Claims
Indiana law provides you and your minor student with substantial rights and claims when enrolled in Indiana school programs. Federal education laws also apply across Indiana. Our Education Law Team attorneys can help you or your minor student enforce all state and federal education law rights and claims to preserve and protect your best interests. Don't let your Indiana school ignore your rights. Get our help on the following issues or other Indiana education law issues.
Indiana School Disability Accommodations
You and your minor student should have full access to Indiana school programs at all levels, notwithstanding any qualifying disability. Indiana schools are subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), just like schools in other states. Indiana schools at all levels maintain ADA offices and ADA compliance programs that our attorneys can invoke to help you or your minor student with disability rights issues. See, for example, the ADA compliance program at the Central Noble Community Schools and the ADA coordinator at Purdue University. The ADA requires schools to reasonably accommodate students with qualifying disabilities, both public schools under ADA Title II, 42 USC §12131, and private schools under ADA Title III, 42 USC §12182. You may think of the ADA as applying only to handicap ramps and wheelchair-accessible bathrooms. However, the ADA also ensures that you or your student have appropriate services like sign-language interpreters, web services for the visually impaired, and equipment like character readers.
Let our attorneys help you or your minor student gain the access or services you need to enjoy all the benefits of your Indiana school program. The ADA generally requires school officials to engage in an interactive process to determine the reasonableness of the accommodation you need and request. Our attorneys can work with those school ADA coordinators and other officials, with the help of our forensic consultants, to ensure your educational access. We can also help enforce disability rights as a defense to academic progress and behavioral issues in appropriate cases.
Indiana Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) & 504 Plans
The educational disability rights that your minor student enjoys in Indiana K-12 schools include the right to special education services. To qualify for the substantial federal funding available for special education services, the Indiana Department of Education maintains a Special Education Office to help local schools and districts with their special education programs. Our attorneys can help you reach school, district, and Indiana state agency officials to enforce your student's rights under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. These federal laws ensure the availability of special education services in Indiana K-12 programs. Your student's school officials must conduct a child find program that refers your student for evaluation, diagnosis, and services recommendation if exhibiting a qualifying impairment.
Let us help you ensure that school officials follow through on their IDEA law and Section 504 obligations. The IDEA law entitles your student to an individualized education program (IEP), negotiated with your involvement, while Section 504 offers a similar plan. We can attend IEP team meetings, appeal IEP decisions to district officials, and otherwise help ensure that your student's school is following the mandated IEP. We can provide these services in the West Lafayette Community Schools, Carmel Clay Schools, Zionsville Community Schools, Brownsburg Community Schools, Hamilton Schools, Westfield-Washington Schools, or any other district throughout Indiana.
Indiana School Discipline & Expulsions
Indiana school suspension and expulsion can be another significant issue that you or your minor student face. K-12 schools throughout Indiana maintain policies to punish unsatisfactory academic progress, academic misconduct, and behavioral misconduct with probation, suspension, and transfer to alternative disciplinary programs. See, for example, the Student Code of Conduct for the Indianapolis Public Schools, addressing cheating, dishonesty, drug or alcohol possession, fighting, insubordination, trespass, and a host of other disruptive or disobedient actions. You can expect similar codes of conduct at your Indiana college or university. See, for example, the Indiana University Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, & Conduct.
Our attorneys have helped hundreds of Indiana students and students nationwide successfully defend and defeat disciplinary charges under student codes of conduct. You or your minor student may have any number of available defenses to the disciplinary charges. Do not misconstrue a charge as a finding of wrong. A charge is only an allegation, not a finding. We can invoke the available procedural protections to show either that no wrong occurred, you or your minor student were not responsible for the wrong, no harm resulted from any de minimis violation, or you or your minor student promptly corrected the harm as soon as realizing the violation. We know how to make your best defense based on the available exonerating and mitigating evidence.
Indiana School Bullying & Harassment
Bullying, hazing, and harassment are other common issues not only in Indiana but across the nation. Indiana, like other states, has given special attention to prevent and punish bullying, adopting its Student Safety Reporting law, Indiana Code Section 20-34-6-1. That provision and other laws, rules, and regulations require your minor student's local school and district to adopt anti-bullying measures. For example, the Indianapolis Public Schools' anti-bullying commitment is seen in its Student Code of Conduct. Indiana also has an anti-hazing law codified in Indiana Code Section 35-42-2-2.5. Your minor student's Indiana K-12 school and your own Indiana college or university must not permit student organizations to engage in dangerous or reckless initiation rites. For example, the Indiana University Code of Student Conduct expressly prohibits hazing.
Your minor student can suffer significant academic progress issues and personal harm from school bullying, hazing, and harassment. Don't let school officials ignore their obligations under the above laws, and don't let them blame your student for absences, tardiness, or academic progress issues that are due to bullying or harassment of your student by others. Let our attorneys help you enforce your rights or your student's rights. We can also help you pursue a money damages recovery for any harm resulting from bullying, harassment, or hazing that school officials should have prevented and punished. Our attorneys are also skilled at defending bullying, hazing, and harassment charges.
Indiana School Discrimination Cases
You and your minor student also have the right to be free in your Indiana schooling from discrimination based on sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, and other protected characteristics. The federal Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits sex discrimination in education, including sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, and dating violence. Other state and federal provisions prohibit other forms of discrimination. Indiana K-12 programs, colleges, and universities all have the obligation to protect you or your minor student from these harms. They routinely promise those protections in their student conduct codes. See, for example, Indiana University's policy against discrimination, harassment, and sexual misconduct. These anti-discrimination laws apply not only to gaining admission to school but also to equal opportunity for advancement and school-related housing, transportation, and other services, as well as non-discriminatory treatment in discipline.
Let our attorneys invoke your school's anti-discrimination commitment and procedures to enforce your rights. Your Indiana college or university and your minor student's Indiana K-12 school will have a Title IX coordinator or equivalent official with whom we can advocate and negotiate and Title IX procedures we can invoke to enforce your rights. See, for example, the Indianapolis Public Schools Code of Conduct, assuring students of a Title IX coordinator and office to protect those rights.
Indiana Student Free Speech Rights
While Indiana schools closely regulate student conduct, students don't lose their First Amendment free speech and free expression rights at the schoolhouse door. We can also help you or your minor student preserve and enforce these First Amendment and other civil rights. The Supreme Court, in cases like Tinker v Des Moines and Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier, has held that students retain their freedom of speech, association, and expression rights in public schools. School discipline for insubordination, disobeying school directives, or dress code violations can implicate these freedom rights. You or your minor student may face school suspension or expulsion for having participated in a peaceful protest, taken an unpopular view in an academic assignment, or worn a button, T-shirt, or insignia identifying with an unpopular cause. We can help defend those charges based on First Amendment rights.
The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments can also protect you or your minor student against unreasonable search and seizure and against discipline for matters discovered in violation of those rights. Locker searches, backpack or purse searches, searches of a dormitory room or student vehicle, and student pat downs or surveillance in private spaces can all violate constitutional rights. Let us help you defend disciplinary charges by relying on these rights and seek monetary damages under 42 USC Section 1983 for substantial violations.
Indiana School Protective Procedures
You and your minor student also have a constitutional right to due process when facing long-term suspension or dismissal from an Indiana public K-12, college, or university program. Due process guarantees fair notice of the school's disciplinary charges and a fair hearing before an impartial decision maker. Indiana law, rules, and regulations supplement these constitutional guarantees. The special education provision 511 Indiana Administrative Code 7-45-3, for instance, guarantees a due process hearing before an independent hearing officer whenever a substantial dispute arises over special education rights. Indiana school codes, policies, and procedures carry out those due process protections. See, for example, the elaborate protections of the Purdue University regulations governing student conduct, disciplinary proceedings, and appeals.
Our Role Enforcing Your Education Law Rights
Our attorneys have the substantial skill and experience to strategically invoke Indiana K-12, college, or university procedures for the best outcome for your matter or your minor student's matter. Beware of retaining unqualified local representation such as a criminal defense lawyer or personal injury attorney. The court rules for those matters differ from the administrative rules for Indiana school matters. The laws are also different, and the expectations of your Indiana school officials will differ from the expectations of court officials. Our attorneys know how to invoke academic and administrative procedures for early voluntary resolution where possible. If we cannot resolve your matter informally, then we can invoke the hearing procedures to present your best defense. We can also appeal if you have already lost your hearing or seek court relief if you have already lost appeals. Special alternative relief may also be available through a general counsel's office.
Premier Indiana Education Law Attorneys
If you or your minor student face Indiana school, college, or university issues with academic progress, disability accommodations, special education services, discrimination, bullying, harassment, hazing, or other education law issues, then retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team for the best possible outcome. We help hundreds of students across Indiana and nationwide. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our skilled and experienced representation.
