High School Student Avoids Alternative Placement for Failure to Academically Progress
A high school junior in a suburban school of a South Central state faced a school principal's demand that the junior accept a transfer to an alternative disciplinary high school. The principal based his demands on the junior's failing and low grades and the principal's reluctance to advance the junior into the final senior year. The principal further alleged that the junior had a bad attitude and was lazy and that the alternative high school might stir the junior into a better attitude. The principal argued that the junior needed a change of scenery and would succeed in the alternative school. Our client's parents and junior student disagreed, believing that the junior's challenges related to an undiagnosed learning disability and that the unstructured alternative school environment would worsen, not improve, the junior's learning. The parents retained the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team when the principal refused to relent and informed the parents that they must appear for a disciplinary hearing seeking the junior's forced transfer. The Student Defense Team notified the principal of the lead defense attorney's appearance. We simultaneously requested an informal conciliation conference with the principal and the school district's disability accommodations officer. At the conference, the attorney pointed out the school's obligation to diagnose and accommodate the junior's learning disability. The attorney and parents further presented preliminary disability testing they had arranged, suggesting the junior's disability and need for accommodation. With the accommodation officer's urging, the principal canceled the disciplinary hearing and approved intervention of the school's disability team.
Middle School Student Gains Reinstatement After Out-of-School Misconduct Suspension
The parents of an eighth-grade student attending a private middle school in a Gulf Coast state retained the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team after the school suspended and removed the student for allegedly vaping or bringing vaping materials on school grounds. The student acknowledged that he had obtained vaping materials from an older friend but denied having brought the materials on school grounds. The student maintained that his eighth-grade friends who had learned of his materials had misinformed other students or other students had misinformed teachers and school staff who assumed that the student had vaped on school grounds. The Student Defense Team relied on a private investigator to contact the parents of the student's friends and gain statements or assurances from the parents and friends that none had seen or heard of the student having vaping materials on school grounds. On that basis, the lead defense attorney requested that school officials schedule the formal hearing that the school's suspension procedures promised. When the school notified the defense attorney of the school's retention of outside counsel, the defense attorney shared the defense information exonerating the student with the outside counsel. The school then reinstated the student on the outside counsel's recommendation. Our strategy of early investigation and informal presentation of exonerating evidence achieved the student's defense goal.
Elementary Student Avoids In-School Removal Invoking State Law
The parents of a fifth-grade student in a Central Midwest state retained the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team when the student's urban elementary school removed the student from the regular classroom to a special-education room and indicated the intent to keep the student there for the remainder of the school year. The removed student did not have a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental, emotional, physical, or learning disability. Nor did school officials maintain that the student needed disability accommodations in the special-ed room. The building principal and classroom teacher instead indicated that the student was disrupting the regular classroom, interfering with the other students' learning, and that the other students now needed to catch up without the unruly student's distractions. The Lento Law Firm's research team prepared a legal brief articulating the state's statutory law, rules, regulations, and cases prohibiting removal to special-ed rooms on the grounds the school alleged. The Student Defense Team further helped the parents get social work and psychology reviews confirming that the student was not endangering students or exhibiting anything other than developmental behaviors best accommodated and corrected with appropriate in-class interventions. The reviewing consultants provided reliable resources showing the correct behavioral interventions, none of which the school had yet tried. The lead defense attorney shared the reviews and resources with the district's general counsel, together with a written proposal for resolution that involved immediate reinstatement of the student in the regular classroom, with supportive behavioral interventions. The school subsequently notified that it had moved the student back into the regular classroom, where the student successfully completed the school year.
Middle School Student Avoids Expulsion on Misconduct Charges
The parents of a seventh-grade student in a Southwest Border state retained the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team to defend the student from fighting and bullying charges. The middle school had already suspended the student and removed the student on those charges, notifying the parents of a hearing seeking permanent removal. After the parents and Student Defense Team conferred over the nature of the charges and disputed evidence, they agreed on a strategy to make the best hearing record possible while offering remedial intervention as a compromise resolution. The Student Defense Team helped the parents obtain statements and information from parents, teachers, students, and school staff. That evidence, while acknowledging the student's anger and defensiveness issues, tended to show the student's general good character and discipline. The Student Defense Team helped the parents organize and present that evidence for consideration at the hearing. On the alternative intervention track, the Student Defense Team helped the parents identify counseling and behavioral intervention services, and schedule appointments with and even obtain preliminary reviews from those professionals. At the hearing's conclusion, the lead defense attorney submitted a proposal that the hearing panel either consider the additional intervention evidence in reaching its decision or hold a decision in abeyance while school officials consider the intervention proposal. The school subsequently notified our clients that it was reinstating the student on the condition that the parents and students follow through with the intervention plan. The parents gladly approved the school's acceptance of the parent's proposal. The student proceeded through the school year without further disciplinary removal.
Elementary Student Preserves Regular Enrollment Against Removal Proposals
The immigrant parents of a fourth-grade student in a Northeast urban state retained the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team after the student's suburban elementary school informed the parents of the school's intent to remove the student from the regular classroom for speech-language pathology services and language instruction. The immigrant parents, one of whom was a professor a local university had recently hired, maintained that their daughter was simply shy about her accent but had the English language knowledge and skills to do well in the regular classroom. They further maintained that pathology services were unnecessary and could stigmatize and discourage their daughter, as would removal for remedial instruction. The parents also maintained that the school was exhibiting a pattern of discriminatory behavior toward them and their daughter based on their immigrant status and foreign ethnicity. The parents and Student Defense Team agreed on a strategy of oversight review and intervention rather than invoking formal school protective procedures. The lead defense attorney arranged a videoconference with the parents, district general counsel, and school principal. The general counsel indicated at the videoconference that the district preferred avoiding charges of discriminatory treatment that could reach federal and state regulators and the public. The school principal agreed to retain the student in the regular classroom throughout the school year.
High School Student Successfully Appeals Long-Term Suspension
The parents of a high school student in a rural community of a Central Plains state retained the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team after the school suspended the student long term. The high school had initially removed the student from the school on weapons-possession charges. The charges alleged that the student had brought a hunting knife onto school grounds in the student's backpack, displaying the knife to other students in a threatening manner. Following state law and procedures, the high school held a formal hearing on the charges. Our clients presented substantial credible testimony from the student, parents, and student's friends that the object was not a hunting knife but a carving and cutting tool that the student had fashioned from an antler. Testimony further supported that the student had only mistakenly left the tool in the student's backpack and had not brandished it but only discovered it when other students were present. The hearing panel found otherwise and affirmed the school's proposed long-term suspension for the entire school year. The parents then retained the Student Defense Team. The lead defense attorney took an immediate appeal of the decision to the full district board. The board agreed with the Defense Team's analysis of the hearing record that the substantial weight of the evidence was in our client's favor and that the contrary decision reflected bias. The board reinstated the student and dismissed the charges.
Elementary Student Gains Reinstatement After Long-Term School Removal
The parents of a third-grade student formerly attending an urban public school in an Upper Midwest state retained the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team to evaluate options to gain the student's reinstatement in school after the student had been out of school for the last half of the prior school year. School officials had removed the student based on a mix of allegations involving physical assaults, inappropriate sexual touching, disruptive behavior, and failure to benefit from classroom instruction. School officials had sent instructional materials home with the student, indicating that teachers and staff were available for consultation to support home learning. The parents expected the student's reinstatement the next school year, but as the new school year approached, school officials indicated that they would not accept the student back. The Student Defense Team worked with the parents to obtain the student's complete school records for educational consultant review. The consultant produced a report identifying and documenting several of the student's intervention needs, including evaluation for mental, emotional, and learning disabilities. The Student Defense Team prepared a presentation of that report, the supporting documentation, and a legal brief articulating the school's responsibility to provide evaluation services. The Team's lead attorney presented those materials to the school principal with copies to the district's superintendent and chief accommodations officer. The school subsequently notified our clients that the student was welcome back at school at the start of the new school year on the further understanding that the school would be providing appropriate evaluation and intervention services.
Middle School Student Avoids Academic Misconduct and Other Findings
The parents of an eighth-grade student at a suburban Northeast middle school retained the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team after the school served a notice on the parents for a hearing seeking transfer of the student to an alternative program for academic dishonesty, truancy, tardiness, insubordination, and other charges. The school alleged that the student lied about completing coursework, cheated, attempted to cheat, encouraged others to cheat on exams, skipped classes, and disrespected teachers by disrupting the classroom. The parents acknowledged that their student had issues with the school, its teachers, and its administrators. But our clients maintained that the school had failed to prevent bullying of their student and that teachers had actively encouraged disrespect for the troubled student. The parents and Student Defense Team evaluated the best options for the student's progress. They agreed that another traditional public school, nearer to the school the student had attended, could give the student a fresh start among greater numbers of students from the student's own demographic. The parents and Defense Team confirmed that the new school's principal would gladly accept the student's transfer but could not do so with misconduct charges pending. The lead defense attorney thus proposed to school officials that they dismiss the misconduct charges in favor of the student's transfer. The school officials agreed, and the Defense Team drafted a resolution agreement confirming and implementing the resolution.
