Kentucky offers great colleges, universities, and public and private primary and secondary school programs. However, those programs demand academic rigor in meeting state grade school standards and federal satisfactory academic progress requirements. Your failure or the failure of your minor student to meet those standards could result in school suspension or dismissal. Kentucky schools also maintain strict academic and behavioral standards, the violation of which could result in suspension or dismissal. Kentucky schools also have substantial obligations regarding disability accommodations and special education services and preventing harassment, discrimination, and other wrongs.
If you or your minor student faces Kentucky education law issues interfering with access to and full enjoyment of a valuable Kentucky school education, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team to enforce all education law rights. We are available in the public and private K-12 schools of Louisville, Lexington, Fayette, Bowling Green, Owensboro, Covington, Georgetown, Richmond, Florence, Elizabethtown, Nicholasville, Hopkinsville, Londonderry, Hudson, Bedford, Keene, Portsmouth, and other local school districts across the state. Our skilled and experienced attorneys are also available to represent students at the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, Bellarmine University, the University of Northern Kentucky, Western Kentucky University, Berea College, Centre College, Transylvania University, Georgetown College, and other Kentucky colleges and universities. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for the premier attorney representation necessary to preserve, enforce, and enjoy Kentucky school rights.
Common Kentucky Education Rights and Claims
Federal education laws and regulations, together with Kentucky state education laws, rules, and regulations, create a rich tapestry on which our attorneys can draw to help you or your minor student achieve your Kentucky school goals. Our attorneys can help you address academic probation or suspension and related academic progress issues, academic or behavioral misconduct charges threatening school suspension or dismissal, special education services and disability accommodations, and constitutional and civil rights. The most common issues our attorneys effectively address fall into the following broad categories.
Kentucky School Disability Accommodations
Federal law and Kentucky state commitments help students gain access to Kentucky school facilities and programs, notwithstanding substantial physical or mental impairments. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 USC §12131, requires Kentucky public school officials at all levels to reasonably accommodate students who exhibit qualifying mental or physical disabilities. Title III of the ADA, 42 USC §12182, requires the same from Kentucky's private school officials. ADA accommodations can clearly include a school's construction of handicap ramps, alteration of restroom facilities, and installation of elevators or lifts. Yet ADA accommodations can also require a school to modify its website and other technology for the visually impaired, provide sign language interpreters for the hearing impaired, supply other equipment, services, or accommodations, and permit service animals, among other measures, to ensure equal access.
Don't underestimate the ADA's power and reach when evaluating your accommodation needs or the needs of your disabled student. We can invoke procedures at your Kentucky college or university, such as the ADA compliance resources the University of Kentucky offers. We can alternatively invoke procedures at your minor student's Kentucky grade school, like the website accessibility procedures that the Lexington Public Schools offer. Don't let the school's failure or refusal to provide appropriate ADA accommodations interfere with your full benefit or your minor student's full benefit of the Kentucky educational program. Get our skilled and experienced help.
Kentucky Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) & 504 Plans
Your minor student in a Kentucky public primary or secondary school program also has the right to special education services for qualifying disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the primary federal law governing special education services in Kentucky schools receiving federal funding. The IDEA law requires schools to receive federal funding to provide disabled students with special education services that meet the standard of (FAPE). The Kentucky Department of Education maintains an Office of Special Education and Early Learning to ensure that the state's local public schools meet the IDEA law's requirements to receive federal special education funds. The IDEA law requires an individualized education program (IEP) for students with qualifying impairments, similar to the Section 504 plan the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires. You and your minor student have the right to attend and participate in IEP team meetings to determine your student's special education services.
Our attorneys can help you and your minor student enforce your student's IDEA law rights to special education services. Kentucky school officials must refer a student suspected of having an educational impairment for professional testing, diagnosis, and recommendation. That referral comes at the school's cost, not your cost. We can help you advocate with school officials for that referral and, if necessary, help you obtain competing referrals, diagnoses, and recommendations if the school's referral does not meet your student's needs for special education services. We are available to advocate for your student's special education services in the Jefferson County Public Schools, Fayette County Public Schools, Boone County Public Schools, Warren County Public Schools, Hardin County Public Schools, Kenton County Public Schools, Bullitt County Public Schools, Oldham County Public Schools, Madison County Public Schools, or any other Kentucky school district.
Kentucky School Discipline & Expulsions
Disciplinary charges alleging misconduct are another major issue that Kentucky primary and secondary school students and students at Kentucky colleges and universities can face. Kentucky schools have the obligation to comply with the state's School Safety and Resiliency Act, requiring school officials to adopt safety policies and programs. Kentucky school districts routinely adopt student codes of conduct to ensure that their schools meet state safety requirements. The Jefferson County Public Schools Student Support and Behavior Intervention Handbook is an example of prohibiting a long list of potential student wrongs. Students who violate their school's student conduct code could face suspension, expulsion, and transfer to a Kentucky alternative disciplinary school. Kentucky Statutes Section 158.150 authorizes local school boards to adopt alternative disciplinary programs, otherwise known as reform schools or boot camps. Kentucky colleges and universities also adopt and enforce elaborate student conduct codes, like the University of Louisville's Code of Student Conduct governing behavioral misconduct and the separate Student Code of Rights & Responsibilities governing academic misconduct.
You and your minor student should take Kentucky school disciplinary charges most seriously. Promptly retain us to represent you or your minor student by invoking the school's protective procedures. Charges are allegations, not findings. Charges also do not mean that discipline must follow. We may be able to disprove the charges with your exonerating evidence and cross-examination of adverse witnesses, or we may be able to mitigate any potential sanctions in favor of remedial relief, keeping the school record clean.
Kentucky School Bullying & Harassment
You and your minor student also have protection against bullying, hazing, and other forms of intimidation or harassment in your Kentucky school programs. Kentucky Statutes Section 158.148 and related provisions require the state's local school districts to adopt and implement policies prohibiting bullying. The Kentucky Department of Education assists local schools and districts with their anti-bullying programs. Kentucky's legislature has also enacted an anti-hazing law, prohibiting student organization initiation rites that recklessly or intentionally endanger student health or safety. The Jefferson County Public Schools Student Support and Intervention Handbook, for one example, accordingly prohibits both hazing and bullying. The University of Kentucky, for another prime example, likewise maintains a Hazing Prevention Policy.
Let our attorneys help you or your minor student address bullying, hazing, or other forms of harassment with your Kentucky school officials. If you or your student have suffered loss or injury from harassment that school officials should have prevented, we may be able to win a money damages recovery for that harm. Our attorneys also defend disciplinary charges relating to harassment in any form. Get the help you need from our highly qualified attorneys.
Kentucky School Discrimination Cases
You and your minor student also have rights against unlawful discrimination in Kentucky schools. The Kentucky Department of Education maintains a regulatory provision prohibiting discrimination based on “race, color, national origin, age, religion, sex (including sexual orientation or gender identity), or disability” when “sufficiently severe, pervasive, or objectively offensive” to affect the student's education or create a hostile environment. Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prohibits discrimination based on sex, including assault, harassment, stalking, and dating violence. Title VI similarly prohibits school discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in Kentucky schools receiving federal funds. Kentucky schools routinely enforce these anti-discrimination provisions through their student codes of conduct. For instance, the prohibition against sexual harassment is included in the Jefferson County Public Schools Student Support and Behavior Intervention Handbook.
Expect to find a similar Title IX policy and other anti-discrimination policies at your Kentucky school or your minor student's school. We can help you enforce those anti-discrimination rights through the school's administrative procedures and through state and federal agencies and civil courts as necessary. Money damages recoveries may also be available. Our attorneys also defend Title IX and other discrimination charges.
Kentucky Student Free Speech Rights
Kentucky public schools at all levels also owe you or your minor student free speech rights. Supreme Court cases like Tinker v Des Moines and Morse v Frederick hold that public schools across the nation must respect students' free speech and expression rights. You and your minor student do not lose First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door. Kentucky school districts, colleges, and universities accordingly recognize free speech rights in their student codes and policies. The Code of Student Conduct at the University of Louisville is an example, prohibiting interference with student free speech and expression rights. School protest policies, dress codes, noise ordinances, rules regarding student use of sidewalks and streets, and policies prohibiting wearing or other display of symbols, emblems, and affiliations can all implicate student free speech rights.
Our attorneys stand ready to help you or your minor student preserve, protect, and enforce free speech rights on your Kentucky school campus. We are also prepared to defend disciplinary charges arising out of your exercise of free speech or arising out of contraband discovered during the course of an unlawful search and seizure in violation of Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Kentucky School Protective Procedures
Constitutional due process rights also protect you or your minor student in the exercise and enforcement of the above substantive rights. Substantive rights define what you or your minor student may do at your Kentucky school. Procedural rights ensure that we can help you or your minor student enforce those substantive rights through your Kentucky school's administrative procedures. Kentucky Statutes Section 158.150 enshrines those constitutional protections in statutory mandates for local districts to provide students facing suspension or expulsion with due process. The Kentucky Due Process Protection Act extends that due process mandate to the state's public higher education institutions. Student conduct codes like the one in place at the University of Louisville recognize and respect those statutory and constitutional due process obligations.
Our Role Enforcing Your Education Law Rights
Our attorneys stand ready to invoke your Kentucky college or university procedures, or the procedures at your minor student's Kentucky grade school, to preserve and protect all educational rights and interests. We can appear on your behalf to advocate and negotiate informally with Kentucky school officials. We can also invoke formal hearing procedures to present exonerating and mitigating evidence, as well as challenge adverse evidence. If you have already lost your hearing, we can take available appeals, and if you have already lost appeals, seek alternative special relief through your Kentucky school's oversight channels.
Premier Kentucky Education Law Attorneys
Your best move when you or your minor student faces Kentucky education law issues is to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Education Law Team. Our highly qualified attorneys help with academic progress issues, disciplinary charges, money damages recoveries, disability rights, and other education law issues. We represent hundreds of students across Kentucky and nationwide. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our premier attorney representation.
