In April of 2024, the Department of Education approved New Title IX rules, which are scheduled to take effect on August 1, 2024. Our firm is closely monitoring ongoing challenges to these new rules in court, and is working hard to provide you the most up-to-date information. Click here to learn about the current state of Title IX and how we can help if you are facing accusations.
Missouri high school discipline for misconduct or academic progress issues can ruin your high school student's best prospects and discourage your student's growth and ambitions. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team for your student's Missouri high school defense. We are available in St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, Columbia, Independence, Lee's Summit, O'Fallon, St. Joseph, St. Charles, Blue Springs, St. Peters, Florissant, Joplin, Chesterfield, or any other Missouri location. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for the skilled and experienced Missouri high school defense your student needs.
Missouri High School Student Ambitions
As the parent of a Missouri high school student, you know the interests and ambitions your student has to move forward toward a flourishing life. Your Missouri high school student may look forward to attending one of the state's fine institutions of higher education or a college or university in another state, perhaps your own alma mater. Your student may alternatively have identified a trade or profession that will provide your student with a meaningful and rewarding career for your student's benefit and the benefit of your student's future family. Your student may alternatively plan to pursue charitable, non-profit, academic, religious, research, or scientific pursuits. Your Missouri high school student doubtless has some worthy ambitions. Don't let high school discipline discourage and dissuade your student from pursuing those ambitions. Get our help with Missouri high school student defense.
A Missouri High School Parent's Interest
You'd probably prefer to believe that your Missouri high school student can navigate effectively alone through the misconduct or academic progression issues your student currently faces. But you also very likely know better. High school students have not completed their development. They do not generally have the social, transactional, procedural, interpersonal, and advocacy skills of an adult, all of which may well be necessary for an acceptable outcome of their high school issues. They surely do not have the knowledge, education, and experience of our highly qualified attorneys to strategically invoke and deploy the state's protective procedures against unwarranted and unnecessary school discipline. Your interest as a Missouri high school student's parent is to ensure that your student has the appropriate adult and professional help so that the current misconduct charges or academic progress issues do not spoil your student's future. Let us help.
Missouri High School Discipline Adverse Impacts
When determining how best to help your Missouri high school student defend misconduct charges or overcome academic progress issues, you need to know how those issues could impact your student's education and future. Make no mistake: high school discipline can have severe adverse impacts on your student. The immediate impacts can include suspension and expulsion, with the concomitant loss of peer relationships and support. Your student could end up in an alternative disciplinary high school where instruction can be poor and academic outcomes worse. Your student may also lose admission to preferred college and university programs for which your student has worked. Depending on the nature of the alleged misconduct, your student may also lose access to vocational programs and certifications and professional licensure. High school discipline can also have mental, physical, social, and emotional effects, slowing your student's full development. Studies and reports document the potentially severe adverse impacts of high school discipline and the loss of important developmental opportunities. Let us help your student defend Missouri high school misconduct charges or academic progress issues for the best possible outcome.
Missouri's High School Discipline System
Missouri education laws empower your student's high school officials to impose crippling discipline, depending on the nature and reprehensibility of your student's alleged wrongs. Missouri Statutes Section 160.261 authorizes school officials to impose mandatory suspensions and expulsions for a wide range of misbehaviors. The same statute requires your student's Missouri school district to adopt and enforce a student conduct policy carrying out that severe discipline. Missouri Statutes Section 160.775 authorizes discipline for school bullying or harassment. Missouri Statutes Section 167.335 authorizes the state's school districts to establish alternative disciplinary high schools to which to expel students who disrupt the regular high school. Other Missouri school discipline laws authorize suspension, expulsion, or other discipline for drugs, weapons, gang activities, criminal misconduct, and violence in the school, among a wide range of other prohibited behaviors. Missouri certainly has a well-developed set of laws, rules, and procedures to empower your students. Missouri high school officials to suspend, expel, or otherwise hold your students accountable to the school's norms and standards for academic progress and behavior. Let us help if your student faces school discipline.
The Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education
The Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education is the state agency empowered to promote Missouri high school student discipline. The Department of Elementary & Secondary Education publishes abundant rules, regulations, policies, and procedures on student discipline. Do not doubt the state-level backing for your student's Missouri high school officials to suspend, expel, or otherwise discipline your student. The Department of Elementary & Secondary Education cites Missouri Statutes Section 160.261 for its regulatory authority to support local school districts in imposing student discipline. Missouri's Department of Elementary & Secondary Education has also adopted Show-Me Standards that high school students must meet for academic advancement, giving your student's Missouri high school another ground on which to discipline your student for academic failure. Your student's Missouri high school officials know that state agency officials will not only back up their authority to punish your student but may also hold the high school accountable to the state's disciplinary standards through annual reporting requirements. Let us help your student avoid the unfair, unwarranted, and unnecessarily harsh application of state rules and standards.
Missouri Local School District Authority
Your student's Missouri school district may also play a significant role in your student's disciplinary proceedings. Missouri Statutes Section 160.261 requires local school districts to adopt student conduct policies imposing student discipline. Your student's local Missouri high school will enforce the district's mandated student conduct policy. Your student's disciplinary proceedings may also advance to a district hearing. Our attorneys can represent your student at any of the state's school districts, including the Springfield R-XII School District, Rockwood R-VI School District, North Kansas City School District, Saint Louis Public Schools, Columbia School District, Lee's Summit R-VII School District, Wentzville R-IV School District, Fort Zumwalt R-II School District, Francis Howell School District, Parkway School District, Hazelwood School District, Blue Springs R-IV School District, Independence School District, Kansas City School District, Liberty School District, and other districts across Missouri.
Missouri Local School District Student Codes of Conduct
Under Missouri Statutes Section 160.261, Missouri's local school districts adopt and enforce student codes of conduct governing a wide range of student behaviors. If your student faces Missouri high school disciplinary charges, those charges are likely to arise under a student code of conduct like these examples:
- the Kansas City School District Code of Student Conduct imposes discipline in five levels of misbehavior and corresponding punishments;
- the Saint Louis Public Schools Student Code of Conduct defines infractions and discipline in four levels;
- the Columbia School District Student Code of Conduct defines dozens of disciplinary wrongs and
- the Hazelwood School District Student-Parent Handbook Guide contains a long list of prohibited misconduct.
Let us help defend your Missouri high school student against disciplinary charges or academic progress issues arising under a school district policy like those above.
Missouri High School Academic Misconduct
Your Missouri high school student's district very likely prohibits various forms of academic misconduct. Academic misconduct generally involves a student attempting to gain an undue academic advantage against the teacher's rules or academic customs and conventions. While high school students are just learning adult academic standards and conventions, your student's Missouri high school teachers and principal may hold your student accountable for academic dishonesty or cheating. Your student could face severe discipline, especially for deliberate, repeated, or disruptive actions that clearly violate teacher instructions or school rules. The Kansas City Public Schools, for instance, prohibit three forms of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, cheating, and falsifying academic documents. The Saint Louis Public Schools likewise prohibit cheating, which is defined as “the use, submission or attempt to obtain data or answers dishonestly, by deceit or by means other than those authorized by the teacher.” Your student's Missouri high school teachers, principal, and school may similarly define academic misconduct to include:
- unauthorized help, devices, or materials used on quizzes, tests, or exams;
- unauthorized help, devices, or materials used on homework assignments and problem sets;
- copying materials found online or provided by another student or person against instructions and without disclosing the source; or
- falsifying sources, data, results, or analysis in work submitted for academic credit.
Punishing Missouri High School Academic Misconduct
Missouri high school district student codes of conduct take different approaches to punishing academic misconduct. The Kansas City School District and Saint Louis Public Schools student codes of conduct generally place academic misconduct at a lower level of infraction, limiting the discipline the school may impose, usually to punishment short of suspension or expulsion. Your student may have to repeat work, do extra work, or suffer a reduced grade or loss of credit. The Hazelwood School District likewise labels academic misconduct as a low-level infraction with limited punishment. The Columbia School District, by contrast, does not clearly identify or limit the punishment for cheating. But in any case, repeating academic misconduct already punished can result in more severe discipline for refusal to obey school authorities or disrupting instruction. Beware the potentially severe punishment for academic misconduct.
Missouri High School Academic Discipline Impacts
You might mistakenly assume that Missouri high school academic misconduct is not a major thing because high school students are still learning academic rules and conventions. But your student could still lose teacher support, peer respect, and even grades or course credit for cheating, all of which could affect your student's academic progress. Schools also sometimes remove athletic, club, or intramural privileges, discouraging and embarrassing the student. Your student could also lose academic rank and awards that are necessary or helpful to college or university admission. Academic misconduct further implies your student's poor character for honesty and rule compliance, threatening college admission or even vocational training programs and certification. Academic discipline can have potentially severe impacts.
Missouri High School Academic Misconduct Defense
Let us help your Missouri high school student avoid the above threatening impacts with our skilled and sensitive defense services. We may be able to identify, preserve, and present electronic or other evidence showing that your student did not cheat. We may also be able to show that your student reasonably relied on instructions from teachers, aides, or other authorities. We may alternatively be able to negotiate remedial relief rather than disciplinary sanctions, keeping your student's academic record clean. Your goal should be to ensure your student does not have the burden of a disciplinary record. Let us help defend your student's academic misconduct charges.
Missouri High School Behavioral Misconduct
Your Missouri high school student may instead face behavioral misconduct charges. Behavioral misconduct does not involve a student's attempt to take undue academic advantage, to pass a course or exam, or to get better grades. Behavioral misconduct instead involves actions that threaten student or staff safety, school or individual personal property, or school operations and instruction. Missouri Statutes Section 160.261 requires your student's school district to adopt a student conduct policy that clearly authorizes behavioral misconduct discipline. Other statutes authorize discipline for specific misbehaviors. Missouri Statutes Section 161.504, for instance, authorizes discipline for drug possession. Missouri Statutes Section 161.650, for another example, authorizes discipline for school violence. But your student's behavioral misconduct charges will likely mostly rely on the school district's student conduct policy, like the Columbia School District Student Code of Conduct, prohibiting such misbehaviors as fighting, computer misuse, harassment, weapons possession, alcohol or drug possession, and a long list of other wrongs. Here is a list of typical behavioral prohibitions:
- attendance while influenced by alcohol or drugs;
- possessing tobacco or vaping products on school premises;
- displaying or distributing pornography;
- accessing unauthorized electronic files or websites;
- violent or extortionate acts toward other students;
- discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or disability;
- harassment using demeaning words or offensive actions;
- vandalism of school property;
- trespass on school property;
- theft or destruction of personal property on school premises;
- interfering with fire alarms or fire suppression equipment;
- possessing guns, knives, or other weapons on school premises;
- interfering with school buses or other school transportation;
- insubordinate or disrespectful conduct toward teachers;
- disobeying school authorities;
- chronic tardiness, absenteeism, or truancy;
- any of the above acts at school off-campus activities;
- inducing or soliciting other students to engage in the above acts;
- interfering with a disciplinary proceeding; and
- disobeying disciplinary sanctions.
Missouri High School Behavioral Discipline Impacts
The immediate impacts of Missouri high school behavioral discipline can be swift and severe. Your student's disciplinary officials may immediately suspend your student on an emergency basis for endangering or violent acts. Discipline may include longer-term suspension and even expulsion, requiring your student to attend an alternative disciplinary school or boot camp. Even if your student does not suffer suspension or expulsion, any discipline may lead to a loss of academic honors, class rank, athletic privileges, social privileges, club privileges, and teacher and peer respect and support. Your student may become withdrawn, demotivated, and even depressed, affecting academic progress. Colleges and universities considering your student's application for admission and vocational programs may consider your student's behavioral misconduct record as disqualifying for admission. Don't underestimate the damage to your Missouri high school student's academic and personal development of behavioral misconduct discipline.
Missouri High School Behavioral Misconduct Defense
Don't let your student suffer unnecessary and unwarranted impacts of unduly severe discipline for behavioral misconduct. Let our attorneys defend your student's Missouri high school behavioral misconduct charges. Missouri Statutes Section 167.161 guarantees your student due process of law before suffering long-term school removal or equivalent discipline. We can help you invoke these procedural protections to be sure that your student has fair notice of the behavioral misconduct charges, a fair opportunity to examine the school's evidence supporting the charges, and a fair hearing before an impartial decision maker at which we can present your student's exonerating and mitigating evidence while challenging the school's incriminating evidence and unsupported allegations. We have the skill and experience necessary to effectively defend Missouri high school behavioral misconduct charges.
Missouri High School Sexual Misconduct Charges
Missouri high schools must also enforce federal Title IX regulations prohibiting sexual misconduct in schools receiving federal taxpayer funding. Missouri Statutes Section 166.117 further requires Missouri K-12 school personnel to immediately report acts of sexual assault and other sexual misconduct for appropriate discipline. Missouri school districts routinely adopt and incorporate the federal Title IX protections to ensure their continued federal funding. The Kansas City Schools Code of Student Conduct is an example, expressly referring to the enforcement of Title IX standards while prohibiting sexual harassment and other Title IX sexual misconduct. The Kansas City Schools Code of Student Conduct prohibits not only sexual assault and other acts of sexual violence or intimidation but also “sexual jokes or comments, requests for sexual favors, and other unwelcome verbal conduct or a sexual nature.” Your student's Missouri high school may use the rubric of sexual harassment to discipline your student for a wide range of sexual conduct that high school students may not even know their student code of conduct prohibits.
Missouri High School Sexual Misconduct Discipline Impacts
Beware the especially severe potential impact of Missouri high school sexual misconduct discipline. While your student and your student's peers may still be learning adult norms and expectations around sexual banter and sexual conduct, a record of school sexual misconduct discipline can label your student as a threat to other students or school staff in future educational settings, or even to co-workers, customers, or clients in work settings. Your student could lose the opportunity for preferred college or university admissions, even if your student's sexual misconduct discipline was relatively mild, such as a reprimand, if the discipline nonetheless shows up on your student's school record. Schools can be reluctant to admit, and employers reluctant to hire, a person with a sexual misconduct record because of liability, morale, reputation, and similar concerns. Even mild high school discipline can cause your student to lose mentors, recommenders, references, and other social and network support on which your student may need to depend for a smooth transition out of high school.
Missouri High School Sexual Misconduct Defense
When facing a sexual misconduct charge, your student should have the benefit of the same Missouri school discipline due process assurances mentioned above for behavioral misconduct proceedings. But your student will also have additional protections from Title IX itself. Those Title IX protections generally include the right to fair notice of the charges, review of the investigation report, a formal hearing of the charges before an independent decision maker, and to present your own witnesses and cross-examine adverse witnesses at the hearing. You also have the Title IX right to our legal representation and advocacy throughout the proceedings. Let us help your student defend Missouri high school sexual misconduct charges. Your student has a lot on the line in those proceedings.
Missouri High School Academic Progress Issues
Academic progress may be your first concern when learning that your Missouri high school student faces school issues. You don't want your student to fail courses, get held back a grade, and suffer graduation delays, or even get dismissed and fail to graduate. Academic progress on schedule with your student's grade peers can be essential to your student's academic and social development. The Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education's Show-Me Standards set rigorous benchmarks for your student's academic advancement. If your student's Missouri high school teachers and other officials believe your student is not meeting those standards for lack of effort, preparedness, and obedience to teacher instructions, the school may determine to discipline your student for misconduct. Chronic failures may result in your student's referral to the district's alternative education provider. Missouri Statutes Section 167.071 further authorizes some Missouri school districts to employ a truancy officer to ensure that your student is meeting the district's attendance requirements, subject to school discipline. Other Missouri law authorizes discipline for chronic absenteeism or tardiness. Beware the risk of academic progress issues resulting in your student's suspension, dismissal, and referral to reform school or boot camp.
Addressing Missouri High School Academic Progress Issues
If your Missouri high school student's academic progress issues lead to misconduct charges, we can invoke the same procedural protections described above to ensure that your student has a fair hearing and avoids unnecessary and unwarranted school suspension or dismissal. If your student's high school simply points to academic failure issues to hold your student back a grade or deny your student's graduation, we may be able to invoke your student's federal IDEA law special education rights to obtain the school's services and accommodations. If your student's academic progress issues are because of another student's bullying, harassment, or hazing, we can invoke your student's substantive protections to help put a stop to the wrongs and get your student appropriate academic remedial relief. Let our highly skilled and experienced attorneys help your student address academic progress issues.
Missouri High School Disciplinary Sanctions
Missouri Statutes Section 160.261, requiring your student's school district to adopt a student conduct policy, authorizes your student's Missouri high school to impose a range of disciplinary sanctions up to suspension and expulsion. Missouri Statutes Section 167.161 likewise authorizes school suspension and expulsion for a range of serious behavioral and criminal wrongs. You have also seen above that your student's Missouri school district may maintain an alternative disciplinary school or contract with a disciplinary education provider to send your student to boot camp or reform school. School removal can devastate your student's teacher and peer relationships and undermine the structure, consistency, and value of instruction, leading to your student's academic failure. Lesser discipline, even so little as reprimands, school service, community service, restitution, and loss of privileges, can likewise interfere with your student's support network, self-confidence, and motivation. If your student faces misconduct or academic progress issues, let us help advocate for remedial relief rather than punitive measures. We may be able to negotiate or win remedial measures that only help, and in no way hurt, your student, leaving your student with a clean school record.
Missouri High School Disciplinary Sanction Issues
Parents helping their Missouri high school students navigate misconduct charges and academic progress issues do well not to be naive about the sanctions issues that can arise. Missouri high school principals and other disciplinary officials can have very human biases, prejudices, errors in judgment, and other failings. You may find that your student's school officials seem bent on imposing unduly harsh and punitive discipline when your student caused little or no harm and may need or benefit from remedial education, training, counseling, or even disability accommodations and services. Don't let your student's Missouri high school officials act arbitrarily and capriciously in imposing harsh disciplinary sanctions. Don't let them make an example out of your students. Let us help you show disciplinary officials the school's legitimate safety, security, and operational interests, your student's educational interests, and how remedial relief may align the two interests.
Limits on Missouri High School Discipline
If your student's Missouri high school disciplinary officials insist on imposing unduly harsh discipline on your student for misconduct, academic progress issues, or other issues better treated with remedial relief, we may be able to invoke Missouri school laws limiting discipline. For instance, Missouri Statutes Section 160.261 prohibits the school from imposing corporal punishment without the parent's written permission. Your student's high school disciplinary officials should not paddle, swat, or otherwise use force against your student as discipline unless you consent in writing. For another example, Missouri Statutes Section 160.263 prohibits your student's high school disciplinary officials from using confinement or restraint as discipline, except for a brief emergency. Your student's high school officials should not lock your student in a closet or room alone as punishment for misconduct. Your student's school district, like the Hazelwood School District, may also promise to employ restorative practices over discipline where appropriate. Your student also has a federal right to a manifestation determination review before the school changes your student's IEP placement for disciplinary purposes. We can help enforce these and other limits to Missouri high school discipline.
Missouri High School Student Defense Rights
Our highly qualified attorneys have the necessary knowledge, skills, and experience to invoke your Missouri public high school student's procedural protections and substantive rights to defend, defeat, or properly minimize school discipline. We can invoke Missouri Statutes Section 160.261's procedural protections and the other due process guarantees in Missouri education laws, rules, and regulations to ensure your student has a fair hearing before an impartial decision maker. We can identify, gather, and present your student's defense evidence while cross-examining adverse witnesses and challenging the school's other assertions, allegations, and evidence. If your student has already lost the formal hearing, we can invoke Missouri administrative procedures to appeal that decision to a higher authority for reversal of errors. We may also be able to obtain civil court relief in a lawsuit in the Missouri or federal courts, depending on the school's violation of due process or other legal errors. If you have already lost all hearings and appeals, we may still be able to obtain alternative special relief through our contacts and reputation with district general counsel offices and other oversight officials.
Premier Missouri High School Student Defense
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available in St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, Columbia, Independence, Lee's Summit, O'Fallon, St. Joseph, St. Charles, Blue Springs, St. Peters, Florissant, Joplin, Chesterfield, and other Missouri locations to defend your student against Missouri high school disciplinary charges and academic progress issues. Hundreds of high school students nationwide have wisely trusted our attorneys for successful defense of misconduct charges and academic progress issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your Missouri high school student's case.
