You have every reason to expect Montana's fine public schools to provide your student with a sound and strong high school education. Montana certainly has the public resources and commitment to do so. But if your student faces high school misconduct charges or unsatisfactory academic progress issues, then your student may not achieve the goals you and your student have for that Montana public school education. Indeed, disciplinary charges could instead derail your student's education and future. Don't hesitate to get the necessary help. The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available across Montana for your student's defense of disciplinary charges or academic progress issues, whether your student attends high school in Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, Bozeman, Butte, Silver Bow, Helena, Kalispell, Belgrade, Anaconda, Helena Valley, Havre, Whitefish, Livingston, or any other Montana city or town. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain our experienced and effective representation for your Montana high school student's best disciplinary outcome. Don't delay or procrastinate. Time may not be on your student's side. Let us seek an early and favorable resolution.
Your Montana High School Student's Future
When your Montana high school student faces misconduct charges or academic progress issues, you probably begin to think of your student's future. Doing so is wise because those charges or issues could significantly impact that future. As a responsible and involved parent, you know your student's ambitions. Those hopes and dreams likely include further education beyond high school, perhaps at your own college or university alma mater. Or your student may plan to enter a certain vocational or certification program for a job in a field of special interest, once again maybe your own field. Your student may also have plans to serve in volunteer, charitable, and leadership positions or pursue recreational opportunities and special relationships. High school misconduct or academic progress issues can affect all those plans and dreams. It is not too dramatic to say that a disciplinary record can change not only admissions, opportunities, support networks, and special relationships but also the course or trajectory of your student's life. Take stock of these risks when taking action in your student's defense. Retain us now to help.
Montana High School Parent Commitments
Your student isn't the only one with hope and dreams. You, too, have expectations for your student's educational progress and vocational and personal success. You see things for your student that your student may not be able to see. You know where your student may fit best in the world, and you rightly want to keep those doors open through your student's high school experience. You also want to see your students continue to develop academically, socially, mentally, and emotionally. A stable and traditional Montana high school program is the best way for your student to do so. High school years are a special transition time from youth to adulthood when your student needs your help navigating adult issues and commitments. High school misconduct charges are one of those adult issues for which your student is not fully prepared but instead needs your help. Your best step to fulfill your parental obligations and expectations is to retain us to represent and defend your student.
Montana High School Discipline Impacts
Short Term Disciplinary Impacts
Take stock for a moment of the potential short-term impacts from Montana high school discipline. The first thing that Montana high school officials may do in response to misconduct allegations is remove your student from the school, even if only for a short-term suspension. If the school does not remove your student, it may instead impose an in-school suspension that keeps your student out of the classroom. Any such interruption for disciplinary purposes can embarrass and discourage your student, affecting your student's reputation and motivation. If the school also imposes a ban on athletics participation or participation in club activities or school social events, your student may further withdraw, affecting academics and supportive peer and teacher relationships. Your student could also lose academic honors and awards and may have to repeat coursework or even lose credits and have to repeat courses.
Long Term Disciplinary Impacts
These and other impacts of school discipline can quickly accumulate into longer-term impacts. If your student suffers any discipline, then your student may have to disclose that discipline on college or university applications, applications to vocational programs, and job applications. If your student's discipline leaves a written school record, other programs and employers may discover that discipline, even if they do not otherwise require your student to disclose it. Colleges, universities, and employers generally have enough candidates to pass over a candidate with discipline on the record. Your student could lose admission to the school or program that your student had long desired and would otherwise have qualified for admission but for the discipline. Your student may also lose peer, mentor, and other supportive relationships on which your student depends for motivation. High school discipline can, in the worst case, change the course of a student's life. Let us help your student avoid those impacts.
Montana's High School Discipline System
Montana's legislature, like the legislatures of other states, has provided for a comprehensive system of public school discipline. Montana Code Section 20-4-302 authorizes the school teacher, principal, or superintendent to suspend and remove a high school student for disorderly conduct or other good cause. Another Montana statute, Section 20-5-202, authorizes school officials to suspend and expel a high school student according to appropriate procedures. Montana's legislature also requires the local public high school to expel students carrying firearms onto school premises, prohibit bullying, and prohibit tobacco use or possession on school grounds. The definition of bullying extends to harassment and intimidation. Montana school officials may also seek to hold parents responsible for the truancy of their high school students. You and your student will likely find many other restrictions in your student's local high school or district student code of conduct. Watch out for the reach of these disciplinary provisions. Your student is in a highly regulated environment when attending a Montana high school.
The Montana Board and Department of Education
Montana's legislature created the state's Board of Public Education to enact administrative regulations and otherwise govern the state's public school system. The Montana Board of Education has accordingly adopted Montana Administrative Rule 10-55-719, which requires local school boards to adopt policies protecting students from a range of intimidating, threatening, abusive, or disruptive student actions that interfere with the educational environment. The same administrative rule gives the local school board the authority to maintain and enforce the student conduct code. The Montana Board of Education also has authority to develop and implement academic content standards. The Board of Education relies on the Montana Office of Public Instruction to promulgate and implement those content standards. You and your student will likely deal with local district and high school officials, not with these state-level agencies and their officials. However, our attorneys can invoke the state-level rules and procedures and access their resources to help your student manage disciplinary charges and academic progress issues.
Montana Local School District Authority
As indicated above, Montana Administrative Rule 10-55-719 requires local school boards to adopt policies protecting students. Those district policies, and similar policies that the high school itself may adopt, are the ones that school and district officials will generally apply in a student disciplinary matter. They often take the form of student codes of conduct included in the student and parent handbook for the school. Our attorneys can help you locate, interpret, and apply the district policies and student code of conduct and communicate, advocate, and negotiate with district officials whether your student attends any school district across Montana, including its largest districts the Billings High School District, Helena Public Schools, Missoula High School District, Flathead High School District, Great Falls High School District, Bozeman High School District, Helena High School District, Hamilton Public Schools, Frenchtown Public Schools, or Corvallis Public Schools.
Montana Local School District Student Codes of Conduct
Your student's Montana school district or high school student code of conduct must comply with the state's statutes regarding the prevention of bullying, weapons, tobacco use or possession, and disruptive or threatening conduct in the school. But your student's code of conduct may include many other provisions having to do with things like fighting, interference with fire alarms, vandalism, trespass, misuse of school computers, and even student dress and student demeanor toward teachers and school administrators. The student codes of conduct can vary pretty widely. Your student's code of conduct may be similar to one of the following codes:
- the Billings Senior High Student Handbook includes a long Student Code of Conduct that includes nearly two dozen different prohibitions;
- the Missoula County Public School District publishes a relatively short and to the point Code of Conduct that prohibits only a few forms of misconduct but in broad language reaching any “inappropriate or offensive conduct”;
- the Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook includes a long Student Behavior Policy that covers a wide range of academic and behavioral misconduct.
You can see from these examples that Montana high schools may take differing approaches in their student codes of conduct, either enumerating a long list of prohibited acts or listing only general definitions to which to apply to a wide range of unspecified behaviors. In any case, though, your student can expect to find some authority in the student code of conduct for disciplinary action. Let our attorneys help you evaluate whether school officials have the necessary authority, evidence, and grounds. We can help your student raise the best possible defense to the misconduct charges.
Montana High School Academic Progress Issues
Montana high schools generally require a student to make satisfactory academic progress. The state's content standards and other requirements for high school graduation do not permit high schools to just pass a non-performing student along to the next courses and grade levels. If your student cannot meet academic benchmarks, then teachers may fail your student in the course, and the school may hold your student back a grade or deny your student graduation. Montana, like other states, tracks high school performance, holding high school teachers and officials accountable to the state's standards. That accountability may, unfortunately, encourage high school officials to turn your student's academic struggles into a disciplinary issue so as to attempt to remove your student from the classroom and school to an alternative high school. We can help you keep your student's academic struggles in the academic realm rather than letting them become disciplinary issues in which the school alleges insubordination, disrespect, truancy, or other exaggerated grounds.
Addressing Montana High School Academic Progress Issues
When the issue is academic progress, our attorneys may have additional grounds on which to keep your student in the traditional high school program and avoid school removal or other discipline. Montana high schools have the same obligations as high schools in other states to comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The IDEA law requires your student's Montana high school to identify students who qualify for disability accommodation and special education services. We can help you obtain a school referral for disability testing to get the required individualized education plan (IEP) in place. If your student already has an IEP, then we can help you seek its implementation or modification to overcome your student's academic progress issue. The IDEA law also requires the school to determine whether your student's disciplinary issue is the result of an unaccommodated disability or if the school intends to alter the IEP services or placement. We may have other grounds, such as bullying, harassment, illness, or injury, on which to advocate for your student's relief from academic progress issues.
Montana High School Academic Misconduct
Academic progress issues are one thing, while academic misconduct is another. Academic misconduct involves deliberate violations of academic norms and rules in the nature of cheating rather than merely academic struggles. If your student's Montana high school teachers or officials are accusing your student of academic misconduct, then your student needs our defense help. Academic misconduct findings can leave a stain of bad character on your student's academic record that could follow your student lifelong, interfering with college, university, or vocational program admissions, licensing, certification, employment, and other opportunities. Be wary of cheating charges. Do not unwisely minimize them. Instead, let us help your students defend and defeat them, avoiding discipline.
Definitions of Montana High School Academic Misconduct
The student code of conduct at your student's Montana high school likely has some definition of academic misconduct. The Billings Senior High School Student Handbook is an example. It imposes a Code of Academic Integrity that prohibits plagiarism and cheating while giving a lengthy definition of plagiarism that includes several examples. Yet Montana high school student codes of conduct do not always define academic misconduct. The Billings Senior High School Student Handbook, for instance, does not define cheating other than to describe it as an attempt to obtain an undue advantage. The Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook, by contrast, has an elaborate definition and several examples for cheating, including such things as using unauthorized aids on a test or assignment, copying another's work, altering graded work, giving test information to another student, turning in a purchased paper, or submitting the same work twice for credit without disclosure.
Punishing Montana High School Academic Misconduct
Montana high school officials can be lenient in a first cheating offense. They may treat a first-time cheater as in need of coaching and correction more so than punishment. The Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook, for instance, grants teachers “authority, with the direction and advice of the administration, to exercise their good judgment in applying a range of academic consequences for violations of this policy.” The implication is that the teacher may require the student to repeat the offending academic work and perhaps do extra academic work to discourage a repeat offense. But don't expect leniency from school officials on cheating charges, especially if circumstances aggravate the offense. The Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook, again for a good example, immediately provides that the school principal may impose a failing grade in the course and other sanctions for a repeat offense. If the cheating exposes confidential exam information, destroys the exam's value, involves other students, or disrupts instruction, then the penalties may be especially severe.
Montana High School Academic Misconduct Defense
Our attorneys know how to address and defend Montana high school academic misconduct charges. Sometimes, the accused student did not cheat. The student may have misunderstood instructions or even received conflicting instructions from the teacher or from aides. The student's violation may alternatively have been inadvertent rather than deliberate and flagrant. If, though, your student did commit a clear cheating offense, we may still be able to negotiate a remedial rather than punitive response, to keep your student's academic record clear. Let us help propose options that help rather than hurt your student while respecting the school's interest in academic integrity.
Montana High School Behavioral Misconduct
Academic progress issues and academic misconduct are often not the issue when Montana high school officials bring disciplinary charges. Behavioral misconduct is another, more common form of allegation in Montana high school disciplinary proceedings. Your student may not have done anything untoward in the academic program but may instead face accusations of having done something to endanger students, damage school property, or disrupt school operations. High school hijinks, shenanigans, or horseplay run amok can lead to behavioral misconduct charges. So, too, can obviously be serious wrongs like fighting, bullying, arson, theft, and vandalism. Montana high school officials can treat any such allegations with swift investigation and aggressive discipline, sometimes including referral to law enforcement for juvenile or criminal prosecution.
Definitions of Montana High School Behavioral Misconduct
As in the case of academic misconduct, Montana high school student codes of conduct may take varying approaches toward defining behavioral misconduct. Some codes offer only broad definitions, leaving it to high school officials to flesh out the detailed wrongs. Other codes publish long lists of behavioral wrongs, often while retaining a catch-all provision for other unspecified misbehavior. The Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook takes the detailed-list approach, naming and defining dozens of behavioral wrongs in a long alphabetical list, which is too long to summarize. The Missoula County Public Schools Code of Conduct takes the exact opposite approach, listing no behavioral wrongs other than drug or alcohol possession but offering a catch-all “inappropriate or offensive conduct” provision. In either case, with a specific or only general prohibition, your student deserves our skilled and experienced defense representation, given the generally serious nature of behavioral misconduct charges.
Punishments for Montana High School Behavioral Misconduct
If academic misconduct generally falls toward the lower offense levels, unless repeated, flagrant, or disruptive, you can expect behavioral misconduct to fall toward the upper offense levels, depending on certain factors. The more dangerous, damaging, destructive, and disruptive the behavioral misconduct, the more likely that your student will face school suspension and even expulsion to an alternative disciplinary high school. Arson, weapons possession, and gang activity are examples of offenses that Montana high school officials may not tolerate and may instead treat with a presumption of long-term suspension, if not also expulsion. Punishments, though, are generally progressive, meaning that your student's disciplinary officials at the high school or district level may impose anything from a warning or reprimand up to school or community service, restitution, all the way to school suspension, campus ban, and expulsion. That latitude to impose a greater or lesser sanction alone warrants that you retain us to advocate for lesser sanctions or no sanctions.
Impacts of Montana High School Behavioral Discipline
Keep especially in mind that behavioral discipline can carry significant long-term impacts, especially if the alleged misconduct reflects a character for dishonesty, violence, or corrupt morals. Colleges, universities, vocational programs, and employers are generally loath to admit applicants who have a record of violence or bad character, lest the applicant repeat the misbehaviors, harm people or damage property, and potentially give rise to school, program, or employer civil liability. Your student may lose precious and valuable opportunities while suffering other significant personal impacts.
Montana High School Behavioral Misconduct Procedures
Montana Code Section 20-5-202 guarantees your student due process protections in the event that your student's Montana high school intends to expel your student on misconduct charges. So, too, does the Constitution. Due process includes your student's right to fair notice of the charges and a fair hearing before an impartial decision maker. Our attorneys know how to invoke those procedural protections, which are not self-executing. Your student can't simply sit back, waiting for school officials to tell your student's side of the story. Instead, we can make timely answers to the charges, raise all defenses, gather your student's defense evidence, invoke the formal hearing, and appear at the hearing to help your student present exonerating and mitigating evidence while challenging incriminating evidence and allegations. If your student has already lost the hearing, then we can take available appeals to the district or state level. If you have already lost your student's appeals, we may still be able to negotiate alternative special relief through the district's general counsel's office or other higher officials.
Montana High School Sexual Misconduct Charges
Montana high school sexual misconduct charges can be even more serious than other behavioral misconduct charges. Sexual misconduct in the public schools generally falls within federal Title IX regulations requiring schools to protect against sexual harassment. Schools receiving federal funding, like Montana's public high schools, can lose that funding if they do not meet Title IX's requirements. If your student's Montana high school ignores sexual misconduct allegations, the school and its officials could also face stiff civil liability and other regulatory sanctions. These risks may cause your student's school officials to jump to conclusions and attempt to short-circuit the disciplinary process, railroading your student into crippling discipline. Don't let them do so. Let us help protect your student's future and reputation. Colleges, universities, and other programs and employers do not generally welcome applicants whose record includes sexual misconduct discipline.
Definitions of Montana High School Sexual Misconduct
The Title IX regulations just mentioned prohibit not only sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking but also sexual harassment. Sexual harassment occurs when a reasonable student finds that the accused student's sexual slurs, epithets, or advances, and other unwanted and offensive sexual words and actions make the educational environment so hostile as to interfere with the student's educational program. Montana high school student codes of conduct often refer to and incorporate Title IX regulations, definitions, and procedures. The Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook is an example code incorporating Title IX provisions. However, Montana high school student codes of conduct may also augment the regulatory definition by including other sexual misconduct in the prohibitions.
Punishment of Montana High School Sexual Misconduct
A Montana high school student found to have committed Title IX sexual misconduct can expect suspension or expulsion. The Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook just referenced makes clear that those forms of school removal, suspension, and expulsion are common and appropriate sanctions. Title IX regulations further authorize, and may even require, Montana high school officials to take emergency action to protect the putative victim student. That said, the Title IX regulations simultaneously offer relatively substantial procedural protections for the accused student. The Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook once again makes that assurance of due process for the accused student. Our attorneys can help your student invoke those procedural protections to gather and present your student's exonerating and mitigating evidence, challenge and even cross-examine adverse witnesses, and take all necessary appeals. Resort to a civil court challenge or alternative special relief through a general counsel's office may also be available if your student has already lost all hearings and appeals.
Montana High School Disciplinary Sanction Defense
Your Montana high school student may have an outright defense to the school's misconduct charges. If so, we can help invoke the available statutory and regulatory procedures to present that defense in the best light for your student's best possible outcome. However, your student may instead be responsible for some or all of the misconduct that the school alleges. Do not give up hope if that is the case. Our attorneys may be able to make a case for mitigating all or most of the sanctions. In many instances, we have been able to obtain a dismissal of the charges in favor or remedial or other non-punitive measures, even where the student had committed the alleged wrong.
We know the high school's interests. We also know the options your student's high school officials are most likely to accept. Your student's Montana high school student codes of conduct may even have a provision that we can invoke to aid in that presentation. Once again, the Glacier High School Student & Parent Handbook provides an example where the school commits to offering peer or adult mediation practices as a restorative measure in appropriate cases. Restorative practices seek to arrive at an agreement between the complainant and accused student for outcomes that will meet all interests. Let us invoke those theories and provisions to help your student avoid damaging discipline.
Premier Montana High School Student Defense
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available across Montana for your student's high school discipline defense. We are available in Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, Bozeman, Butte, Silver Bow, Helena, Kalispell, Belgrade, Anaconda, Helena Valley, Havre, Whitefish, Livingston, and any other Montana location to defend against any form of Montana high school misconduct charge or academic progress issue. Our attorneys have represented hundreds of students nationwide in successful outcomes for all kinds of school issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain us for your Montana high school student's disciplinary defense.
