As a dedicated and concerned parent, you care deeply for your Nebraska high school student's academic growth and mental, emotional, and physical well-being. You know that your student's high school misconduct charges or academic progress issues threaten that growth, development, and well-being. Your best step in this situation is to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. We are available to help you and your student in Omaha, Lincoln, Bellevue, Grand Island, Kearney, Fremont, Norfolk, Hastings, Columbus, Papillon, North Platte, La Vista, Scottsbluff, South Sioux City, Beatrice, or any other Nebraska location. Preserve and protect your student's future. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your student's matter and get the help you need for your student's best possible outcome to Nebraska High School disciplinary issues.
Your Nebraska High School Student's Future
Your Nebraska high school student doubtless has laudable educational, vocational, and social ambitions. Your student may have a college or university program your student hopes to attend or a vocational program to enter. Your student may have a job and career in mind in a specific profession, trade, or business. Your student may also desire long, warm, and stable relationships with peers and mentors, on which to draw for support and inspiration, even to marry and have children, and to explore and adventure. Your student surely prefers a good reputation for good character, trust, integrity, and reliability. Your student's Nebraska high school education is the foundation for all those things and more. Think back to your own high school days and how important they were to your growth and development. You surely want the same for your students.
Nebraska High School Discipline
Your student has all of the above things at stake when facing Nebraska high school misconduct charges or academic progress issues. Nebraska high school discipline, like discipline in high schools in other states, can include not only warnings, cautions, and corrections but also restitution, community or school service, in-school and out-of-school suspensions, right up to school expulsion, and alternative disciplinary placement in a reform school or boot camp. Your student should receive notice of the pending charges and issues in time for you and your student to retain us to respond. Your student's Nebraska high school and school district will have some form of procedure that we can invoke to advocate for your student's best interest, keep your student's record clear of discipline, and preserve your student's future.
Nebraska High School Parent Commitments
A parent continues to play a critical role in their high school student's progress and development. Of course, your involvement meant everything to your elementary student's development. However, your student still needs you in high school because your student is still far from mature physiologically, socially, and emotionally. Your student very likely won't have the knowledge, skill, experience, or judgment to do the right things when facing disciplinary charges. Your student won't know the procedures or consequences. Your student won't have the strategic sense or know the available options that high school disciplinary officials will often consider and may accept. And your student won't likely have the communication, negotiation, and diplomatic skills to convince school officials of the right and best action.
Our attorneys know the concerns and requirements of disciplinary officials. We also have the reputation and relationships to convince school officials to take our proposals and actions seriously. We also know your student's goal when facing Nebraska high school misconduct charges or academic progress issues, which is to avoid crippling discipline. And we know how best to get there. Your best move in this situation is to retain us to work closely with you for your student's recovery from your student's current Nebraska high school issues.
Nebraska High School Discipline Short-Term Impacts
Nebraska high school misconduct charges and academic progress issues can have immediate impacts on your student's growth, development, and well-being. Nebraska high school discipline may mean prompt school removal or, if not outright suspension, then in-school suspension and removal from the regular classroom. Any removal from the regular classroom immediately eliminates the structure on which high school students depend. Removal eliminates the direct instruction, observation, and expectations of the classroom teachers and the peer support and interactions. Your student has persevered through high school in large part because of that support and structure, as well as those expectations. Discipline often also means the loss of privileges to participate on sports teams and in recreational and social events. Once again, the loss of those co-curricular and extracurricular activities can immediately demotivate, distract, and discourage your student from persevering, compounding the issues your student already faces.
Nebraska High School Discipline Long-Term Impacts
The long-term impacts of Nebraska high school discipline can be every bit as severe. Once discipline interrupts your student's regular education in the traditional classroom, your student's academic records are likely to reflect that interruption, whether in low or failing grades, loss of class rank and academic awards and honors, and delay in graduation. Your student may lose the ability to qualify for a preferred vocational program or gain admission to a preferred college or university. Your student may also lose the references, recommendations, advice, and other support of teachers, advisors, and mentors. Your student also won't have the same standing and relationships among peers and may lose critical peer and network support. Long-term impacts can include job loss, inability to qualify for professional licenses or vocational certifications, and loss of careers. Educators study and report the many adverse impacts of school discipline. Our role is to help your student avoid those impacts so that your student can continue to progress and develop toward the good life you and your student both expect and desire.
Nebraska High School Disciplinary Authority
Nebraska's state legislature has adopted a School Discipline Act granting all the authority necessary for your student's high school officials to impose discipline right up to school suspension and expulsion. Nebraska Statutes Section 79-255 defines the purpose of the state's School Discipline Act as to ensure the protection of students in an “orderly and effective educational process.” Nebraska Statutes Section 79-264 authorizes the school principal to immediately remove your student from the classroom to accomplish that end. Nebraska Statutes Section 79-265 authorizes the removal of any violation of school rules. Nebraska Statutes Section 79-267 authorizes the school principal to extend that removal to a long-term suspension or expulsion on any one or more of a long list of grounds. Those grounds are “repeated violations” that “constitute a substantial interference with school purposes.” Thus, your student's school principal has virtually unbridled authority to discipline your student over violations of school rules, not just for the most serious wrongs like weapons possession in school.
The Nebraska Department of Education
Nebraska's School Discipline Act gives the Nebraska Department of Education the role of ensuring appropriate discipline of high school students. Nebraska's Department of Education has carried out that authority with an administrative regulation governing the school environment and a regulatory scheme, codified in Nebraska Administrative Code Title 92, Chapter 17-001 et seq., for alternative disciplinary high schools. Nebraska Statute Section 79-760.01 further requires the state's Board of Education to adopt academic content area standards for the Department of Education to measure and enforce at the high school level. Those standards may be the basis for the academic progress issues your student faces. Your student's Nebraska high school cannot generally advance students without showing that a student can meet those content area requirements.
Nebraska Local School District Authority
You've seen that the Nebraska Department of Education and the Board of Education play high-level roles in high school conduct rules and academic standards. You and your student, though, will deal instead with local school district officials and high school officials. The Nebraska legislature has given those local officials the authority to regulate student conduct and impose discipline up to suspension and expulsion. Nebraska Statutes Section 79-262 requires each local school district board to adopt a student code of conduct to carry out the board's duty to regulate student conduct. The statute requires that the rules be “clear and definite” and further requires that the high school distribute the rules to students and parents. Our skilled and experienced attorneys can help you and your student deal with local district and school officials in the Omaha Public Schools, Lincoln Public Schools, Millard Public Schools, Papillion-La Vista School District, Elkhorn Public Schools, Grand Island Public Schools, Bellevue Public Schools, Gretna Public Schools, Westside Community Schools, Kearney Public Schools, Fremont Public Schools, Norfolk Public Schools, or any other Nebraska school district.
Nebraska Local School District Student Codes of Conduct
Each Nebraska local school district or high school may adopt its own student code of conduct as long as the code complies with the state's specific requirements for provisions prohibiting weapons and drugs in school, bullying, hazing, and other misconduct. Your student's high school may have a student code of conduct like one of the following codes:
- the Omaha Public Schools maintain a Student Code of Conduct for all of the district's high schools, including four levels of violations, each with its own punishments;
- the Westside Community Schools, also known as District 66, maintain a Student Code of Conduct listing no fewer than 27 punishments up to suspension or expulsion;
- the Elkhorn Public Schools maintain a High School Student Handbook that includes Student Conduct Standards with a long list of prohibited actions together with progressive punishments.
Our attorneys can help you and your student obtain and evaluate the high school's student code of conduct, like one of the above codes, to ensure that the district and school follow their own rules and procedures, together with the state statutes and regulations. We can put the above authority to your student's strategic advantage in advocating and negotiating the best possible outcome.
Nebraska High School Misconduct Categories
The punishments your student may face, and the evidence and procedures for our defense of your student may depend on the type of misconduct or disciplinary proceeding your student faces. Nebraska high school student issues generally fall into one of the following four categories:
- academic progress, involving your student's ability and willingness to progress forward through the educational program;
- academic misconduct involving the integrity of your student's coursework;
- behavioral misconduct, involving your student's actions in and around the school, not directly involving coursework; and
- sexual misconduct, relating to actions involving sexual touching or with sexual motive or intent.
The following sections address these four categories in further detail. Our attorneys have the knowledge, skill, and experience to help your student with any of these issues.
Nebraska High School Academic Progress Issues
When you think of high school challenges, you may first think of academic progress. Failure to academically progress with passing grades in core courses can mean that your student gets held back a year, having to repeat a year while falling behind peers. Yet failure to academically progress can also suggest to school officials that your student is insubordinate, truant, disruptive, or otherwise deserving of school removal. Academic progress issues can lead to disciplinary charges, suspension, expulsion, and placement in an alternative disciplinary school. Beware of academic progress issues. Get our help.
Nebraska High School Academic Standards
Nebraska high school officials cannot simply pass every student from one grade level to the next and through graduation without attending to the level of their academic performance. The Nebraska Board of Education's academic content area standards, mandated under Nebraska Statute Section 79-760.01, require your student's high school to measure your student's performance to hold your student accountable to those state standards. If your student falls behind, the school should provide remedial education and may owe disability accommodation and services. Yet high school officials can be sensitive to the school's reported performance, the school's reputation, and the cost and effort of special services. School teachers and principals may instead blame your student's struggles on your student's conduct, character, or motivation so that they can remove your student, turning a remediation issue into a disciplinary issue.
Addressing Nebraska High School Academic Progress Issues
When the question comes to academic progress, our attorneys may have extra tools to use and procedures to invoke to obtain relief for your student from disciplinary charges. Federal and state laws grant students certain rights around educational disabilities. For instance, the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) may require that your student's school provide accommodations and equipment for your student's equal access to educational facilities and programs. Likewise, the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) may require that your student's school provide special accommodations and services under an individualized education plan or program (IEP). If your student already has an IEP in place, the school must conduct a manifestation determination review before changing your student's placement if the school alleges your student's misconduct. Our attorneys know how to address academic progress issues to your student's best benefit, using these and other laws, rules, and procedures.
Nebraska High School Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct is a different issue that Nebraska high school students can face, resulting in the worst cases in suspension or expulsion. Academic misconduct doesn't involve academic failure. Instead, it involves some form of academic dishonesty, like cheating. In the first instance, high school teachers and principals may treat academic misconduct as a learning opportunity more so than a cause for severe discipline. They may assume or infer that your student was unfamiliar with academic norms and customs, made innocent errors, or took what looked like reasonable shortcuts. If, though, a student repeats the academic misconduct, deliberately violates a clear instruction, involves other students in the cheating, or destroys the value of confidential materials like exam answers and scoring keys, then school officials may treat the misconduct not with remedial measures but instead with disciplinary punishment. For these reasons, beware of academic misconduct charges. They could result in severe punishment and a black mark on your student's academic record.
Definitions of Nebraska High School Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct may fall under that heading or under headings like scholastic dishonesty, academic dishonesty, cheating, or plagiarizing. The Omaha Public Schools Student Code of Conduct, for instance, calls it “cheating or plagiarizing.” The Westside Public Schools Student Code of Conduct similarly prohibits “plagiarism or cheating, or other academic dishonesty.”
Academic misconduct generally involves a student taking some form of undue advantage, violating a teacher's instruction, school rules, or academic norms, customs, or conventions. The rules and requirements may appear on the assignment or exam, in a teacher's course syllabus, or in a school or department document, or may simply be according to academic customs. Common forms of academic misconduct may include:
- using unauthorized materials or devices for assistance with an exam;
- spying on another student's exam answers or getting outright help from another student with an exam;
- getting help from a parent, tutor, or friend on a homework assignment that was supposed to have been done without help;
- copying another's work without attributing the credit according to citation custom;
- changing answers, scores, or grades on work already completed and graded.
Punishing Nebraska High School Academic Misconduct
As indicated above, a single, simple instance of a student violating an academic rule may result only in correction without further punishment. The Elkhorn High School Handbook, for instance, provides for punishing cheating with a zero on the exam or work and referral for other review. However, the stakes can be much higher, right up to school removal, if the accused student deliberately violates a known rule, involves other students, or destroys the value of a confidential resource. The Elkhorn High School Handbook warns that “depending upon the circumstances, additional assignments or time in the form of detentions, after hours, or suspensions may be assigned to the student.” And it further warns that “[s]trict sanctions will be enforced if a student steals a test.” Academic misconduct is not the sort of record that a high school student wants to leave, as it may affect preferred college or university admissions or other key opportunities.
Nebraska High School Academic Misconduct Defense
Nebraska high schools may offer little in the way of due process procedures if the allegations of academic misconduct result only in oral reprimands, repeated work, or other corrections without leaving a record of discipline. But if your student faces a reduced or failing grade, loss of privileges, loss of class rank or academic awards, or school suspension or expulsion, leaving a record of discipline, then the school should offer a hearing and appeal procedure. Our attorneys can invoke those procedures to challenge the accusation while advocating and negotiating for remedial relief rather than punitive sanctions. Our goal would be to keep your student's record clear. If you and your student have already lost the hearing and appeals, let us explore whether we can obtain alternative special relief through the district's general counsel.
Nebraska High School Behavioral Misconduct
Nebraska high school students may more commonly face behavioral misconduct allegations. High school is a time of exploration, when students may test the limits of their capacities and the boundaries of school rules and norms. That rebellious or adventurous behavior may include experimentation with drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or sexual contact, possession of weapons or pornography, trespass on or vandalism of school property, and misuse of computers and other electronic devices, including cyber-bullying. While these activities may be innocent exploration and relatively harmless horseplay, Nebraska high school officials may instead treat them as serious wrongs, especially under state and federal laws addressing student safety and morals. The Omaha Public Schools Student Code of Conduct, for instance, treats most of these forms of behavioral misconduct as Level 4 violations, warranting the most severe of punishments. Beware of behavioral misconduct charges.
Punishments for Nebraska High School Behavioral Misconduct
Nebraska high school behavioral misconduct charges, generally warrant more severe punishments because of concerns about student safety and morals. Nebraska Statutes Section 79-263, for instance, requires school removal for at least one year for a weapons violation. Accordingly, the Westside Public Schools Student Code of Conduct treats a weapons violation as deserving of the most severe punishment of expulsion, with mandatory reassignment to an alternative disciplinary school. If your student's alleged misconduct involves some lesser form of behavioral misconduct, where state law does not necessarily mandate a long-term suspension, your student may still receive severe discipline if school officials judge the misconduct to threaten student safety or disrupt school operations. Punishment could include not only loss of privileges, honors, and awards but also school suspension, expulsion, campus bans, and alternative disciplinary placement.
Nebraska High School Behavioral Misconduct Defense
Nebraska law provides greater procedural protections for students facing long-term suspension or expulsion due to behavioral wrongs. Nebraska Statutes Section 79-268 expressly requires detailed notice of the charges. Nebraska Statutes Section 79-269 enables our attorneys to invoke your student's right to a hearing on the charges. The following statutory sections detail the requirements of an independent hearing official, live witnesses, recording of the hearing, and other procedural protections. Nebraska Statutes Section 79-285 grants your student a right to appeal an adverse decision to either the school district board or the state Department of Education for review by higher officials. Our attorneys know how to invoke these procedural protections to your student's best advantage. Do not overlook the opportunity to defend and defeat behavioral misconduct charges using these protective procedures. If you and your student have already lost the hearing and appeal, let us determine whether alternative special relief is available through a general counsel office or civil court review.
Nebraska High School Sexual Misconduct
Sexual misconduct allegations can be even more daunting than any of the above forms of misconduct. Sexual misconduct findings carry both a taint of bad character and a risk of endangerment. Your student may lose critical opportunities if suffering Nebraska high school sexual misconduct discipline. Nebraska high school officials may also take sexual misconduct allegations more seriously and rush to judgments about those allegations. Public outcry and condemnation may pressure school officials to do so. School officials also generally know that they can lose federal school funding and face civil liability for damages to victims of school sexual misconduct. Federal Title IX laws and regulations require Nebraska high school officials to swiftly and surely address sexual misconduct allegations. Accordingly, Nebraska school district policies, like the Elkhorn Public Schools High School Student Handbook, acknowledge and adopt their Title IX obligations.
Punishment of Nebraska High School Sexual Misconduct
Punishment for Nebraska high school sexual misconduct can be especially swift. Federal Title IX regulations and Nebraska Statutes Section 79-264 authorize or require emergency removal of a student accused of sexual misconduct under credible evidence. Your student's school officials may put a no-contact order and campus ban in place immediately to protect the alleged victim. That's why you should retain us immediately upon learning of the potential for sexual misconduct charges. We may be able to head off those charges with credible evidence exonerating your student or mitigating evidence showing no need for campus bans and no-contact orders. Punishment on a finding of sexual misconduct is likely to include long-term suspension and may include expulsion and referral for boot camp or reform school placement.
Nebraska High School Sexual Misconduct Defense
Your Nebraska high school student will have substantial Title IX procedural protections, along with state statutory protections under Nebraska Statutes Section 79-268 et seq. if accused of sexual misconduct. Those protections include the right to detailed notice of the charges, a hearing before an independent and impartial decision maker, the opportunity to present witnesses and other evidence at the hearing, and the recording of the hearing for appellate review. Your student may also have a right to cross-examine witnesses with our assistance to challenge their credibility. Sexual misconduct charges often involve close disputes over conflicting testimony.
Other procedural rights and protections can include discovery of the other side's evidence, informal conferences for early voluntary resolution, and appeals of adverse decisions. The opportunity to meet early and informally with disciplinary officials can be the key procedural protection when our attorneys may be able to present evidence and arguments for alternative remedial relief rather than punitive sanctions. Remedial education or training, restorative resolutions with appropriate expressions of apology, regret, and reformation, and school service may be options. Our attorneys can also pursue alternative special relief through a general counsel or other oversight office if you and your student have already lost all hearings and appeals. Court review may also be possible.
Nebraska High School Sanction Defense
Understand that Nebraska high school disciplinary charges are not the same as disciplinary findings. A charge of misconduct is only an allegation. Your student's high school disciplinary officials may be waiting for your student to provide a sound and credible explanation for what only looks like a potential violation. Even if your student committed what the high school alleges, we may be able to show that your student has a case in mitigation of any penalty. Our attorneys are skilled and strategic at presenting win-win options that both achieve the school's interest in student safety and program integrity while achieving your student's interest in maintaining a clean record and continuing in the educational program with peers toward graduation with all attendant honors. Even if your student must admit the misconduct, let us build a case in mitigation of unduly harsh and unnecessary punitive sanctions.
Premier Nebraska High School Student Defense
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available in Omaha, Lincoln, Bellevue, Grand Island, Kearney, Fremont, Norfolk, Hastings, Columbus, Papillon, North Platte, La Vista, Scottsbluff, South Sioux City, Beatrice, and other Nebraska locations to defend your student against Nebraska high school misconduct charges and academic progress discipline. Our skilled and experienced attorneys have defended hundreds of students in Nebraska and across the nation for successful outcomes for all kinds of school issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your Nebraska high school student's case.
