The Ripple Effect of Off-Campus Activities on School Life
It's easier than you think for the line between a student's off-campus life and their academic standing to get too thin for comfort. The potential blurring of life on and off campus starts early, too. In the Lone Star State, districts from the Houston Independent School District and the Dallas Independent School District are cracking down on after-hours, off-campus misbehavior that may reflect poorly on the school itself.
For example, consider what might happen if a student from your school district was involved in a fight at a weekend house party—or was caught posting something inflammatory on social media. Would your school want to get involved? Increasingly, the answer may be ‘yes'. K-12 students across campus are receiving recommendations for academic probation or even expulsion after seemingly disconnected extracurricular events.
If your student is facing similar sanctions after (allegedly) engaging in unapproved behavior off-campus, you need to jump into action quickly. Your school's administrative and disciplinary procedures may happen fast, and you need to ensure your student's rights are protected at all times. The Student Defense Team at the Lento Law Firm is ready to help you work toward that goal. Call our team today at 888.535.3686 to learn more about how we can help you, or fill out this brief form to tell us about your case.
Understanding Different Types of Off-Campus Misconduct
Before talking more about what you as a parent can do to protect your child or even talking about the punishments your Texas school may recommend for your student, it's important to ask a fundamental question:
What types of off-campus activities could trigger an investigation from your school?
(And what would your school's possible rationale be for getting involved)?
In our experience, there are a few different levels of off-campus actions that schools are sanctioning — and, subsequently, a few different levels of reasons for school involvement, and increasingly severe punishments. Here's what we're seeing schools investigating more and more:
- Off-campus actions entirely unrelated to school events. Consider, for example, what might happen if your student is (allegedly) involved in a car theft incident, or attends an off-campus party that results in a fight that doesn't involve any fellow students. This may seem outside of your school's jurisdiction—but more and more, schools are sanctioning these types of events, even if there's nothing in a school's code of conduct that specifically references, say, auto theft. The rationale is often that students represent their schools, no matter where they are.
- Off-campus actions that might be a little related to school policies. If you scroll through your school's code of conduct, do you see any policies about inflammatory online conduct, cyberbullying, or discrimination? Even if, for example, an insensitive social media post is posted on personal social media accounts, happens after school hours, or doesn't directly target any school members, your school may sanction your student.
- Off-campus actions that do directly involve other members of the academic community or the school itself. Let's say that one of the hypothetical inflammatory social media posts we discussed involves school graphics. Or, let's say that your student allegedly threatens another member of your school community over the weekend, off school property. If your school suspects that something like this has happened, your school administration will not hesitate to step in and sanction your child.
So far, we've established that your school may feel it has a reason to step in and recommend sanctions and next steps.
Why is this worrisome? Why should you care?
Here's the issue: If your school sanctions your student with a suspension or an expulsion, that could make your student's entire academic future a lot more difficult than it needs to be.
What Your School's Response to Off-Campus Misconduct Could Look Like
Your school may have a systematic approach to adjudicating off-campus misconduct.
It also may not. We've seen that schools may feel more compelled to recommend harsher discipline depending on the severity of the alleged action, but this is not a universal mandate — just an observation. One of the nerve-wracking things about schools disciplining off-campus misconduct is that there often isn't a clear, concrete link between the alleged incident and the recommended repercussions.
If your school's response is relatively proportionate to the alleged incident, some examples of potential consequences could include:
- Mandatory counseling for actions that are perceived to be less harmful or less proximate to the school community
- Restorative justice sessions, mandated seminars, or even short-term suspensions for actions tangentially related to school policies
- Suspensions or outright expulsions for more severe actions that may implicate members of the academic community.
In our experience, the most commonly recommended consequence by far is a suspension.
Why, then, should you care if your student receives a suspension? It may not seem like a huge deal — that is until you zoom out a little.
Suspensions and expulsions are far more than just temporary punishments. They carry long-term implications for your student's future. If your student has a disciplinary record that includes an expulsion or suspension, the colleges your student applies to in the future may be a little less likely to offer your student admission. (And, even if you don't believe these consequences will be explicitly documented and sent to prospective schools, they'll show up in little but easy-to-notice ways, like through gaps on your student's transcript.)
It's not overreacting to say that a suspension or expulsion now could make it difficult for your student to get into the college of their dreams, or even make their way through initiating their career as successfully as they may have otherwise.
Fortunately, you have options. If you believe that a disciplinary investigation may be in your child's future, now is the time to take action to protect your child's rights and their academic plans.
What Parents Can Do to Guide Students Through Texas School Adjudications
If your K-12 child has just found out that their school is investigating them for something they did on a weekend or after school — in other words, something wildly disconnected from their academics — your student is going to be confused, upset, and scared.
You may be, too. You're going to need to spend time with your family making sure that everyone is as okay as possible during this difficult time.
What you do not need to be doing is spending time reading tiny footnotes in your school district's academic regulations or waiting to speak with your school's administration to see if you can figure out a way to avoid the ruination of your child's future.
That's where we come in. Your first action item immediately after finding out that your student will be facing disciplinary procedures is to call the Lento Law Firm and retain the premier services of the Student Defense Team. Our team can take the burden of negotiating and representing your student off your shoulders so you can spend more time comforting your student.
If you've already done that and are looking for more ways to support your student, consider:
- Finding your school's disciplinary policies. Your school's code of conduct should be freely available on your school's website. Download it, skim it, and cross-reference the policy with any language your school has sent you about your student's alleged infraction. This brings us nicely to our next point.
- If your school has sent you any communications about your child's disciplinary experiences, keep them. Start a folder for any mail you get, or create a folder on your computer's desktop and save copies of emails related to this case.
- Talk to your child about what happened. Ask them to recall as many details as possible about the initiating incident. Ask them if anything's happening at school or in their personal life that you need to know about. Write down everything they say.
This information will be vital when speaking with our attorneys. Once you've retained the Lento Law Firm Team, you can expect us to conduct our own thorough investigation to see if we can uncover nuances that may have been overlooked in a school-led inquiry. We'll open lines of communication with your school so we can negotiate directly with your school's administration for lesser penalties or alternative resolutions. And we'll help guide you through every part of your school's disciplinary timeline — from the initial investigation through appeals, if need be.
Here's What Your Texas School's Disciplinary Timeline Might Look Like — And How the Lento Law Firm Team Can Help
You and your student may have a maze of disciplinary procedures and processes before you. It's going to be a lot, but the Lento Law Firm Team can help you make it as manageable as possible.
Understanding what lies ahead is a good first start. Here's an approximate timeline of what may happen after your school discovers that your student has been involved in off-campus misconduct:
- An initial fact-finding mission. Your school will spend some time learning the basic facts of what happened, speaking to relevant parties, and determining just how severe the alleged misconduct may be.
- Official notifications to all concerned. As the parent, you may find out about the allegations against your child at this time. Typically, schools issue written notifications that include information about the nature of the alleged infractions and the next steps your school has planned.
- A formal investigation, if one seems warranted. If the misconduct your child is associated with seems particularly severe, your school may want to learn more about what happened. If so, this could trigger a comprehensive investigation, which might include in-depth interviews, collection and analysis of evidence, and a rigorous review of school policy documents. It's difficult to tell, with off-campus misconduct, whether this will be the path taken. You'll need to be ready for anything — and ready to protect your child through anything.
- A disciplinary hearing. Once your school has enough information to make a decision about what happened, it'll schedule a disciplinary hearing. In this hearing, your student will have a chance to tell their side of the story. The school will review all of the evidence and come to a decision about your student's alleged responsibility for the misconduct. With off-campus misconduct, this may or may not happen. Your school may follow its usual processes for misconduct. It may also jump more directly to decisions and sanctioning.
- A recommendation for sanctioning. After the hearing, or after the school administration believes it has a rationale for sanctioning, the school will provide a recommendation for your student's consequence.
This isn't necessarily the end of the process. If you do not agree with your school's decisions, you may be able to file an appeal. The attorneys of the Student Defense Team at the Lento Law Firm will be able to assist you with follow-ups and appeals as necessary for your child's success.
Need Help Navigating the Murky Waters of School Disciplinary Actions?
If your Texas school seems to be handing out swift and severe sanctions in response to off-campus misconduct, you and your student need to act quickly. You can't assume that your school's investigatory process will be thorough or that your student's lack of responsibility for any alleged actions will protect them from sanctions.
It's also not a good idea to write off any sanctions your child may receive as simply a school thing. This isn't the case. Even if your student is in elementary school, receiving a suspension will disrupt their education and could pave the way for more suspensions in the future.
The Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team has years of experience helping students and their families avoid the academic fallout associated with off-campus misconduct. Whether you require assistance opening negotiations with your school, ensuring that you handle your school's initial investigations as strategically as possible, or are trying to appeal your school's sanctioning decisions, the Lento Law Firm Team is here for you. Call us at 888.535.3686 today, or tell us about your case and we'll get back to you in a timely manner.
