Parents of South Dakota high school students know both the rewards for a student progressing through high school in the state and the challenges. South Dakota's widely distributed population and rugged natural environment can mean greater liberty for a high schooler to grow, develop, and adventure but also greater temptations to test the boundaries of healthy growth. Ultimately, South Dakota high school students can face school disciplinary charges and academic progress issues just like students in more populous and temperate states. Fortunately, the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available across South Dakota for your student's high school disciplinary defense, whether you and your student reside in Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Aberdeen, Brookings, Watertown, Mitchell, Yankton, Pierre, Spearfish, Vermillion, Brandon, Box Elder, or any other South Dakota city or town. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain our highly qualified attorneys for your South Dakota high school student's defense of misconduct charges or academic progress issues. Your student's educational and vocational future is worth fighting for with the best attorney representation available.
South Dakota High School Parent Commitments
Think first of your role as the parent of a South Dakota high school student facing misconduct charges or academic progress issues. You may want to think that your high schooler is mature and adult enough to handle school issues alone, without your close involvement. Think again. No matter how capable your student may be in other ways, your student likely does not have the fully formed adult character, social skills, long-term perspective, and procedural knowledge to go it alone. Facing high school discipline that could remove your student from the school and deny your student participation in school events and peer relationships can be embarrassing, emotionally upsetting, and otherwise daunting. In such a situation, even an adult would benefit from having our skilled and experienced representation. In their transitional state of development from childhood to adulthood, high school students especially need and deserve that representation. Your high school student needs you involved, at least to the point of ensuring that your student has a fair chance with our assistance.
South Dakota High School Student Education
Despite the unique nature of the sparsely populated state, South Dakota high school students have ambitions and opportunities similar to those of students in other states. One ambition South Dakota high school students hold or should hold is for continued education. A high school diploma from a regular high school program earned timely with grade and age peers, is a basic mark of good character and competence in South Dakota and elsewhere. Your South Dakota high school student has only one chance at earning that basic educational credential. Getting kicked out of high school or held back can mean a failure to earn the diploma or earning it later from an alternative disciplinary school or general equivalency degree (GED) program. Value your student's high school continuation and completion with a clean record. Know what your student's high school peers, teachers, and advisors can mean to your student's steady and healthy academic, physical, mental, emotional, and social development. Let us help defend your student against South Dakota high school misconduct charges.
South Dakota High School Disciplinary Impacts
Short-Term Disciplinary Impacts
South Dakota high school students and their parents often underestimate the short-term impacts of high school suspension, expulsion, or other discipline, such as loss of sports and social privileges or isolation from the regular classroom and its structured activities. Even a short disciplinary removal from school for the span of just a few days can embarrass and discourage your student, causing your student to withdraw, lose motivation, and lose peer and teacher support. Your student's grades could suffer, and your student could lose class rank and academic awards important to future college, university, military, or vocational opportunities. Educators study and know well the many negative impacts of school discipline. Don't overlook them. Get our help.
Long Term Disciplinary Impacts
South Dakota high school students can also face longer-term impacts from school discipline. You and your student may expect your student to enroll in one of the state's fine colleges and universities like the University of South Dakota, South Dakota State University, Augustana University, Dakota Wesleyan University, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Northern State University, University of Sioux Falls, Mount Marty University, Black Hills State University, or Dakota State University. Or you and your student may expect your student to enroll at your own alma mater or another fine school outside the state. South Dakota high school discipline can prevent or discourage admissions officers from granting your student's college or university application, especially to preferred programs inside and outside South Dakota, where admission is competitive.
Unfortunately, high school discipline can also affect your student's admission to the military and vocational training programs. It can also affect your student's qualifications for jobs, volunteer programs, and recreational opportunities. Most concerning, though, is that high school discipline can affect your student's mental outlook and self-image, interfering with your student's overall development. It is not too much to say that high school discipline can change a young person's trajectory, arc, or course. Get our help to ensure your student's best outcome to South Dakota high school disciplinary charges.
South Dakota's High School Discipline System
South Dakota high school officials have all the authority they need to discipline your student. The state legislature enacted South Dakota Code Section 13-32-4, requiring school district officials to cooperate with school teachers and principals to “suspend or expel any student for violation of rules or policies or for insubordination or misconduct,” as the school defines. The same code section expressly authorizes South Dakota high school officials to suspend or expel students for alcohol, drug, or firearms possession on school grounds or at school activities, mandating at least a one-year suspension for a weapons violation. The same statute also authorizes other forms of discipline, including removing the accused student from certain preferred classes or barring the student from preferred activities. Your student's South Dakota high school officials won't hesitate to deploy these powers if they feel your student is a disruption or threat to the school. Let us help you defend your student against disciplinary charges that could result in suspension, expulsion, or other discipline interfering with your student's ability to earn a high school diploma.
The South Dakota Department of Education
South Dakota's state legislature has also authorized the state Department of Education to promulgate rules and regulations governing student conduct in the state's high schools and other public schools. Your student doesn't just face state laws authorizing discipline. Your student also faces the South Dakota Department of Education disciplinary regulations. For instance, South Dakota Administrative Code Section 24:05:26:08.01 authorizes your student's high school officials to remove a student to an alternative educational setting, otherwise known as a boot camp or reform school, for up to forty-five days for school violence or weapons or drug possession. Other South Dakota Department of Education administrative rules authorize short-term, long-term, and other removals from school or school courses or activities. Your student's local high school officials will have state Department of Education support for their disciplinary actions. We can help you and your student navigate and strategically deploy those state procedures and rules, which may also limit the disciplinary authority of the local school officials.
South Dakota Local School District Authority
The South Dakota state legislature also authorizes your student's local school district and school district board to be involved in disciplinary matters within the local high school. You may find yourself dealing with district officials outside of the high school. For instance, South Dakota Code Section 13-27-16 authorizes district officials to notify parents of the alleged truancy of their student in preparation for discipline. Similarly, South Dakota Code Section 13-32-4 requires district officials to support the disciplinary actions of teachers and principals while cooperating with those building officials. Other laws require district boards to adopt policies governing student conduct within the local high school. South Dakota Code Section 13-32-14 is an example, requiring district school boards to have an anti-bullying policy in place for the local high school to enforce.
If you find yourself dealing with district officials, we can help, whether your student attends any district across South Dakota, including in the following largest school districts: Sioux Falls School District, Rapid City Area School District, Harrisburg School District, Brandon Valley School District, Aberdeen School District, Watertown School District, Brookings School District, Meade School District, Yankton School District, Huron School District, Pierre School District, Douglas School District, Mitchell School District, and Spearfish School District.
South Dakota Local School District Student Codes of Conduct
While state or district officials may have some involvement in your South Dakota high school student's disciplinary matter, South Dakota's state legislature vests primary authority over student discipline in the principal, teachers, and other officials of the local high school. South Dakota Code Section 13-32-1 expressly grants those school officials “disciplinary authority over all students while the students are in school or participating in or attending school-sponsored activities whether on or off school premises.” South Dakota high schools, like high schools in other states, generally adopt a code of student conduct to alert students and their parents to the types of actions that may result in school suspension, expulsion, or other discipline. Your student's South Dakota high school may have a student conduct code like one of the following examples:
- the Sioux Falls School District Student / Parent Handbook includes standards for student behavior, beginning with a lengthy dress code while also covering suspensions and expulsion;
- the Watertown Senior High School Student Handbook contains a uniform code of behavior listing dozens of student offenses that could result in suspension, expulsion, or other discipline and
- the Brookings High School Handbook includes a progressive discipline chart with four levels of student offenses covering dozens of different types of misconduct.
Our attorneys can help you interpret and apply not only the conduct rules that your student's South Dakota high school adopts but also the protective procedures that these student codes of conduct and the state laws and regulations provide. Just because your student faces disciplinary charges does not mean that serious discipline may result. We are often able to successfully advocate and negotiate early voluntary dismissal of disciplinary charges in favor of remedial measures that leave no mark on the student's school record.
South Dakota High School Behavioral Misconduct
South Dakota high school disciplinary charges can come in different forms. The first form of disciplinary charge that students may face involves misbehaviors that disrupt the high school's academic program, endanger students, or undermine student health, welfare, or morals. Possession of drugs, alcohol, tobacco or vaping products, and weapons on school grounds or at school activities is an example. Other examples include fighting, physical assaults, threats, bullying, and hazing. Behavioral misconduct charges may also include vandalism or other property damage, misuse of school computers or other equipment, trespass, and theft. Teacher insubordination and disrespect, as well as disobeying other school officials, could also lead to disciplinary charges, as may dress code violations and any number of other actions undermining school norms and order. Beware of behavioral misconduct charges, even if they seem minor. A permanent record of behavioral misconduct may unduly label your student as having a bad, corrupt, or endangering character.
Definitions of South Dakota High School Behavioral Misconduct
Your student's South Dakota high school campus is a highly regulated environment. The applicable handbook or other set of policies and rules may not only prohibit the above obviously endangering and disruptive actions but also require specific dress, demeanor, or other affirmative actions to conform. The elaborate dress code in the Sioux Falls School District Student / Parent Handbook is an example, requiring certain fabric on and coverage of shirts and pants while prohibiting bandanas, straps, chains, spikes, and other paraphernalia. A dress code violation may not seem like a serious charge, but school officials can turn a dress code violation into a more serious matter by alleging insubordination, disrespect, and disruption of school order and operations. Most codes, like the uniform code of behavior in the Watertown Senior High School Student Handbook, will list the many student offenses while providing only limited definitions, leaving school officials with substantial discretion to pursue disciplinary charges over a wide range of misbehaviors. We can help you and your student challenge overreaching and unfair disciplinary charges.
Punishments for South Dakota High School Behavioral Misconduct
South Dakota high school codes of student conduct also generally authorize a broad range of forms of discipline, from a caution or warning to an oral or written reprimand, counseling, parent contact, loss of athletics or social privileges, and in-school or after-school detention, right up to in-school or out-of-school suspension, expulsion, and transfer to an alternative disciplinary school. Other punishments may include restitution, fines, campus bans, no-contact orders, and school or community service. Some student codes of conduct, like the progressive discipline chart in the Brookings High School Handbook, arrange offenses into levels and assign certain punishments to each level. Even in those instances, though, the codes generally grant discretion to school officials to impose a wide range of punishments.
South Dakota High School Behavioral Misconduct Defense
Again, just because your South Dakota high school student faces disciplinary charges does not mean that your student must or will suffer discipline. Your student may be innocent of the charge. If your student instead committed the wrong that the school alleges, your student may not need or deserve punishment. Remedial measures may be better for all involved, leaving your student with a clean record while meeting the school's obligation to educate your student while maintaining an orderly and safe school environment. Even in the case of a weapons violation or other serious violation imposing a presumptive penalty such as suspension for one year, South Dakota school officials generally have some discretion to adjust punishments or even forgo them. South Dakota Code Section 13-32-4, for instance, expressly permits school officials to “increase or decrease the length of a firearm-related expulsion on a case-by-case basis,” despite the same statute's general requirement of a one-year suspension. Our attorneys can help you and your student gather the evidence, invoke the procedures, and make the arguments for your student's best possible outcome to disciplinary charges.
South Dakota High School Sexual Misconduct
South Dakota high school students can also face sexual misconduct charges. Sexual misconduct is another form of behavioral misconduct but a special form that warrants your special attention. Federal Title IX laws require South Dakota public high schools, like federally funded schools in other states, to prohibit sexual harassment. That federal attention may cause your student's school officials to rush to judgment, imposing sexual misconduct discipline where no misconduct took place. A finding of sexual misconduct can also stain a student's character and school record, leaving long-lasting effects. Your student needs our skilled, firm, timely, and sensitive defense if your student faces sexual misconduct charges.
Definitions of South Dakota High School Sexual Misconduct
South Dakota high school codes of student conduct may supply their own definitions of sexual misconduct or may instead rely on Title IX definitions. The Sioux Falls School District Student / Parent Handbook takes the latter approach, incorporating Title IX regulations. Those regulations, of course, prohibit outright sexual assault, which can include non-consensual sexual touching. They also prohibit stalking and domestic or dating violence. But Title IX regulations also prohibit sexual harassment, including such common student conduct as sexual jokes, innuendo, epithets, and unwanted advances, when that conduct rises to the level of a hostile environment that interferes with another student's education. Some South Dakota high schools extend Title IX definitions to cover other forms of sexual misconduct. The Watertown Student Handbook is an example, prohibiting as little as any “communication with sexual overtones and innuendo.” Beware of broad definitions of sexual misconduct.
Punishment of South Dakota High School Sexual Misconduct
If your student faces South Dakota high school sexual misconduct charges, your student risks school suspension and expulsion. School district policies and school codes of student conduct routinely authorize the greatest discipline for sexual misconduct among all forms of student misconduct. The Brookings High School Handbook is an example, placing sexual misconduct at the highest offense level in its progressive discipline chart while expressly authorizing suspension and expulsion. Because Title IX regulations require schools to protect sexual misconduct victims from repeat offenses, and civil liability may result where schools fail to do so, campus bans and no-contact orders are common when schools find that sexual misconduct has occurred.
South Dakota High School Sexual Misconduct Defense
Again, just because your student faces South Dakota high school sexual misconduct charges does not mean that punishment must result. Sexual misconduct allegations often involve a he-said, she-said situation in which students sharply dispute what happened. Our attorneys may be able to gather witnesses on your accused student's behalf or obtain video, photographs, medical records, or other documentation and physical evidence that exonerates your student from false charges. We may alternatively be able to show that any conduct was consensual and that the conduct was not sexual in nature but instead horseplay or other innocent interaction. Our attorneys know how to invoke the special Title IX protective procedures available to ensure that your student's side of the story reaches the decision-maker in the best possible light. If you and your student have already lost the sexual misconduct hearing, then we may be able to take appeals or negotiate alternative special relief through a general counsel's office.
South Dakota High School Academic Misconduct
South Dakota high schools also punish academic misconduct. Academic misconduct involves some form of cheating, dishonesty, or other attempt to obtain an undue academic advantage. While cheating doesn't directly physically harm or threaten another student, cheating undermines the academic program and can harm the high school's reputation. South Dakota high school officials will take cheating charges seriously, especially if the accused student involved other students in the cheating or destroyed the confidentiality of quizzes, tests, exams, scoring rubrics, or other proprietary information of value. A finding that your student cheated can also affect admission to preferred college, university, vocational programs, and other premier opportunities. Don't let your student's South Dakota high school label your student as a cheater. Get our defense help.
Definitions of South Dakota High School Academic Misconduct
Your student's South Dakota high school code of student conduct may define academic misconduct or may leave its definition to academic customs and to the teacher's rules and instruction. The Watertown High School Handbook, for instance, takes a blended approach, broadly prohibiting both cheating and plagiarism as an “act of deception or fraud” and “claiming a dishonest gain” while also listing specific forms of cheating, including “altering marks, letter grades or percentages, and stealing another student's or author's work, without giving credit.” Other forms of academic misconduct may include using unauthorized assistance for homework, using an unauthorized service such as ChatGPT to complete a paper, unauthorized collaboration on an assignment, or using unauthorized materials or devices on an exam. Generally, what the teacher says goes. Beware of broad and vague definitions of cheating, where your student may have received conflicting information about what your student may do, must do, and must not do.
Punishing South Dakota High School Academic Misconduct
High school is a place to learn and grow. South Dakota high school teachers and principals generally respect that students are still learning academic customs. Teachers and principals may at first be reluctant to punish cheating severely. Punishment may, instead, at first be limited to losing credit for the assignment or test and having to repeat the assignment or test. However, South Dakota high school officials may severely punish repeat cheating offenses, flagrant cheating offenses, and offenses that involve other students or destroy the value of confidential academic material. The Sioux Falls School District Student / Parent Handbook is an example that provides progressive discipline for each successive offense up to a failing grade in the course. Failing a course may lead to failing a grade, having to repeat a course, getting held back a grade, and failing to graduate on time. South Dakota high school officials may also treat cheating as insubordination, disobedience, disruption, and disrespect, imposing behavioral sanctions up to suspension and expulsion.
South Dakota High School Academic Misconduct Defense
Our attorneys can help you and your student defend South Dakota high school academic misconduct charges. Your student may not have cheated and may instead have had other students falsely accuse your student out of retaliation or to cover up their own wrong. The teacher may have misidentified your student or misconstrued your student's work. Your student may have followed conflicting instructions or may not have been present when the teacher imposed the allegedly violated rule. Your student may need further instruction and guidance regarding academic customs and expectations. Even if your student did commit academic misconduct, remedial measures may better achieve the school's educational objective while protecting your student's clean school record. We can gather the evidence and advocate the options for your student's best outcome to cheating charges.
South Dakota High School Academic Progress Issues
While behavioral and academic misconduct issues can seriously challenge high school students, South Dakota high school students must also meet the state Department of Education's content standards. The South Dakota Department of Education holds local school districts accountable to those state standards. South Dakota high schools cannot simply advance every student to graduation. They must instead ensure that each student meets the state content standards and report their statistics on student performance. If your student is not hitting those benchmarks, your student's South Dakota high school may attempt to hold your student back, refuse your student's graduation, and even attempt to transfer your student to an alternative disciplinary high school.
Addressing South Dakota High School Academic Progress Issues
Fortunately, your student may have several available avenues for relief from academic progress issues. We can help you and your student identify the appropriate avenues and advocate and negotiate with your student's South Dakota high school officials for the necessary relief to keep your student on track toward graduation. For example, South Dakota high schools must generally comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires special education services for students with qualifying disabilities. We can help your student gain a referral for educational testing. If your student already has an individualized education plan (IEP) under the IDEA law, then we can help you and your student enforce that plan. The IDEA law is just one of several avenues for relief from academic progress issues. Your student may instead face bullying, hazing, or other student misconduct affecting your student's academics. Get our help identifying the best course for your student to address academic progress issues.
South Dakota High School Sanction Defense
We have already suggested above that just because your student faces South Dakota high school disciplinary charges does not mean that your student must suffer discipline. Your student may be innocent of the charge. But even if your student committed some or all of the offenses that the school alleges, your student may not need or deserve a punishment. Our attorneys can help you and your student make the best showing for remedial measures in place of punitive discipline. Keeping your student's school record clean of discipline should be your student's primary goal. Let us help you and your student achieve that goal. We know the remedial measures that South Dakota high school officials are most likely to accept.
Premier South Dakota High School Student Defense
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available for your student's defense in Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Aberdeen, Brookings, Mitchell, Watertown, Yankton, Pierre, Spearfish, Vermillion, Brandon, Box Elder, or any other South Dakota location. We have helped hundreds of students nationwide achieve the best possible outcomes for all kinds of school disciplinary and academic progress issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain us for your South Dakota high school student's skilled and effective defense.
