Abilene, Texas DAEP Defense

Abilene, Texas, area schools, whether in the Abilene Independent School District or another Taylor County school district, send disruptive students to disciplinary alternative education placement (DAEP) just like other Texas schools do. Removal to a DAEP program is effectively removal to a boot camp or reform school, notwithstanding the DAEP euphemism. Don't let a disciplinary removal to a DAEP placement ruin your student's dreams and ambitions. Call 888.535.3686 or use this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team for the skilled and experienced defense representation your student needs to defeat DAEP charges. Our highly qualified attorneys out of our Dallas and Austin offices are available for your student's Abilene area school disciplinary defense.

Abilene Area Schools Student Defense

The temptation for parents who have a student facing DAEP charges is to hire any available local attorney, whether a criminal defense attorney, civil litigator, or real estate or wills lawyer. But your student has a tremendous amount riding on your student's regular high school attendance, advancement, and graduation, far too much to trust to unqualified counsel. Our attorneys have the substantial academic administrative knowledge, skills, and experience your student needs for the best possible outcome to Abilene area school DAEP charges. We can help your student in the Abilene Independent School District or in nearby Taylor County school districts, including the Jim Ned Consolidated Independent School District, Merkel Independent School District, Wylie Independent School District, Trent Independent School District, and Texas College Preparatory Academies. We can also represent your student in any of the following Abilene ISD schools:

Abilene ISD High Schools

Abilene High School;
Academy of Technology, Engineering, Math, and Science;
Cooper High School;
Woodson Center for Excellence.

Abilene ISD Middle Schools

Clack Middle School;
Craig Middle School;
Madison Middle School;
Mann Middle School.

Abilene ISD Elementary Schools

Alcorta Elementary;
Austin Elementary;
Bassetti Elementary;
Bonham Elementary;
Bowie Elementary;
Dyess Elementary;
Martinez Elementary;
Ortiz Elementary;
Purcell Elementary;
Stafford Elementary;
Taylor Elementary;
Thomas Elementary;
Ward Elementary.

Abilene ISD Choice Campuses

Center for Innovation;
Holland Medical;
The LIFT.

Abilene Area Schools DAEP Programs

Texas Education Code Section 37.008 is the Texas law that authorizes school officials across Texas, including Abilene ISD officials, to take unruly, disruptive, and dangerous students out of the regular classroom to place them in disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEPs); what we used to call boot camp or reform school. The Abilene ISD's DAEP program is located at 342 Cockerell Drive, in proximity to the Woodson Center for Excellence. School districts often tout their DAEP programs as having special services for and sensitivity to troubled students. Your student's school officials may recommend, plead, demand, or implore that you consent to your student's DAEP placement. Yet these DAEP programs house students whom the regular schools kicked out, generally for serious wrongs like gang activity, possession of drugs, weapons, or alcohol, or violence like assault and sexual assault, or persistent incorrigibility. Do not give in to a DAEP placement without retaining us to advise and advocate on your student's behalf. Your student's regular classroom environment may provide far better structure and support while being far better for your student's academic and social development.

Abilene Area Schools Student Codes of Conduct

Your student's school disciplinary officials may also suggest that you and your student have no say in whether your student's Abilene area school sends your student to its DAEP program. But that is not the case. You do have a say. Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 do mandate DAEP program placement in specified serious misconduct cases. The Abilene ISD's Student Code of Conduct likewise authorizes discretionary or mandatory DAEP placement, depending on the alleged wrong. However, disciplinary charges do not mean disciplinary findings. Charges do not mean that sanctions must follow, especially such a severe sanction as DAEP placement. Let us help your student defend and defeat Abilene ISD DAEP charges.

Abilene Area Schools Grounds for Removal

Abilene area schools must articulate lawful grounds to remove your student from the school, heading toward a DAEP placement. The Abilene ISD Student Code of Conduct lists dozens of General Conduct Violations warranting discipline up to school removal. Your student's school officials have the authority to invoke those violations to remove your student from the school. The Abilene ISD Student Code of Conduct groups the dozens of violations in these several broad categories, each with a detailed list of specific violations:

Disregard for Authority;
Mistreatment of Others;
Property Offenses;
Possession of Prohibited Items;
Illegal, Prescription, and Over-the-Counter Drugs;
Misuse of Technology Resources and the Internet;
Safety Offenses, and
Miscellaneous Offenses.

Our attorneys can help you defend your student against any of these Abilene ISD disciplinary charges, head off a DAEP proceeding and placement, and keep your student in the regular school classroom and program. We discuss DAEP defenses further below.

Abilene Area Schools Discretionary DAEP

Texas state education law requires local school districts to establish DAEP programs to remove disruptive students. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 gives Abilene area school officials and officials in other Texas school districts authority for DAEP placement. Other sections, discussed in the next section, mandate DAEP placement in some cases. Section 37.001 permits the Abilene ISD board and other school boards in the state to adopt student conduct codes. The district's student conduct code says when the district's school officials may remove a student for DAEP placement. The Abilene ISD Student Code of Conduct expressly authorizes school officials to move a student out of the regular classroom and into a DAEP placement for any of the above dozens of General Conduct Violations. The Student Code of Conduct also lists these additional grounds for discretionary DAEP placement:

bullying encouraging a student to commit or attempt suicide;
inciting violence against a student using group bullying;
releasing intimate visual material without student consent;
fraternity, sorority, secret society, or gang activity;
criminal street gang activity;
felony or misdemeanor criminal mischief;
assault threatening imminent bodily injury;
offensive or provocative physical contact.

Our attorneys have the knowledge, skill, experience, and commitment to defend your student against any of these permissive DAEP placement charges.

Abilene Area Schools Mandatory DAEP

Abilene area school officials also hold the authority to require mandatory DAEP placement in certain cases. Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 each list grounds on which school officials must require or mandate a student's DAEP placement. The Abilene ISD's Student Code of Conduct incorporates the Section 37.006 and 37.007 mandatory DAEP grounds. Those grounds include committing any of the following violations, either on school property, within 300 feet of school property, or at a school-sponsored activity:

felony criminal conduct;
bodily injury assaulting another;
delivering a controlled substance to another;
delivering marijuana to another;
delivering alcoholic beverages to another;
delivering an e-cigarette to another;
criminal harassment of another;
public lewdness or indecent exposure;
unlawful firearm possession;
deadly weapon possession other than a firearm;
aggravated robbery;
terroristic threats, bomb threats, or false fire alarms;
criminal retaliation.

Our attorneys are ready to help you and your student defend any of the above mandatory DAEP placement charges for your student's best possible outcome.

Abilene Area Schools DAEP Defenses

Just because Abilene area school officials bring disciplinary charges, even mandatory DAEP placement charges, does not mean that your student must suffer DAEP placement or even any lesser sanction. Disciplinary charges are not disciplinary findings. Charges are instead accusations. Your student's school officials may or may not have reliable evidence supporting the accusations. Our role includes evaluating and challenging the allegations and testing the credibility of evidence through cross-examination and other means while presenting your student's exonerating and mitigating evidence. We may be able to show one or more of these other disciplinary defenses to your student's DAEP charges:

adverse witnesses may be guessing or conjecturing without first-hand knowledge or observation;
adverse witnesses may be mistaken due to misunderstanding, poor observation, or poor inference or recollection;
adverse witnesses may have conflicts of interest, bias, or prejudice affecting their credibility;
adverse witnesses may be retaliating against your student;
adverse witnesses may be covering up their own wrongs with complaints against your student;
adverse witnesses may have mistaken your student's identity;
your student may have made a reasonable mistake as to the circumstances, making your student's actions innocent;
your student may have corrected the mistake when discovering it, proving your student's innocence;
your student may not have caused any harm or loss or disrupted any school instruction or operation and
DAEP placement or other sanctions may be overly harsh and thus against the school's educational mission.

Abilene Area Schools DAEP Mitigating Factors

As the above list of potential defenses suggests, Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires Abilene ISD officials to consider mitigating factors that might relieve your student from an otherwise permissive or mandatory DAEP placement. Abilene school officials must weigh mitigating factors. If those factors outweigh the school's interest in DAEP placement, then the school should not send your student for DAEP placement. The Abilene ISD Student Code of Conduct expressly recognizes the same mitigating factors that Section 37.001 lists, including:

self-defense justified the alleged misconduct;
the accused student lacked required knowledge or intent;
the accused student had no prior school disciplinary record;
disability kept the accused student from appreciating the wrong;
the accused student's conservatorship excuses the wrong;
the accused student's homelessness excuses the wrong.

Depending on your student's case facts, our attorneys may be able to advocate not only these statutory mitigating factors but also other anomalies like your student's illness, injury, undiagnosed disability, medication reaction, bullying by other students, unlawful discrimination by the school or other students, or failure of the school to reasonably accommodate your student's disabilities.

Abilene Area Schools Emergency Placement

DAEP cases can also involve emergency removals and DAEP placements. An emergency removal is one that occurs without notice to the parent and before the student and parent have had an opportunity to contest the disciplinary charge at a hearing. Texas Education Code Section 37.019 permits school officials to remove disruptive students on an emergency basis to prevent serious interference with teaching or operations. The Abilene ISD Student Code of Conduct, like the statute, authorizes emergency removal and placement. Under the statute and code, emergency removal and placement may be for no more than ten days, after which school officials must provide the removed student with a hearing or return the student to the regular classroom.

Abilene Area Schools DAEP Placement Hearing

Your student will have a right to a hearing before the school principal or other disciplinary official, or the Abilene ISD board or its designee if facing DAEP placement. Texas Education Code Sections 37.009 and 37.019 guarantee students facing DAEP the right to a formal hearing to contest the lawfulness, necessity, and wisdom of the placement. The Abilene ISD Student Code of Conduct reinforces that hearing right. We can help you prepare your best defense case for the hearing and challenge the school's case for DAEP placement.

Abilene Area Schools DAEP Appeal

Don't give up if you and your student have already lost the formal DAEP hearing. Texas Education Code Section 37.009 grants an appeal from an adverse DAEP decision. Appeals go to the Abilene ISD board. If the board affirms the regular classroom removal and DAEP placement, then you have another appeal to the Taylor County district court. Our attorneys have the substantial skill and experience to pursue your most compelling appeals.

Alternative Special Relief

Our attorneys also have good relationships and a good reputation with the district general counsel, outside counsel, and other oversight officials. We may be able to raise your student's special circumstances to negotiate alternative special relief, even if you and your student have exhausted all other formal avenues.

Premier Abilene Area DAEP Defense

If your student faces DAEP charges in the Abilene, Texas area, retain the Lento Law Firm's highly qualified Student Defense Team out of our nearby Dallas and Austin offices. We represent clients throughout the Abilene area. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.

Texas Disciplinary Placement – Abilene