Texas Disciplinary Placement – Allen

When you sent your student to an Allen, Texas, area school, you didn't expect your student to face disciplinary alternative education placement, otherwise known as DAEP. You probably have already realized that disciplinary placement, sometimes called reform school or even boot camp, can crush your student's hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Don't let that happen to your student. Call 888.535.3686 or use this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team, out of our Dallas office, for strategic and effective defense of DAEP charges in or around Allen, Texas.

Allen Area School District Student Defense

The highly qualified student discipline defense attorneys from our Dallas office are available whether your student attends a K-12 school in the Allen Independent School District school or another Collin County school in the Anna Independent School District, Blue Ridge Independent School District, Celina Independent School District, Community Independent School District, Farmersville Independent School District, Frisco Independent School District, Lovejoy Independent School District, McKinney Independent School District, Plano Independent School District, Princeton Independent School District, Prosper Independent School District, Wellington Independent School District, or Wylie Independent School District. Keep your student on track and in the regular classroom and traditional school program. Don't let your student lose the critical support of student peers, teachers, advisors, and others in the regular program. Get our strategic and effective defense representation.

Allen ISD DAEP Program

Texas Education Code Section 37.008 requires the Allen Independent School District and other Collin County school districts, together with school districts across the state, to provide a disciplinary alternative education program to remove students who commit certain serious wrongs in school. While the Allen Independent School District calls its DAEP program the Pat Dillard Special Achievement Center, the Center acknowledges that it serves students whose regular schools have found that they committed disciplinary violations serious enough to warrant their school removal. School districts try to paint a rosy picture of their DAEP programs, but with the troubled student population whom they serve, DAEP programs generally have poor retention, advancement, and graduation rates. Their students also generally have greater juvenile delinquency rates and other negative indicators of poor academic and social development. Traditional school programs may even use their DAEP program to dump underperforming students to avoid their obligation to provide special education and other services. Don't let your student's disciplinary officials convince you that a DAEP program is where your student belongs. Instead, let us help you fight your student's disciplinary charges and make the best case for keeping your student in the regular classroom.

Allen ISD Student Code of Conduct

Your student's Allen area school officials will bring DAEP disciplinary charges against your student under a school district student code of conduct. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires each school district within the state to adopt a student code of conduct consistent with the Education Code's provisions for DAEP placement. School officials are not supposed to just make up DAEP charges as they go along. They must generally point to the student code of conduct to allege a violation the code defines as warranting DAEP placement. The Allen Independent School District has adopted a Student Conduct Code that meets Section 37.001's requirements by providing for DAEP placement for certain conduct code violations. Let us help you defend your student's DAEP charges.

Allen ISD School Removal Grounds

A DAEP placement typically begins with school removal, in other words, a school suspension or expulsion. Under the Allen Independent School District's Student Conduct Code, the teacher or principal may remove a student from the school for any violation of any Student Conduct Code provision. Your student's school removal does not mean that a DAEP proceeding will necessarily follow. The school principal or other disciplinary official may or may not decide to let your student return to school. However, any school removal may either result in DAEP proceedings or set your student up for a DAEP proceeding later if your student faces subsequent school removal. Don't wait for the other shoe to drop. Retain our attorneys to ensure not only that your student gets to return to school but also to prevent your student from incurring a disciplinary record that jeopardizes your student's future enrollment. The Allen ISD Student Conduct Code authorizes school removal on any of these grounds:

• horseplay, roughhousing, and other behaviors present a reasonable risk of harm or threatening safety;
• fighting, hitting, pushing, or scuffling, whether or not resulting in pain or impairment;
• forcing another person to do or not do something by duress, threat, force, extortion, coercion, or blackmail;
• bullying, cyberbullying, name-calling, hazing, slurs, or derogatory statements disrupting the school environment or inciting violence;
• harassment or sexual harassment of another student, employee, or volunteer;
• releasing or threatening to release intimate visual material or invasive visual recordings;
• inappropriate verbal, physical, or sexual contact toward another student, employee, or volunteer, whether or not consensual;
• oral or written threats of harm or bodily injury to another student, employee, or volunteer;
• possession on school grounds of tobacco products, fireworks, pepper spray, drugs, drug paraphernalia, weapons, poisons, pornography, or sexually-oriented material;
• theft, robbery, vandalism, criminal mischief, or other misuse or damage of school property or another's property;
• arson or attempted arson, bomb threats, false fire alarms, and other safety threats or disruptions;
• misuse of technology, including hacking, unauthorized access, or other violations of school technology policies and rules;
• failing to follow dress codes and grooming criteria, disobeying a teacher or other staff directive, failing to provide identification on request, or insubordination;
• academic dishonesty, including misrepresenting, cheating, and plagiarism;
• using profanity, vulgar language, or obscene gestures; and
• falsifying or destroying school records.

Allen ISD Discretionary DAEP

Texas Education Code Section 37.001 and other provisions require Allen area school district student conduct codes to provide for both mandatory and permissive grounds for DAEP placement. Permissive grounds mean that your student's Allen area school officials may send your student to DAEP but need not necessarily do so. School officials retain discretion when seeking DAEP placement. The Allen ISD Student Conduct Code provides that any violation of its general conduct provisions, summarized above, authorizes school officials to send your student for DAEP placement. Your student need not commit a particularly serious wrong. Any wrong, even a minor wrong, may do. Beware of any disciplinary charge. Your student could end up in a crushing DAEP placement. Let us help you and your student defend Allen area school disciplinary charges.

Allen ISD Mandatory DAEP

While Texas Education Code Section 37.001 and related law permit Allen area school officials to exercise their discretion to send a student to DAEP placement, Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 require DAEP placement for certain especially serious wrongs. As serious as these wrongs are, our attorneys are well prepared to defend your student against these charges and help your student avoid DAEP placement, even in cases where substantial evidence exists that your student committed the alleged wrong, where other defenses are available. The Allen ISD Student Code of Conduct and the student conduct codes in other Collin County school districts accordingly require DAEP placement when a student commits any of the following wrongs:

• triggering or interfering with fire alarms when having no cause;
• issuing bomb threats or reporting false bomb threats;
• causing another's injury on purpose, with knowledge, or recklessly;
• possessing drugs, alcohol, or firearms when in school;
• being under drug or alcohol influence during school;
• school conduct that is indecent or lewd;
• to harass or assault volunteers or employees;
• committing a felony crime when in school;
• sexual assault of another student or
• continuous sexual abuse of a young child or disabled person.

Allen ISD DAEP Defenses

When you learn that your student faces disciplinary charges potentially warranting or outright mandating DAEP placement, keep in mind that a charge is different from a finding of a wrong. School officials may base charges on unreliable reports that have no basis in fact, lack supporting evidence, are outright false due to a complaining witness's poor observations, or are even retaliatory due to a complaining witness's illicit motive, coverup, or scapegoating. Our attorneys have the skill and experience to effectively challenge false and exaggerated allegations through cross-examination of adverse witnesses and to compellingly present your student's exonerating and mitigating evidence. If, on the other hand, evidence shows that your student committed the alleged mandatory or permissive DAEP wrong, we may be able to invoke one of these statutory mitigating factors under Texas Education Code Section 37.001, incorporated into the Allen ISD Student Conduct Code, to keep your student in the regular classroom:

• self-defense required the misconduct;
• the misconduct did not involve the required bad intent;
• no prior history or record of discipline;
• disability prevented recognition of the wrong; or
• homelessness or foster care placement of the accused student.

Allen ISD DAEP Emergency Placement

School officials may have already removed your student from the school for a short-term suspension, proceeding toward DAEP placement, before you even learn of the disciplinary charges. Texas Education Code Section 37.019 permits the school district to remove the student on an emergency basis without first notifying the accused student and parent if the alleged misconduct is so disruptive that it seriously interferes with teaching, school operation, or a school event. The Allen ISD Student Conduct Code, like the conduct codes in other Collin County school districts, accordingly authorizes emergency removal. However, the removal may not last for more than ten days without school officials providing your student with a hearing at which our attorneys can advocate for your student's return to the regular classroom, asserting the above defenses or other applicable defenses.

Allen ISD DAEP Placement Hearing

Texas Education Code Sections 37.009 and 37.019 respect that your student has a due process right to a formal hearing before sending your student to DAEP placement. The Allen ISD's Student Conduct Code, like the conduct codes in other Collin County districts, accordingly assures your student of a hearing on DAEP removal charges. Under both the statutes and the student conduct code, school officials may only send your student to DAEP if your student's return to the classroom would threaten safety, harm education, or go against the student's best interests. We can help you invoke your student's hearing rights, present exonerating and mitigating evidence, challenge adverse evidence, and gain your student's best possible outcome.

Allen ISD DAEP Appeal

Don't take a loss at your student's formal hearing as the final word on your student's DAEP matter. Texas Education Code Section 37.009 guarantees your student the right to appeal an adverse decision that places your student in DAEP. Your student's appeal goes to the full Allen ISD board or the board of your other Collin County school district if anyone other than the full board made the DAEP decision. You also have the right under Section 37.009 to take your appeal to the district court. Our attorneys have the substantial skill and experience that successful appeals require, whether to the district board or district court.

Alternative Special Relief

We may be able to get your student to return to the regular school and classroom even if you have exhausted all your student's hearings and appeals. Our attorneys have a high standing, good reputation, and good professional relationships with which to reach and communicate with Allen ISD or other Collin County ISD general counsel, outside retained counsel, or other oversight officials. Those professionals generally have a broader responsibility to help the district consider other risks to the district's liability, regulatory compliance, and reputation. If your student has any special circumstance, including things like a disability or having faced bullying, discrimination, illness, or emergency, we may be able to negotiate classroom reinstatement. Let us help pursue alternative special relief.

Premier Allen DAEP Defense Attorneys

If your student faces DAEP charges in the Allen, Texas area, retain the Lento Law Firm's highly qualified Student Defense Team. Attorneys from our Dallas office represent clients throughout Collin County. Do not retain unqualified local counsel. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our skilled and experienced defense representation. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.