The Beaumont Independent School District offers fine K-12 schools. But Beaumont schools, like schools across Texas, enforce student discipline codes under which school officials can shunt your student off to disciplinary alternative education placement, known as DAEP. While school officials may paint a rosy picture of DAEP, alternative disciplinary placement, otherwise known as boot camp or reform school, can crush your student's ambitions. Call 888.535.3686 or use this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team if your student faces DAEP charges at a Beaumont area school. Your student needs the skilled and experienced representation of the highly qualified attorneys out of our Houston office.
Beaumont Area School District Student Defense
The premier attorneys in our Houston offices are available across the Beaumont area, whether your student attends a Beaumont Independent School District school or another Jefferson County school district or school like the Hamshire-Fannett Independent School District, Hardin-Jefferson Independent School District, Nederland Independent School District, Port Arthur Independent School District, Port Neches-Groves Independent School District, Sabine Pass Independent School District, Tekoa Academy of Accelerated Studies STEM School, Bob Hope School, or Ehrhart School. We are also available to represent your student, whether at any level from kindergarten through grade twelve. Don't let your student get kicked out of the regular classroom into a Belmont area DAEP program. Keep your student on track.
Beaumont ISD DAEP
School officials in the Beaumont area, like school officials across Texas, may paint their DAEP program as if it is specially fit for your student's needs. Make no mistake, though: DAEP programs are generally for students who have committed serious wrongs that make them unsafe and unfit for the regular classroom. The Beaumont Independent School District's DAEP program called the Pathways Alternative Learning Center, admits right up front that the district established it to meet state law requirements for students removed for discipline from regular schools. If your student ends up in a Beaumont area DAEP program, your student may share classrooms and facilities with students who have committed drug, alcohol, gang, weapons, bullying, violence, and other wrongs so serious that their regular school will not tolerate them. Your student will also lose all the supportive peer, teacher, advisor, and other relationships your student has in the regular school. Your student will have a disciplinary record, your student's reputation will suffer, your student will not have the same structure and high expectations, and your student may disengage and suffer academic and social development delays. Let us help you keep your student in your student's regular Beaumont school.
Beaumont ISD Student Code of Conduct
When Beaumont area schools threaten students with DAEP placement, they do so under the school's student code of conduct. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires every school district within the state, including the Beaumont Independent School District and the other Jefferson County school districts, to adopt a student code of conduct. The state's education laws mandate certain details in the student conduct codes, including several DAEP requirements, while letting school districts add other DAEP provisions. The Beaumont Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct complies with Section 37.001 in all its terms, including by authorizing or requiring DAEP placement under certain circumstances.
Beaumont ISD School Removal Grounds
School officials generally offer or threaten DAEP placement related to a student's removal from school. The Beaumont area school in which you enrolled your student will have a student conduct code provision for school removal, whether short-term or long-term suspension or school expulsion. The Beaumont Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct authorizes school removal on any one or more of the many grounds defined as a General Conduct Violation. A General Conduct Violation doesn't necessarily mean that a threat of or proceeding for DAEP placement will follow, but it could. General Conduct Violations under the Beaumont ISD Student Code of Conduct include:
- violating directions of school teachers, principals, or other authorities, including leaving school grounds without permission, leaving school-sponsored events without permission, or refusing to accept discipline that a teacher imposes;
- offending, harassing, bullying, or intimidating others, including using profane or vulgar language, making threats, hazing, or other inappropriate communications or conduct;
- damaging, defacing, or destroying school property or the property of students or others, including vandalism, theft, and trespass;
- bringing prohibited items onto school property, including explosives, firearms, knives, other weapons, pornography, tobacco, alcohol, controlled substances, or drug paraphernalia;
- technology misuse, including unauthorized entry into computer files or devices, accessing unauthorized websites, distributing pornographic or other unauthorized material, and cyberbullying; and
- interfering with fire alarms, fire detection devices, fire extinguishers, and other acts endangering student safety.
Our attorneys are available to defend your student in any Belmont area school against any of the above General Conduct Violations, whether or not the school threatens suspension, expulsion, and DAEP placement. Don't let your student acquire a disciplinary record that could lead to further disciplinary sanctions and other collateral consequences in the future.
Beaumont ISD Discretionary DAEP
Under Texas Education Code Section 37.001 and related education laws, Beaumont area school districts and other districts across the state must provide for both mandatory and permissive grounds for sending a student to DAEP placement. In other words, in some cases, the school must send a student to DAEP, while in other cases, the school may send a student to DAEP. The Beaumont Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct authorizes discretionary DAEP placement, where the school may send your student to DAEP whenever it finds that your student has committed one of the above General Conduct Violations. DAEP is thus a risk for your student in a very wide variety of misconduct allegations. Let us help you defend any such charge. Discretion of school officials to send to DAEP or not to send to DAEP gives our attorneys the opportunity to build a strong case against DAEP placement, even if your student engaged in the alleged misconduct.
Beaumont ISD Mandatory DAEP
You've just seen that any General Conduct Violation under the Beaumont Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct could result in a DAEP placement. But to meet the requirements of Texas Education Code Section 37.001 for mandatory DAEP placement, the same Beaumont ISD Student Code of Conduct requires DAEP placement for any of the following wrongs:
- pulling fire alarms without cause;
- making bomb threats or making false reports of bomb threats;
- purposefully, deliberately, or recklessly causing another's injury;
- drug or alcohol possession on school property or at a school event;
- under drug or alcohol influence during school or school events;
- engaging in conduct defined as indecent exposure or lewdness;
- harassing or assaulting school volunteers or employees;
- firearms possession on school grounds or at a school event;
- certain felony violations on school grounds or at a school event;
- sexual assault committed on another student, and
- continuous sexual abuse of a young child.
While you can see that the grounds for mandatory DAEP placement generally involve more serious charges than the grounds for discretionary DAEP placement, our attorneys are more than ready to help you and your student defend the above mandatory DAEP charges as well.
Beaumont ISD DAEP Defenses
A disciplinary charge, even one as serious as a charge carrying mandatory DAEP under the above Beaumont Independent School District Student Code of Conduct provisions, does not mean that your student will necessarily suffer DAEP placement. A charge is an allegation, not a finding of wrongdoing. We may be able to defend your student's charges by showing that the complaining witness was mistaken as to your student's identity, that the wrongdoer blamed your student as a scapegoat, or that the misconduct school officials alleged simply did not happen. But even if your student committed the alleged wrong, we may be able to keep your student in the regular classroom. The Beaumont ISD Student Code of Conduct expressly requires school disciplinary officials to relieve your student of DAEP placement:
- self-defense when committing the misconduct;
- no guilty intent when committing the misconduct;
- no prior discipline on the student's school record;
- disability substantially impairing the capacity to avoid the wrong or
- homelessness or foster care placement.
Beaumont ISD DAEP Emergency Placement
In some cases, the parent does not learn of the student's school removal until after it occurs. Texas Education Code Section 37.019 authorizes school districts across the state to provide for emergency school removal without advance notice and hearing. The Beaumont Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct carries forward that state authority by authorizing emergency removal for student conduct that is “so unruly, disruptive, or abusive that it seriously interferes” with school operations or classroom instruction. Under the Beaumont ISD Student Code of Conduct, the removal may not last for more than ten days unless the school provides the student and parent with the required DAEP placement hearing.
Beaumont ISD DAEP Placement Hearing
Your student has a constitutional due process right to notice and a hearing before school removal lasting more than a few days. Texas Education Code Sections 37.009 and 37.019 recognize that due process right, requiring school districts across the state to adopt appropriate provisions in their student codes of conduct. The Beaumont Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct makes multiple guarantees of notice and a hearing. One of those guarantees includes the requirement that for the school to send your student for DAEP placement, the school district board or its designee must find that your student's return to the regular classroom would be detrimental to education, threaten student or teacher safety, or be against student interests. Our attorneys can help you invoke your student's hearing rights and prepare, appear, and advocate at your student's formal hearing.
Beaumont ISD DAEP Appeal
We may also be able to help if you and your student have already lost your student's formal hearing and your student faces a Beaumont area school DAEP placement. Texas Education Code Section 37.009 guarantees your student an appeal from an adverse decision sending your student for a DAEP placement. If the Beaumont ISD board designated another official to hear your student's matter, then under Section 37.009, your appeal is to the full Beaumont ISD board. If the board itself made the DAEP hearing decision, or if your appeal to the board resulted in the board affirming the DAEP decision, then your student has an appeal to the district court for a trial de novo. Our attorneys have the substantial skill and experience necessary for effective appeals of adverse DAEP decisions. Let us help, even if your student has already lost the DAEP hearing.
Alternative Special Relief
If you and your student have already lost your student's hearing and appeals, then let us communicate and negotiate with the general counsel's office, outside retained counsel, or other oversight officials at your student's Beaumont area school district. Oversight officials generally have broader authority to consider other liability, litigation, regulatory, and reputational risks associated with disputes over student discipline. Our attorneys have the national reputation and relationships to gain the respect and attention of oversight officials, as to those risks. If, for instance, your student had a disability, faced bullying, faced unlawful discrimination, or had other special circumstances, we may be able to gain your student's reinstatement in the regular classroom with other assurances.
Premier Beaumont DAEP Defense Attorneys
Do not retain unqualified local criminal defense counsel or civil litigators. DAEP matters involve education laws and administrative procedures, which are different from criminal and civil laws and court procedures. If your student faces DAEP charges in the Beaumont, Texas, area, retain the Lento Law Firm's highly qualified Student Defense Team. Attorneys from our Houston office represent clients throughout the Beaumont area. 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.
