College Station, Texas area schools, whether in the College Station Independent School District or another Brazos County school district, follow the Texas state education laws for disciplinary alternative education placement (DAEP). Your student's removal from the regular classroom and school for a DAEP boot camp or reform school placement can cripple your student's motivation, support, reputation, and future. If your student faces College Station area K-12 school DAEP charges, call 888.535.3686 or use this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team out of our Austin, Houston, or Dallas offices. Get our attorneys' highly qualified defense representation to defend and defeat DAEP charges.
College Station Area Schools Student Defense
When selecting your student's student discipline defense attorney, beware of unqualified local criminal defense counsel, civil litigators, or transactional attorneys. The law, rules, and procedures for school administrative disciplinary hearings and appeals differ from court and transactional matters. Our highly qualified Student Defense Team attorneys are available for your student's disciplinary defense in all College Station area schools, whether in the College Station Independent School District, Bryan Independent School District, Brazos School for Inquiry & Creativity, or Arrow School. We also represent students in all these College Station ISD schools:
College Station ISD High Schools
- College Station High School;
- College View High School;
- A&M Consolidated High School.
College Station ISD Middle Schools
- A&M Consolidated Middle School;
- College Station Middle School;
- Wellborn Middle School.
College Station ISD Intermediate Schools
- Cypress Grove Intermediate School;
- Oakwood Intermediate School;
- Pecan Trail Intermediate School.
College Station ISD Elementary Schools
- College Hills Elementary School;
- Creek View Elementary School;
- Forest Ridge Elementary School;
- Greens Prairie Elementary School;
- Pebble Creek Elementary School;
- River Bend Elementary School;
- Rock Prairie Elementary School;
- South Knoll Elementary School;
- Southwood Valley Elementary School;
- Spring Creek Elementary School.
College Station ISD DAEP Programs
College Station area K-12 schools must maintain DAEP schools and programs to send students who disrupt school instruction or operations or endanger the school community. Texas Education Code Section 37.008 requires the College Station and Bryan ISDs, along with other Texas school districts, to maintain disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEPs) to punish students for serious wrongs while protecting other students and staff members. The College Station ISD maintains both a secondary school-level Disciplinary Alternative Education Program (DAEP) and an elementary school-level Disciplinary Alternative Education Program (LEAP), locating both programs at the ISD's Alternative Learning Campus at 1300 George Bush Drive in College Station. While officials at your student's regular school may encourage you to consent to DAEP or LEAP transfer, be aware that students at these schools have generally already committed serious disciplinary wrongs involving drugs, alcohol, weapons, gangs, violence, or other endangering or corrupting misconduct. Your student would also lose student, teacher, and advisor relationships at the regular school and the regular school's structure and high expectations. Don't consent to DAEP placement without first consulting us. Instead, let us help you defend and defeat your student's DAEP charges.
College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct
Your student's College Station area school must enforce a student code of conduct sending disruptive students for DAEP placement. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires school districts to adopt student conduct codes that include detailed provisions on DAEP placement. Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 require those student conduct codes to direct DAEP program placements for certain student wrongs. The College Station ISD has adopted a Student Code of Conduct, covering all ISD schools at all K-12 levels and providing for DAEP placement. The Comal ISD has also adopted a Student Code of Conduct providing for DAEP placement. Beware Student Code of Conduct DAEP charges. Let us help you and your student defend those charges.
College Station ISD School Removal Grounds
Your student's DAEP matter may well begin with a school removal or threat of a school removal. The College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct lists many General Conduct Violation grounds on which officials at your student's local school may charge your student with discipline, remove your student from the school, and commence a DAEP placement proceeding. We can help you and your student contest the disciplinary charges. We can also help you and your student fight to get reinstated in the regular classroom while helping your student fight DAEP placement. The College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct authorizes all of these grounds for disciplinary charges and school removal:
- misconduct threatening safety, including horseplay, roughhousing, or other playful behavior;
- violent behavior like kicking, fighting, slugging, shoving, and scuffling, whether or not it causes an injury and threatens another's injury;
- coercion or duress of any form, trying to force another to act against their will;
- disrupting, hazing, harassing, intimidating, inciting, bullying, cyberbullying, or other offensive conduct;
- recording or sharing intimate visual images without consent;
- inappropriate sexual contact with others, whether or not consensual, and engaging in obscenity, vulgarity, or profanity;
- bringing drugs, drug paraphernalia, weapons, pornography, tobacco products, or other prohibited items into the school;
- vandalizing, damaging, or destroying property belonging to the school or others;
- starting fires, causing false fire alarms, or interfering with or damaging fire alarms, extinguishers, or smoke detectors;
- accessing electronic devices, sites, or files without school authorization, or other misuse or damage of school technology;
- dress code violations, inappropriate grooming, or disobedience or insubordination toward a principal, teacher, or other staff member; and
- providing false identification, failing to provide requested identification, or any other form of academic dishonesty, cheating, plagiarism, or falsifying, altering, or destroying school records.
College Station ISD Discretionary DAEP
Texas Education Code Section 37.001 authorizes College Station area school officials to pursue and impose DAEP placement within their discretion for any violation of the College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct. The bad news is that school officials get to decide whether to try to move your student to a DAEP placement. The College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct expressly authorizes DAEP placement for any General Conduct Violation. The good news is that the same school official discretion allows our attorneys to make a compelling case for the accused student to remain in the regular classroom and school. Discretion can work both ways, either for or against your student. Let us turn your student's defense in the right direction to keep your student in the regular classroom.
College Station ISD Mandatory DAEP
While in many cases, DAEP placement is discretionary, at the choice of school officials, Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 require DAEP placement for certain specified forms of more serious misconduct. The College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct adopts and incorporates the statutes' mandatory DAEP provisions. Mandatory DAEP placement should remove school official discretion. Yet a disciplinary charge involving a mandatory DAEP wrong does not mean that your student will automatically suffer a DAEP placement. We still get to defend your student's disciplinary charge, as the following section shows. The statutes and College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct require mandatory DAEP placement for these wrongs:
- pulling fire alarms without fire cause;
- making bomb threats;
- injuring others intentionally or recklessly;
- bringing drugs, alcohol, or firearms to school;
- being impaired by drugs or alcohol while in school;
- engaging in lewd activity or indecent exposure in school;
- assaulting or harassing others in the school community;
- committing conduct equal to a felony crime in school;
- sexually assaulting another student in school or
- sexually abusing a child or disabled person continuously.
College Station ISD DAEP Defenses
Facing College Station ISD disciplinary charges that threaten a DAEP placement could frighten, burden, and confuse any student. Disciplinary charges can also upset the parents. Do not give in to the tendency to either ignore the charges or do whatever school officials wish to make the charges go away. Don't sell your student's defense short. Don't let school officials send your student to DAEP placement when a skilled defense could have kept your student in the regular classroom. Our attorneys may be able to show that:
- your student did not commit the alleged misconduct;
- another student committed the alleged misconduct;
- witnesses misidentified your student as the wrongdoer;
- witnesses scapegoated your student for a wrong by others;
- witnesses retaliated against your student with false charges;
- the alleged misconduct involved a misunderstanding of rules;
- your student promptly admitted and corrected the misconduct;
- the alleged misconduct did not interfere with instruction or operations;
- the alleged misconduct caused no individual harm or loss and
- discipline would not advance any school interest.
College Station ISD DAEP Mitigating Factors
Even if your student did commit the alleged misconduct, and no direct defense to the charges is available, we may be able to make a strong case to mitigate or eliminate sanctions and avoid DAEP placement. Your student may have had special circumstances contributing to and explaining the misconduct, whether an unexpected medication reaction, severe disruption or loss at home, or undiagnosed disability. Your student may have been acting out due to bullying or discrimination that the school should have prevented or may need the school's special education services and disability accommodation as the law requires. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 authorizes these other statutory mitigating factors to avoid DAEP placement, each of which the College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct recognizes:
- your student acted in self-defense;
- your student did not have the guilty mind or bad intent;
- your student had a clean disciplinary record;
- your student's disability caused the wrong or
- your student was homeless or in foster care.
College Station ISD Emergency Placement
Some DAEP proceedings begin with an emergency placement authorized under Texas Education Code Section 37.019. Acting on that statutory authority, the College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct authorizes school officials to immediately remove a student whose unruly, disruptive, or abusive behavior seriously interferes with teaching or operations. You may not learn of any disciplinary charge against your student until after the school has already removed your student from the regular classroom and school. Retain us immediately on any such emergency removal so that we can invoke your student's hearing rights under the statute and the College Station ISD Student Code of Conduct.
College Station ISD DAEP Placement Hearing
Texas Education Code Sections 37.009 and 37.019 grant your student the right to a formal hearing to dispute a DAEP charge and placement. College Station ISD officials must grant your student a hearing for anything other than a short-term emergency suspension. Our attorneys know how to strategically and effectively invoke your student's hearing rights for the best disciplinary outcome, including cross-examining adverse witnesses and presenting your student's defense evidence.
College Station ISD DAEP Appeal
You and your student get another chance at restoring your student to the regular classroom if your student has already lost the hearing. Texas Education Code Section 37.009 requires College Station area schools to grant your student an appeal of the DAEP placement to the school district board. You also have an appeal to the Brazo County district court if the school district board affirms the DAEP placement decision. We can help you make your most compelling appeal to both the district board and the Brazo County district court.
Alternative Special Relief
We may be able to take another route if your student has already lost all hearings and appeals. The College Station ISD will have oversight officials, whether in a general counsel office, risk management office, or through outside retained counsel. We have the reputation and relationships to reach those officials to advocate your student's broader rights and the school's broader liability, regulatory, and reputational interests. Let us pursue all avenues until we obtain your student's best possible outcome.
Premier College Station Area DAEP Defense
If your student faces DAEP charges in the College Station, Texas, area, retain the Lento Law Firm's highly qualified Student Defense Team out of our Austin, Houston, or Dallas offices. We represent clients throughout Brazo County. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.
