Texas Disciplinary Placement – Conroe

If your student faces K-12 disciplinary charges in the Conroe, Texas area, those charges could result in referral of your student for disciplinary alternative education placement, commonly abbreviated DAEP. Don't let DAEP destroy your student's academic record and relationships and crush your student's hopes, ambitions, and dreams. If your student faces school disciplinary charges in the Conroe, Texas area, risking DAEP, you can do no better than to promptly retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for highly skilled and experienced representation from the attorneys in our Houston or Austin offices, available for you throughout the Conroe area.

Conroe Disciplinary Alternative Education Placement

Disciplinary alternative education placement effectively means your student's removal from your student's regular school placement to a boot camp or reform school. Educators no longer call it that, but that's what it means. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires the Conroe Independent School District and the other Montgomery County school districts to adopt student codes of conduct. When a student violates a school conduct rule, the school can discipline the student all the way up to suspension, expulsion, and disciplinary alternative education placement. The Conroe Independent School District, like Montgomery County's other districts, maintains DAEP schools at both the elementary and secondary school levels. The Conroe Independent School District's DAEP schools add their own onerous rules, including strict attendance, conduct, and dress codes. Your student's school officials may speak glowingly about their DAEP programs. But beware, DAEP offers and assurances. The retention, engagement, advancement, graduation, and juvenile delinquency statistics for students shunted off to DAEP are generally poor in a program filled with students having all kinds of serious problems. Get our help to fight your student's DAEP charges.

Conroe Area School District Student Defense

The highly qualified DAEP attorneys out of our Houston and Austin offices are available to serve your student, whether your student attends K-12 school within the Conroe Independent School District or in other Montgomery County school districts, including the Magnolia Independent School District, Montgomery Independent School District, New Caney Independent School District, Splendora Independent School District, or Willis Independent School District, or the Texas Serenity Academy. Get our help. Give your student the best chance to preserve your student's academic record and relationships.

Conroe DAEP Referral Grounds

The Conroe Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct, like similar student conduct codes adopted in other Montgomery County school districts, expressly provides for your student's removal from the regular classroom whenever a teacher or other school official alleges that your student has violated a conduct rule. A teacher may also remove a student for “repeatedly interfering with the teacher's ability to teach his or her class or with the student's classmates' ability to learn.” If a teacher or other school official alleges that your student committed an assault against the teacher, your student will not return to the classroom without the teacher's consent. A placement review committee determines whether your student may return to the classroom or will face an alternative disciplinary placement in Conroe's DAEP program outside the regular classroom and school.

Conroe Mandatory DAEP

Your student's Conroe area school code of conduct may mandate your student's removal to DAEP if the school finds that your student committed certain misconduct without an excuse. Get our help if your student faces mandatory DAEP charges. The Conroe Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct, like other conduct codes in Montgomery County's other districts, provides for an out-of-school suspension and DAEP based on the alleged offense level. The Student Code of Conduct mandates your student's DAEP removal for any of the following offenses:

• making false alarms or bomb threats;
• intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing injury to another;
• selling, giving, possessing, or being under the influence of a controlled substance, including marijuana;
• selling, giving, possessing, or being under the influence of alcohol;
• public lewdness or indecent exposure;
• harassing or retaliating against a school employee or volunteer;
• firearms violations;
• engaging in any conduct Texas defines as a felony;
• aggravated robbery, and
• sexual assault on another student or sexual abuse of a young child.

Conroe Discretionary DAEP

Even if your student does not face mandatory DAEP removal for one of the above wrongs, your student's Conroe area school likely reserves the discretion to remove your student to DAEP for other, lesser wrongs. Our attorneys can help defend discretionary DAEP charges, like mandatory DAEP charges. The Conroe Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct, like the conduct codes in the county's other districts, provides for discretionary DAEP removal for any of the following wrongs:

• bullying another student or inciting others to bully;
• sharing or threatening to share intimate images of another student without consent;
• criminal mischief;
• breach of a school computer system;
• drug or alcohol use, possession, sale, or distribution within 300 feet of the school or at a school event;
• firearm possession within 300 feet of the school.

Conroe DAEP Defenses

Just because your student faces Conroe DAEP charges does not mean that your student must end up in a boot camp placement. The Conroe Independent School District's student code of conduct expressly provides that the school principal or other administrator handling discipline may take into account any of the following factors when deciding a disciplinary case for either mandatory or discretionary DAEP:

• that the student acted in self-defense;
• that the student lacked the intent to commit the alleged misconduct;
• that the student had no prior disciplinary history;
• that the student's disability substantially impaired the student's ability to recognize the wrong or
• that the student is homeless or in foster care.

Our attorneys can help you and your student present these and other defenses to Conroe DAEP charges. Other defenses may include that the allegations are untrue, that the allegations are retaliatory for your student reporting bullying or other wrongs, that your student was acting out due to bullying or intimidation that the school unlawfully failed to address, or that your student's conduct was the result of a disability that the school unlawfully failed to accommodate. Don't let the school blame your student for things that the school has done wrong or make your student a scapegoat. Let us help raise your student's best defense.

Conroe DAEP Emergency Placement

Conroe area school districts also reserve the right to remove your student from the school on an emergency basis before providing your student with an opportunity to tell your student's side of the story in a hearing. The Conroe Independent School District Student Code of Conduct, for instance, provides that emergency removals may take place whenever the student is “so unruly, disruptive, or abusive that it seriously interferes with classroom or school operations.” The school may keep your student out for ten days, after which the Student Code of Conduct provides for a conference “for assignment to a DAEP.” Do not be surprised if your student suffers school removal without ever getting to answer the disciplinary charges. Know, though, that your student will have constitutional due process rights for our attorneys to use strategically and effectively. Let us help you reverse your student's emergency removal and avoid DAEP placement.

Conroe DAEP Hearing

As just suggested, your student will have a constitutional right to due process to contest removals that last more than a few days. The Conroe Independent School District Student Code of Conduct, like the county's other district student conduct codes, includes lengthy provisions detailing your student's DAEP hearing rights. In general, those rights include notice to you and your student of the wrongs that the school alleges your student committed, sufficient for us to help you meaningfully contest those charges at a formal hearing before an independent decision-maker. Be aware that your student's procedural rights are not necessarily self-executing. If you and your student fail to respond to the charges in a timely and appropriate manner, your student may lose those rights. Our attorneys can help you and your student:

• understand the charges;
• get the school's details of vague charges;
• notify the school of our appearance on your student's behalf;
• arrange and conduct conciliation conferences for early resolution;
• timely answer the charges, invoking the hearing right;
• get the school's evidence supporting the charges;
• acquire your student's evidence opposing the charges;
• organize and present your student's defense evidence and
• present other evidence to mitigate any sanction.

Conroe DAEP Appeal

If you and your student have already lost your student's formal hearing, your student likely has substantial appeal rights that our attorneys can invoke for your student's best possible outcome. The Conroe Independent School District Student Code of Conduct, like the conduct codes in the county's other districts, provides for several different forms of appeal, depending on the offense level and punishment. A school principal or disciplinary committee decision to remove your student to DAEP, though, likely affords your student an appeal to the district superintendent. If the superintendent made the DAEP decision, then your student likely has an appeal to the full district board. DAEP appeals require more than a simple letter and explanation of your disagreement with the removal decision. A winning appeal generally takes much more to overcome the hearing decision. Our attorneys can take the following steps on your student's behalf for the best chance of a winning appeal that returns your student to the regular classroom:

• obtain the hearing decision, record, or transcript;
• review and analyze the decision, record, and transcript;
• identify legal errors, factual errors, and procedural violations;
• research and cite the applicable law, rule, or regulation;
• prepare the appeal brief, record, and other materials; and
• make the appeal presentation in the most compelling manner.

Alternative Special Relief

Do not give up if you and your student have already lost your student's hearing and appeal. The Conroe Independent School District and other Montgomery County school districts must comply with federal and state education laws that may afford your student other, special alternative relief. For instance, if your student has a qualifying educational disability, the school and district may owe your student a manifestation determination review, at which we can argue for your student's disability accommodation rather than DAEP removal. Likewise, if your student's discipline is related to bullying, intimidation, or unlawful discrimination against your student, we can argue for special alternative relief. Our attorneys have the national, statewide, and local reputation with school district general counsel offices, outside retained counsel, and state education officials, who are able to open fruitful lines of negotiation and communication. Let us evaluate your student's matter and pursue these oversight channels for relief, even if you have already exhausted all formal channels. Litigation or regulatory complaints may also be other avenues we can pursue to help your student return to the regular classroom.

Our Student Defense Services

Do not retain an unqualified local criminal defense attorney or civil litigator if your student faces DAEP issues in the Conroe, Texas, area. The federal and state laws, rules, and regulations that govern school disciplinary matters in school administrative forums differ from the laws, rules, and regulations that apply in court matters. Our Student Defense Team attorneys have the substantial knowledge, skill, and experience in DAEP matters for your student's best possible outcome. We have a nearby office in Houston and a second office in Austin. Our attorneys from both offices will travel throughout the Conroe area to ensure your student's highly qualified representation.

Premier Conroe DAEP Defense Attorneys

If your student faces disciplinary alternative education placement in the Conroe, Texas, area, you can do no better than to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. Attorneys from our Houston and Austin offices are available to serve throughout the Conroe area. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our skilled and experienced representation for your student's best possible Conroe, Texas, disciplinary outcome. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.