You chose to live in the Edinburg, Texas, area, believing that the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District's K-12 schools would serve your students well. You surely did not expect your student to face school removal threatening a disciplinary alternative education placement, known across Texas as DAEP. Disciplinary placement in a boot camp or reform school program can cripple your student's ambition and future. If your student faces Edinburg, Texas DAEP disciplinary charges, call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. Your student needs and deserves our highly skilled and experienced representation.
Edinburg Area School District Student Defense
The premier Student Defense Team attorneys in our Houston and Austin offices are available to you in the Edinburg area for your student's strategic and effective defense representation against DAEP charges. We can help whether your student attends within the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District or in another Hidalgo County school district like the Donna Independent School District, Edcouch-Elsa Independent School District, Hidalgo Independent School District, La Joya Independent School District, La Villa Independent School District, Lyford Consolidated Independent School District, Mercedes Independent School District, Mission Consolidated Independent School District, Monte Alto Independent School District, Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District, Progreso Independent School District, Sharyland Independent School District, Weslaco Independent School District, South Texas Independent School District, or Valley View Independent School District.
Edinburg DAEP
Do not let your student's Edinburg area school officials mislead you as to your student's DAEP placement as if it's a great thing. A disciplinary alternative education placement isn't simply moving to a more fitting school program. Instead, it is moving to a school where other schools have removed students for discipline, generally for very serious wrongs. While the teachers at those schools may do the best they can, the retention, advancement, and graduation records of DAEP programs are generally much lower than those of the regular schools. The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District, like Hidalgo County's other districts, maintains a DAEP school, the so-called Edinburg Academy, for students all the way from kindergarten to grade twelve. Edinburg's DAEP program has its own strict dress code, set of disciplinary expectations, and attendance and other rules. Your student is likely far better off, academically and socially, by remaining in the regular classroom and school. Let us help you keep your student there.
Edinburg School District Student Conduct Code
Your student's Edinburg area school has a student code of conduct under which it may, depending on your student's alleged misconduct, send your student to a DAEP program, whether you approve or not. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District and the other Hidalgo County school districts to adopt student codes of conduct. Your student's Edinburg area school may suspend your student, expel your student, and transfer your student to a DAEP program if it determines that your student violated its student conduct code. The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct, at the back of its Student Handbook, expressly provides for out-of-school suspension for a wide range of misconduct forms. Take conduct code disciplinary charges seriously. Get our defense help.
Edinburg DAEP Removal Grounds
Your student's Edinburg area school's student code of conduct will specify the grounds on which school officials may move your student to a DAEP program. The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct expressly provides for both mandatory DAEP placement and discretionary DAEP placement on the grounds summarized in the following sections provides that elementary school students placed in a DAEP program must be placed only with other elementary school students, not with older secondary school students. DAEP placement generally follows a school suspension or expulsion, although school officials may urge and even pressure parents to consent to DAEP placement without the necessity of a hearing and formal discipline. Beware any such offer, urging, or pressure. Don't let school officials railroad or scapegoat your student. Let us help you evaluate your student's best move and defend against disciplinary charges.
Edinburg Discretionary DAEP
Your student's Edinburg area school will likely claim broad discretion to place your student in a DAEP program for virtually any violation of the school's student code of conduct that school officials say disrupts instruction or operations. The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District Student Code of Conduct expressly authorizes discretionary DAEP placement for any General Conduct Violation. General Conduct Violations include:
- disregarding school authority, such as failing to comply with teacher or principal directives, leaving school grounds or school-sponsored events without permission, or refusing to accept a consequence a teacher imposes;
- mistreating others, including using profanity or vulgar language, threatening others, bullying or harassing others, hazing, or inappropriate verbal or physical conduct;
- mistreating property of the school or others such as vandalism, theft, or trespass;
- possessing prohibited items such as fireworks, razors, box cutters, air guns, ammunition, firearms, pornographic materials, matches or lighter, tobacco, alcohol, or controlled substances;
- misusing technology, including hacking, spam posting, and cyberbullying; and
- safety violations like discharging fire extinguishers, perpetrating dangerous hoaxes, and encouraging other law violations.
Our attorneys can help you and your student defend any of the above Edinburg area school discretionary DAEP charges. Even if your student committed one or more of the above wrongs, we know how to present the best case to mitigate any sanction and to keep your student in the regular classroom and school.
Edinburg Mandatory DAEP
While the above grounds to remove a student to DAEP are discretionary, your student's Edinburg area school code of conduct will mandate DAEP removal in certain cases. Consistent with Texas state education law, the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct mandates DAEP removal if school officials find that your student committed one or more of the following wrongs:
- false fire alarms or false bomb threats;
- injuring another either intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly;
- possessing a controlled substance or alcohol on school property or at school events;
- being under the influence of a controlled substance or alcohol at school;
- engaging in indecent exposure or public lewdness;
- harassment or assault against a school employee or volunteer;
- certain firearms and felony violations;
- sexual assault against another student; or
- repeated sexual abuse of a young child.
As in the case of discretionary DAEP charges, our attorneys can also help you and your student defend mandatory DAEP charges. Do not misconstrue a mandatory DAEP charge as if your student is sure to suffer DAEP removal. Let us help defend the charges.
Edinburg DAEP Defenses
Our attorneys may be able to defend your student against Edinburg area school DAEP charges, even if your student committed one or more of the above wrongs. While the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct characterizes the above wrongs as warranting mandatory DAEP, the Student Code of Conduct also permits school disciplinary officials to forgo DAEP removal and keep your student in the regular classroom:
- if your student acted in self-defense when committing the misconduct;
- if your student lacked guilty intent when committing the misconduct;
- if your student had no prior discipline on the school record;
- if your student had a disability that substantially impaired your student's capacity to appreciate and avoid the wrong or
- if your student was homeless or in foster care.
These are not the only defenses that we may be able to raise on your student's behalf. We may alternatively be able to show that another student committed the wrong but falsely blamed your student, that the school failed to accommodate your student's disability, resulting in the misconduct, or that the school failed to prevent bullying or intimidation of your student that resulted in the misconduct. Let us help you investigate and assert these and other defenses, as the facts and circumstances support.
Edinburg DAEP Emergency Placement
Your student's Edinburg area school may remove your student from the classroom and school on an emergency basis, threatening DAEP placement. The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct, like the conduct codes in the county's other districts, authorizes an emergency expulsion when “necessary to protect persons or property from imminent harm.” The student and parent do not get advance notice of emergency removal. Instead, the school must provide the constitutionally required due process within ten days after the emergency expulsion. Retain us the moment your student suffers an emergency expulsion so that we can invoke your student's procedural rights.
Edinburg DAEP Hearing
To comply with your student's constitutional due process rights, the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct, like the conduct codes in the county's other districts, guarantees your student a hearing before the school district board or its designee. Under the Student Code of Conduct, for your student to face DAEP removal, the school must show not only that your student committed the alleged wrong warranting expulsion but also that your student's return to the classroom would be (1) a threat to the safety of students or teachers, (2) detrimental to the educational process, or (3) not in the student's best interest. Our attorneys can help you and your student invoke the hearing, prepare for the hearing, and conduct the hearing to the best effect that district officials allow.
Edinburg DAEP Appeal
Do not give up if your student has already lost your student's formal hearing. The hearing is only your student's first opportunity to show that DAEP placement is unnecessary and unwise. The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District's Student Code of Conduct, like the conduct codes in the county's other districts, provides for an appeal of an adverse decision on the DAEP sanction. Appeals of DAEP decisions generally go to the full district board. An appeal, though, requires more than you might think, including pointing out the errors in the hearing that affected your student's substantial rights. Our attorneys know how to prepare, pursue, and perfect appeals for their best effect. Do not attempt an appeal on your own or with unqualified counsel. Get premier representation from our highly qualified attorneys.
Alternative Special Relief
Your student may still have a chance to return to the regular classroom even if you and your student have exhausted all hearings and appeals. In student DAEP disputes, the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District and other Hidalgo County school districts employ general counsel, outside retained counsel, or other oversight officials to ensure that they treat students lawfully and within their full state and federal rights. Our attorneys have the reputation and relationships to gain the attention, trust, and confidence of those oversight officials when advocating and negotiating for alternative special relief. We may, for instance, be able to show that school officials violated your student's disability rights, failed to prevent bullying against your student, or even unlawfully discriminated against your student. If we are unable to gain alternative special relief through oversight channels, civil litigation or regulatory complaints may be other options to restore your student to the regular classroom.
Our Student Defense Services
Keep in mind that the above federal and state education laws, rules, and administrative procedures differ markedly from criminal laws and criminal and civil court rules and procedures. Local criminal defense lawyers and personal injury attorneys generally do not have the substantial education law knowledge and academic, administrative, procedural knowledge and skills required for your student's best possible outcome in an Edinburg area school DAEP matter. You need our attorney's highly skilled and experienced representation for the best outcome that your student needs and deserves.
Premier Edinburg DAEP Defense Attorneys
If your student faces DAEP charges in the Edinburg, Texas, area, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team to preserve your student's future. Attorneys from our Houston and Austin offices represent clients throughout the Edinburg area. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our strategic and effective defense representation. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.
