The Euless area schools, with an A+ overall rating and high graduation rate, rank as a top Dallas-Fort Worth area school district. Yet for your minor student to continue to enjoy the advantages of a Euless area school, your student needs to remain in the regular classroom, in the face of disciplinary charges, threatening disciplinary alternative education placement (DAEP). DAEP boot camp or reform school is generally for unruly and disruptive students expelled from the regular classroom for drug, weapon, gang, and other violent offenses. If your student faces Euless area school disciplinary charges threatening DAEP, call 888.535.3686 or use this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. The highly qualified attorneys out of our Dallas office stand ready to defend your student's disciplinary charges to keep your student in the regular Euless classroom.
Euless Area Schools Student Defense
Our Dallas office's Student Defense Team attorneys are available to represent your student in any school across the Euless area, whether in Bedford, Euless, Hurst, or the portions of North Richland Hills, Colleyville, Fort Worth, and Arlington that the Euless area schools also serve. We are available in all district schools at all levels, including the following programs:
Euless Area High Schools (Grades 10-12)
- L.D. Bell High School
- Trinity High School
- KEYS High School
Euless Middle Schools (Grades 7-9)
- Bedford Junior High School
- Central Junior High School
- Euless Junior High School
- Harwood Junior High School
- Hurst Junior High School
Euless Elementary Schools (Preschool to Grade 6)
- Arbor Creek Elementary School
- Bedford Heights Elementary School
- Bell Manor Elementary School
- Bellaire Elementary School
- Donna Park Elementary School
- Harrison Lane Elementary School
- Hurst Hills Elementary School
- Lakewood Elementary School
- Meadow Creek Elementary School
- Midway Park Elementary School
- North Euless Elementary School
- Oakwood Terrace Elementary School
- River Trails Elementary School
- Shady Brook Elementary School
- Shady Oaks Elementary School
- South Euless Elementary School
- Spring Garden Elementary School
- Stonegate Elementary School
- Trinity Lakes Elementary School
- Viridian Elementary School
- Wilshire Elementary School
Euless Area DAEP Program
To comply with Texas state mandates for disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEP), Euless maintains two DAEP facilities. The Crossroads Alternative Education Program located on the Stonegate Elementary School campus serves all Euless elementary students from kindergarten to sixth grade referred for DAEP. The Secondary Alternative Education Program located adjacent to KEYS High School and Central Junior High School serves all Euless secondary students from grade seven to grade twelve. The Euless area draws its statutory authority and mandate for these DAEP facilities and programs from Texas Education Code Section 37.008, providing for DAEP removal of unruly, dangerous, or disruptive students. All Euless DAEP students from across the full district, including its approximately three dozen schools, go into one of the district's two DAEP facilities, serving either kindergarten through sixth grade or seventh grade through twelfth grade.
Euless Area DAEP Program Challenges
Your minor student's Euless area school disciplinary officials pursuing DAEP charges against your student may try to paint their DAEP facility in the most positive possible light. But don't let them fool you. As committed as the facility's staff members may be, they still serve a highly troubled student population, students so troubled that their regular schools forced them into the special DAEP facility. Your student likely doesn't want to be there, and you likely don't want your student there, either, among students with drug, gun, gang, arson, bomb, sexual assault, pornography, lewdness, and other violations. And Euless school officials acknowledge the challenges the district's DAEP programs present. After all, they call the elementary program Crossroads, reflecting the two distinct paths, one bad, the other better, down which those elementary students may go. The Euless area system Student Code of Conduct likewise refers to the district's elementary and secondary school DAEP facilities as the district's Special Opportunity Schools, deliberately labeling the facilities with the distress signal SOS. Yes, send out an SOS for those DAEP students.
Education statistics confirm the sad picture of Texas DAEP schools. The University of Texas Education Review published a study of Texas DAEP schools showing that only 44% of first-time offenders graduate within four years, down to only 25% of those referred a second time to DAEP. Those figures compare to 84% of students graduating from regular school programs and an even higher percentage graduating from the fine Euless area regular schools. Don't let your minor student's school officials sell you a bill of goods, convincing you to consent to your student's DAEP referral. Instead, let us help you and your student defend and defeat the DAEP removal charges.
Euless Area School Student Code of Conduct
Texas Education Code Section 37.001 grants Euless area school officials and officials in other districts generous discretion to remove students to DAEP. Texas Education Code Sections 37.006, 37.007, and 37.008 carry out that grant of DAEP authority by specifying DAEP referral circumstances. These statutory authorizations also take the form of mandates that districts provide DAEP facilities. Like other Texas school systems, the Euless area schools have carried these statutory authorizations and mandates into effect not only by maintaining two DAEP facilities but also by adopting a Student Code of Conduct providing for removals to DAEP. Your student's school officials are likely seeking your student's removal to DAEP under the Student Code of Conduct.
Euless Area School Grounds for DAEP Removal
Texas Education Code Sections 37.006, 37.007, and 37.008 together authorize grounds for removal to DAEP. The Euless area system's Student Code of Conduct captures and embellishes those statutory grounds for DAEP removal in a General Conduct Violations section listing dozens if not hundreds of potential offenses. The Euless area system's Student Code of Conduct divides those hundreds of potential offenses into categories, including disregarding school authority, mistreating others, damaging property, bringing contraband or other prohibited items to school, misusing electronic devices and the internet, and endangering the safety of the school community. The Euless area system's Student Code of Conduct labels any General Conduct Violation as potentially warranting DAEP. No matter the nature of your student's charges, let us help with your student's DAEP defense. Charges are only allegations, not findings.
Euless Area Discretionary DAEP
Consistent with the above Texas Education Code mandates, the Euless area's Student Code of Conduct defines two groups of DAEP violations, one for discretionary DAEP and one for mandatory DAEP. If your student faces discretionary DAEP charges, which we can help you determine from the violations the charges allege, that means that Euless area school officials maintain the authority not to send your student to DAEP, once we show them that a DAEP referral is inappropriate and unnecessary. School officials may instead impose lesser discipline like reprimands or probation, or we may be able to convince school officials that your student can readily complete non-disciplinary remedial measures like training and mentoring, even assuming that officials find that your student committed a punishable wrong. The Euless area's discretionary DAEP grounds include:
- bullying, encouraging a student to attempt suicide or inciting violence;
- distributing intimate depictions of a minor or student without consent;
- involvement in a school fraternity, sorority, secret society, or gang;
- involvement in criminal street gang activity or misdemeanor mischief;
- offensive or provocative contact or assault threatening injury.
Euless Area Mandatory DAEP
Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 mandate and require DAEP for certain more-serious wrongs than those wrongs listed just above. Mandatory DAEP means, in theory, that your student's Euless area school disciplinary officials have no choice but to send your student to DAEP if they find that your student committed one or more of the specified mandatory DAEP grounds. However, our attorneys may be able to show that your student did not commit the mandatory DAEP offense. We may alternatively be able to introduce sufficient doubt in the charges that school officials reconsider and charge a lesser discretionary rather than mandatory DAEP offense. Don't give up and give in to mandatory DAEP charges. Instead, let us explore your student's options and defenses. Mandatory DAEP grounds in the Euless area's Student Code of Conduct include the following:
- false alarms, bomb threats, or terroristic threats;
- felony crimes committed on school grounds;
- sale, delivery, or use of drugs or alcohol on school grounds;
- possession of vaping materials or marijuana on school grounds;
- public lewdness or indecent exposure on school grounds;
- criminally harassing school employees on school grounds;
- aggravated robbery or certain other felonies on or off school grounds;
- specific statutory forms of retaliation against school employees.
Euless Area DAEP Defenses
As just suggested in the prior paragraph, our attorneys may be able to raise one or more defenses in your student's school administrative proceeding to Euless area DAEP charges. Our attorneys know how to show when complaining witnesses are fabricating the allegations for spite or vengeance, or to retaliate against your student. We also know how to show that witnesses have mistaken or confused an innocent student for the responsible student, or have mistaken innocent actions for serious DAEP violations. We may alternatively be able to show that your student was acting out in response to unlawful bullying, was acting in self-defense or defending others, or was trying to recover stolen property. We may instead be able to show that your student suffered a medication reaction, sudden onset of a mental disability, or other aberration since corrected. These are just a few of the many potential defenses our attorneys typically investigate and may be able to assert for a winning defense in any one case.
Euless Area DAEP Mitigating Factors
Your student may also have a case to mitigate the DAEP penalty, based on statutory factors or other factors. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires school officials to consider certain mitigating factors when deciding whether to impose DAEP. Those factors include that your student acted in self-defense, lacked the guilty intent that the violation required, had no prior disciplinary history, had a mental disability that interfered with the ability to appreciate the wrong, or was in foster care or homeless. We may also be able to make a case mitigating DAEP consideration out of other circumstances including the age, maturity or immaturity, and other character of your student.
Euless Area Emergency Placement
Under Texas Education Code Section 37.019, Euless area school officials have the authority to remove your student to DAEP on an emergency basis. Section 37.019 limits emergency removal to unruly or disruptive behavior that seriously interferes with school operations. If your student has suffered emergency DAEP removal, we can invoke your student's right to a post-removal hearing.
Euless Area DAEP Placement Hearing
Unless an emergency warrants immediate removal, Texas Education Code Section 37.0081 otherwise requires a removal hearing before a DAEP placement. Texas Education Code Section 37.009 and other Texas administrative rules state administrative hearing requirements. The Euless area's Student Code of Conduct itself assures your student of a hearing and provides reasonably detailed hearing procedures. We can invoke those hearings on your student's behalf and help conduct the hearing as district rules and practices permit.
Euless Area DAEP Appeal
Don't give up if your student has already lost the hearing and suffered a DAEP referral. Texas Education Code Section 37.009 promises an appeal of the DAEP decision or other long-term school removal. The Euless area's Student Code of Conduct offers an initial appeal to the principal and a final appeal to the ISD board. Our attorneys know how to pursue and perfect your student's appeal rights for reinstatement to the regular classroom.
Alternative Special Relief
Our attorneys also have the contacts, reputation, and relationships with school officials in the Dallas area and across Texas to communicate and advocate informally for alternative special relief if you and your minor student have lost all hearings and appeals. We may be able to gain that relief through a general counsel's office, outside retained counsel, or other oversight channel with the district or state. We can also pursue available civil court relief.
Premier Euless Area Schools DAEP Defense
If your student faces school disciplinary charges in the Euless, Texas area, threatening disciplinary alternative placement, retain the Lento Law Firm's highly qualified Student Defense Team out of our Dallas office for your student's premier defense. We help hundreds of students across Texas and nationwide defend and defeat school disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.
