Ordinarily, you would count your lucky stars that you have a student in the very highly rated Grapevine area school, with their A+ overall rating, 97% graduation rate, and ranking among the very top of Dallas-Fort Worth area school systems. But you may not be so pleased if your Grapevine area student faces disciplinary charges, threatening disciplinary alternative education placement (DAEP). DAEP is what parents generally know as boot camp or reform school. Its DAEP pseudonym tries to hide the fact that DAEP is for students whose traditional school program has expelled them for drugs, guns, gangs, and other violent, threatening, or disruptive behavior. If your student faces Grapevine area school disciplinary charges, and school officials are already urging you to accept your student's DAEP referral, call 888.535.3686 or use this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. Your student needs our highly skilled and experienced defense attorneys out of our Dallas office to keep your student in the regular Grapevine area schools classroom.
Grapevine Area Schools Student Defense
The Student Defense Team attorneys out of our Dallas office represent students across the Grapevine area, not only in Tarrant County's major cities Grapevine and Colleyville but also in the portions of Tarrant County's Euless, Hurst, and Southlake that the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD serves and even the small portions of Dallas County's Irving and Coppell that the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD serves. Our attorneys are also available in any of the Grapevine area's schools at any level, including the following programs:
Grapevine Area High Schools (Grades 9-12)
- Grapevine High School
- Colleyville Heritage High School
- Collegiate Academy at Tarrant County College-Northeast Campus
Grapevine Area Middle Schools (Grades 6-8)
- Grapevine Middle School
- Colleyville Middle School
- Heritage Middle School
- Cross Timbers Middle School
Grapevine Area Elementary Schools (Preschool to Grade 5)
- Cannon Elementary School
- Colleyville Elementary School
- Dove Elementary School
- Timberline Elementary School
- O.C. Taylor Elementary School
- Bear Creek Elementary School
- Heritage Elementary School
- Bransford Elementary School
- Grapevine Elementary School
- Glenhope Elementary School
- Silver Lake Elementary School
Grapevine Area DAEP Program
Grapevine area schools don't sugarcoat their DAEP program. In one of its behavioral initiatives to discourage vaping, Grapevine-Colleyville IS advertises to students and parents to “ditch the vape” to “AVOID THE DAEP FATE.” There you go: the district advertises that it's an obviously bad fate for your student to have your student's Grapevine area school send your student to DAEP. The Grapevine area maintains one DAEP school called VISTA DAEP. VISTA DAEP acknowledges on its general information webpage that its program is for students who violate the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD Code of Conduct or Texas Education Code, where they'll get instruction in core courses, together with counseling and drug education. Texas Education Code Section 37.008 confirms the Grapevine area schools' authority to remove unruly, dangerous, or disruptive students to VISTA DAEP. The Grapevine area packs all of its DAEP dangerous and disruptive students into one VISTA DAEP facility, although dividing the facility into elementary, middle school, and high school DAEP programs.
Grapevine Area DAEP Challenges
DAEP schools serve deeply troubled and disadvantaged student populations, including not just students violating drug, guns, gang, and violence rules but also those who have committed sexual assaults, property offenses, pornography offenses, and other dangerous and demoralizing wrongs. DAEP graduation rates reflect the DAEP population's challenges. A University of Texas Education Review study found only 44% of Texas DAEP first-time offenders graduating within four years and only 25% graduating if referred a second time to DAEP, compared to 84% of students graduating from regular school programs and the 97% graduating from the Grapevine area regular school programs. No matter how glowingly your student's school officials may paint the area's DAEP program, do not voluntarily approve your student's transfer without first retaining us to help you and your student challenge the disciplinary charges forming the referral basis.
Grapevine Area Student Codes of Conduct
Under Texas Education Code Section 37.001, Grapevine area school officials have broad discretion to remove your student to DAEP. Texas Education Code Sections 37.006, 37.007, and 37.008 each authorize DAEP referral under different circumstances. Texas school districts carry those Texas Education Code sections into effect by adopting district student codes of conduct. The Grapevine-Colleyville ISD's Code of Conduct adopts and incorporates those Texas Education Code provisions in a lengthy section on General Conduct Violations. The school may have already charged your minor student with a violation of one or more of its Code of Conduct provisions, each warranting DAEP referral. Don't despair, though, and don't give in to the charges. Let us help you and your minor student defend and defeat the charges to preserve your student's regular classroom enrollment.
Grapevine Area Schools Grounds for Removal
Texas Education Code Sections 37.006, 37.007, and 37.008 each authorize specific grounds for DAEP referral. The Grapevine area's Student Code of Conduct paraphrases and adds to those statutory grounds in its lengthy General Conduct Violations section. The district's Code of Conduct includes as removal grounds many different specific examples and instances where your student disregards school authority, mistreats others, damages or destroys property, brings prohibited items to school, misuses cellphones and other electronic devices, possesses drugs at school, misuses the internet, or endangers the safety of others.
The number of potential specific offenses your student could commit in a Grapevine area school is so large that it is difficult to summarize and count. The Code of Conduct also defines some of the offenses so vaguely and broadly that school officials can virtually make up the definitions to apply to the widest range of borderline student behaviors. That official discretion can work against certain students and student populations in a discriminatory fashion. Beware of the unfair pursuit of disciplinary charges, which may be a ruse to remove your student from DAEP and thereby relieve the school of the burden of instruction. Let us help defend and defeat the charges.
Grapevine Area Schools Discretionary DAEP
The Grapevine-Colleyville ISD's Code of Conduct defines its General Conduct Violations in two groups, one for discretionary DAEP and one for mandatory DAEP. Discretionary DAEP means that district officials don't have to remove your student to DAEP, even if they find that your student committed the alleged wrong, violating a General Conduct provision. School officials could instead impose a lesser sanction, such as probation, loss of privileges, or short-term in-school suspension. If your student faces discretionary DAEP charges, and school officials have substantial evidence supporting the charges, our attorneys can invoke that school discretion to advocate that your student only complete remedial measures, such as additional education, training, or mentoring, rather than face DAEP. The Grapevine-Colleyville ISD's General Conduct Violations warranting discretionary DAEP include:
- bullying that encourages a student to commit or attempt suicide;
- inciting violence against a student through group bullying;
- releasing intimate depictions of a minor or student without consent;
- involvement in a secret society or gang;
- involvement in criminal street gang activity;
- criminal mischief punishable only as a misdemeanor;
- assault with no injury but with threat of imminent injury; or
- assault by offensive or provocative physical contact.
Grapevine Area Schools Mandatory DAEP
Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 go on to name certain more-serious wrongs than those listed above that require DAEP. Mandatory DAEP applies only after a finding that your student committed the charged disciplinary wrong. Our attorneys still have the opportunity to defend your student against the charges authorizing mandatory DAEP. School officials may even permit a reduction in the charge to discretionary DAEP so that our attorneys can make a case for mitigating the sanction in favor of remedial measures, keeping your student in the regular classroom. Mandatory DAEP in the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD's Code of Conduct includes the following General Conduct Violations:
- false alarms, bomb, or other terroristic threats;
- conduct on school grounds punishable as a felony crime;
- sale, delivery, or use of drugs, alcohol, vaping, or marijuana;
- acts of public lewdness or indecent exposure on school grounds;
- criminal harassment of a school employee on school grounds;
- aggravated robbery or certain other felonies;
- certain forms of retaliation against school employees.
Grapevine Area Schools DAEP Defenses
As indicated above, just because your student faces Grapevine area school disciplinary charges threatening DAEP doesn't mean that your student is responsible for those charges. Your student may have one or more defenses that our attorney can raise in school administrative proceedings. We may be able to show that your student's accuser or accusers were fabricating false allegations to bully, oppress, or retaliate against your student. We may alternatively be able to show that complaining witnesses misidentified your student for another student or that your student acted out of self-defense or was defending others. We might also be able to show that your student had no prior record of any wrongdoing, ceased the alleged wrongdoing as soon as they realized it was improper, and rectified the wrong. Let us raise these and other defenses as the facts warrant.
Grapevine Area DAEP Mitigating Factors
Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires district officials to consider mitigating factors when determining whether to impose DAEP for a General Conduct Violation. Even if your student committed the alleged wrong, one or more of the statutory mitigating factors, also appearing in the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD's Code of Conduct, may relieve your student from a DAEP penalty, in favor of lesser sanctions like warning, reprimand, or probation, or even in favor of remedial measures like additional training. The statutory mitigating factors include self-defense, lack of guilty intent, absence of a disciplinary history, a disability that kept your student from appreciating the wrong, foster care, or homelessness. Let us make your student's case in mitigation.
Grapevine Area Emergency DAEP Placement
Texas Education Code Section 37.019 authorizes Grapevine area school officials to remove a student to DAEP on an emergency basis. The circumstances must involve unruly or disruptive behavior that seriously interferes with school operations. Your student will still get a removal hearing, but only if the removal persists beyond ten days. Let us help you invoke the hearing to restore your student's regular classroom placement.
Grapevine Area DAEP Placement Hearing
Other than for the above emergency circumstances, Texas Education Code Section 37.0081 requires a hearing before the Grapevine area school board or its designated official refers a student to DAEP. Section 37.009 and other Texas law details administrative hearing particulars. The Grapevine-Colleyville ISD's Code of Conduct adopts and confirms the statute's administrative hearing requirement before removal to DAEP. Don't rest on your student's rights. These procedural protections are not self-executing. Let our attorneys invoke them on your student's behalf to their best effect.
Grapevine Area DAEP Appeal
Texas Education Code Section 37.009 promises a student suffering an adverse DAEP placement or other school-removal sanction an appeal of the decision. The Grapevine-Colleyville ISD's Code of Conduct directs your first appeal to the school principal and final appeal to the district board. Let our attorneys invoke your student's appeal rights to reverse an adverse decision if you have already lost your student's formal hearing.
Alternative Special Relief
Schools across Texas also maintain general counsel offices or retain outside counsel to provide oversight to the district's legal compliance. Our attorneys have the reputation and relationships among general counsel and outside retained counsel to communicate and negotiate in certain cases for alternative special relief. If you and your student have already lost all hearings and appeals, and your student is headed to DAEP, we may be able to obtain special relief through oversight channels, restoring your student to the regular classroom. Let us help you exhaust all channels until we obtain your student's best possible outcome.
Premier Grapevine Area Schools DAEP Defense
If your student faces school disciplinary charges in the Grapevine, Texas area, threatening DAEP, you can do no better than to retain the Lento Law Firm's highly qualified Student Defense Team out of our Dallas office. We have helped hundreds of students across Texas and nationwide defend and defeat school disciplinary charges to preserve their educational placement. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.
