Texas City area schools, including the Texas City Independent School District (Texas City ISD) public schools, located along Galveston Bay southeast of Houston, is a diverse area facing a range of challenges common to other Texas areas. Texas City area schools, therefore, maintains an active disciplinary alternative education placement (DAEP) boot camp or reform school program, authorized by Texas statutes. Unfortunately, school officials sometimes use Texas DAEP programs not for their boot camp purposes, housing students who have committed gun, drug, gang, and other serious offenses, but to rid the regular school of earnest and sound students simply needing support services. Don't let school officials scapegoat your Texas City area school student if your student faces DAEP disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or use this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team attorneys from the Firm's Houston offices. Let us help you save your student from the Texas City DAEP.
Texas City Area Schools Student Defense
It's worth defending your student's Texas City regular classroom enrollment against DAEP removal. Your student's regular Texas City classroom provides valuable structured instruction, higher teacher expectations, and greater peer support than a DAEP program with its challenged student population. To keep your student in the regular classroom, our attorneys from the firm's Houston offices are available to defend DAEP disciplinary charges in any Texas City area school including the following locations:
Texas City High Schools
- Texas City High School (Grades 9-12)
- La Marque High School (Grades 9-12)
Texas City Middle Schools
- Blocker Middle School (Grades 7-8)
- Giles Middle School (Grades 6-8)
Texas City Primary schools
- Levi Fry Intermediate School (Grades 5-6)
- Heights Elementary School (Grades K-4)
- Kohfeldt Elementary School (Grades K-4)
- Guajardo Jr. Elementary School (Grades K-4)
- Roosevelt-Wilson Elementary School (Grades K-4)
- Simms Elementary School (Grades K-5)
- Haley Elementary School (Grades K-5)
Texas DAEP Law
Texas Education Code Chapter 37, Subchapter A, authorizes disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEP) to ensure that miscreant students do not prevent the regular schools from instructing students under ordinary operation. Texas Education Code Section 37.008 authorizes Texas City area school officials to remove to the DAEP only unruly, dangerous, or disruptive students. Texas City area school officials should not be removing students for school convenience, ranking, statistics, or reputation. The Texas legislature did not authorize DAEP programs to take on naturally struggling students, students needing disability accommodations or special services, or students affected by bullying, harassment, and intimidation that the school had a legal duty to stop. Let us help fight your student's DAEP removal.
Texas City Area DAEP Program
The Texas City area has two non-traditional programs, both an Industrial Trades Center serving as a vocational program and the Woodrow Wilson Disciplinary Alternative Education Program School serving students expelled from their regular classroom in grades five through twelve. The Woodrow Wilson DAEP School, located at 1508 Sixth Street North in Texas City, maintains a strict dress code requiring white, black, or gray shirts without emblems, khaki pants, and white or black shoes and socks. The Texas City ISD Code of Conduct authorizes DAEP removal for a specific set of misbehaviors but further implies the prospect of DAEP removal for any General Conduct Violation. While only students from grades five through twelve may attend the district's Woodrow Wilson DAEP School, the district's Code of Conduct authorizes DAEP for students from kindergarten on up in appropriate cases. Don't consent to your student's DAEP removal, even if school officials tout their DAEP program and pressure you to consent. Instead, let us help you fight your student's disciplinary charges.
Texas DAEP Program Statistics
Texas DAEP programs don't do nearly as well as the regular classroom for enrolled students. A University of Texas at Austin Education Review study found that while 84% of students from regular classrooms graduate from high school in four years, only about half that number, or 44% of first-time DAEP enrollees graduate in the same span. Only one out of every four DAEP second-time enrollees graduate on time. The Texas City area's Woodrow Wilson DAEP School may have highly committed staff. However, the student population is severely troubled, and DAEP simply cannot replicate the high expectations, consistent structure, and substantial peer support of your student's traditional classroom.
Texas City Area Student Code of Conduct
Texas Education Code Sections 37.006, 37.007, and 37.008 list specific grounds for DAEP removal. The Texas City ISD's Student Code of Conduct adopts those statutory grounds in its long and detailed section on DAEP removal. Texas City area school officials are likely pursuing your student's DAEP removal under those Student Code of Conduct provisions. Our attorneys can help you evaluate the disciplinary charges against the Student Code of Conduct, applicable statutes, and available evidence, to implement the best approach to avoid your student's DAEP removal. We know how to interpret the Texas Education Code and district student conduct codes for your student's best defense.
Texas City Area Rationales for DAEP Removal
Texas City ISD's Student Code of Conduct should constrain your student's school officials to limit DAEP removal to instances where students have committed one or more of the serious wrongs warranting DAEP removal. Unfortunately, school officials have incentives to manipulate DAEP removal to achieve ulterior purposes that the Texas legislature surely never intended. Removing a student to DAEP can relieve a regular school from providing disability accommodations, special education services, and other instructional support to a struggling student. DAEP removal can also improve a regular school's academic performance and profile, while pleasing other parents and students who don't want the required accommodations and services to distract from their own students' education. DAEP removal can even save a building principal from having to address bullying and intimidation causing the removed student's struggles. Don't let your student's Texas City area school officials rationalize their way into removing your student for ulterior purposes. Let us help you fight your student's DAEP removal.
Texas City Area Grounds for DAEP Removal
Texas City ISD's Student Code of Conduct authorizes DAEP removal on specific grounds, in two general sections of the Code addressing discretionary DAEP removal and mandatory DAEP removal. See in the following sections how our attorneys may be able to help your student avoid mandatory or discretionary DAEP removal.
Texas City Area Discretionary DAEP
Discretionary DAEP charges allow Texas City area school officials to either remove your student to DAEP or not remove but instead impose lesser sanctions like reprimand, probation, in-school suspension, or loss of privileges. In the face of discretionary DAEP charges, our attorneys may be able to advocate successfully for alternative remedial measures like counseling, mentoring, or additional education or training that keep your student's disciplinary record clean. We know the kinds of remedial measures that help your student, avoid embarrassment or burdens on your student, and satisfy school interests in managing behavior. The Texas City ISD Student Code of Conduct lists these discretionary DAEP removal grounds:
- bullying either inciting violence or triggering suicide attempts;
- sharing or threatening to share non-consensual intimate images;
- joining a forbidden fraternity, sorority, secret society, or gang;
- criminal mischief or street gang activity;
- assault with offensive or provocative contact;
- assault threatening imminent bodily injury;
- committing a felony crime off school grounds.
Texas City Area Mandatory DAEP
Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 require mandatory DAEP for specific misbehaviors that rise to a higher level of danger and reprehensibility, like drug offenses and felonies on school grounds. Texas City area school officials have no choice or discretion whether to impose mandatory DAEP but must instead remove the student when finding that the student committed one of the listed acts. The Texas City ISD Student Code of Conduct adopts those statutory grounds for mandatory DAEP, including the following:
- commits a felony on school grounds;
- possesses or uses marijuana or THC on school grounds;
- possesses or uses a controlled substance on school grounds;
- possesses or uses a dangerous drug on school grounds;
- possesses or uses alcohol or an e-cigarette on school grounds;
- statutory public lewdness or indecent exposure on school grounds;
- being under the influence of an aerosol inhalant on school grounds;
- statutory harassment or retaliation against a school employee.
Texas City Area DAEP Defenses
Our attorneys stand ready to raise your student's available defenses against the Texas City area school DAEP removal. We may be able to show that the reporting witness mistook your student for the responsible wrongdoer or misunderstood your student's innocent actions as if constituting wrongdoing. We may instead be able to show that the teacher or student who reported your student had an ulterior motive to coerce, retaliate against, or harass your student, or that your student's alleged misconduct was a natural and foreseeable reaction to bullying, harassment, or intimidation that the school had the legal duty to prevent and stop. Your student may alternatively have been following the instructions of a safety officer or school official when reported for misconduct. Whatever defense the circumstances raise, we can help your student pursue and prove it to avoid DAEP removal. A removal charge is not a finding. Let us fight the charge to avoid removal.
Texas City Area DAEP Mitigating Factors
Texas Education Code Section 37.001 recognizes mitigating factors for DAEP removal. A mitigating factor acknowledges that the wrong occurred but explains and excuses the wrong. Texas City area school officials must consider the statutory mitigating factors, which also appear in the Texas City ISD Student Code of Conduct. Those factors include whether the student was in a foster care conservatorship, the student was homeless, the student had a disability that kept the student from appreciating the wrong, the student had no disciplinary record, or the student acted in self-defense. We can advocate any of these statutory mitigating factors that are present in your student's case and other factors, such as defense of others, defense of property, and extraordinary exigent circumstances.
Texas City Area DAEP Placement Hearing
Whenever school officials intend DAEP removal for a period longer than ten days, and the parent does not consent, Texas Education Code Section 37.0081 requires an administrative hearing meeting Texas Education Code Section 37.009's hearing requirements. If Texas City area school officials charge your student with a DAEP removal offense, our attorneys can invoke your student's hearing rights to present defense witnesses, cross-examine adverse witnesses, and otherwise raise your student's best defense. We can also use hearing procedures to advocate for alternative remedial measures to avoid any punitive sanction, including DAEP.
Texas City Area Emergency DAEP Placement
Texas Education Code Section 37.019 authorizes emergency DAEP removal without a hearing if required for teacher or student safety, or to continue school instruction and operations. Emergency removal, though, may only last for up to ten days, after which the school must offer the required removal hearing. If the school has already removed your student on an emergency basis, we can invoke your student's post-removal hearing to present all available defenses.
Texas City Area DAEP Appeal
Texas Education Code Section 37.009 authorizes an appeal of the DAEP hearing decision. An appeal takes your student's matter before a higher district or state official for reconsideration, to correct errors in the initial decision. The Texas City ISD's Student Code of Conduct authorizes an initial appeal to the building principal and a second appeal to the district's deputy superintendent, while implying a final appeal to the district board. We can pursue your student's appeals if you have already lost your student's hearing.
Alternative Special Relief
We may also be able to gain your student's reinstatement into the regular classroom as a form of alternative special relief. Our attorneys have the reputation and relationships to communicate, advocate, and negotiate with district general counsel and outside retained counsel or other oversight officials to correct compliance issues and avoid civil litigation or regulatory action. Let us exhaust all avenues for relief to obtain your student's best result, avoiding DAEP.
Premier Texas City Area Schools DAEP Defense
If your student faces DAEP removal in the Texas City area schools, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team out of our Houston offices for your student's best defense. We help students across Texas and nationwide successfully defend school disciplinary charges so that they remain in their regular educational program. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.
