Waxahachie area schools, located in Ellis County south of Dallas, offer a strong and stable school system with attractive schools. Yet, Waxahachie area schools have similar student behavioral issues to those in other Texas districts. For that reason, the Waxahachie area schools maintain a disciplinary alternative education placement (DAEP) boot camp or reform school authorized under Texas law for miscreant, truant, and dangerous or disruptive students expelled from the regular schools for weapons, drugs, gangs, and similar offenses. Yet, school officials sometimes use DAEP boot camps to rid their school of the burden of providing services and accommodations to a student who is struggling but sound, and to improve the school's ranking and profile. Don't let that happen to your Waxahachie area school student. 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 Dallas office. Let our attorneys help save your student from Waxahachie DAEP.
Waxahachie Area Schools Student Defense
Your student's regular Waxahachie area schools classroom has what parents generally seek in programs of grade school instruction, including structure, high teacher expectations, and reliable peer support. As further shown below, DAEP programs tend to have none of those features. To keep your student in the regular Waxahachie school classroom, we are available to defend disciplinary charges in any of the following Waxahachie area schools:
Waxahachie High Schools (Grades 9-12)
Waxahachie High School
Waxahachie Global High School
Waxahachie High School of Choice
Waxahachie Junior High Schools (Grades 6-8)
Coleman Junior High School
Finley Junior High School
Howard Junior High School
Elementary schools (Kindergarten - Grade 5)
Clift Elementary School
Dunaway Elementary School
Felty Elementary School
Marvin Biomedical Academy
Northside Elementary School
Ray Elementary School
Shackelford Elementary School
Simpson Elementary School
Wedgeworth Elementary School
Wilemon STEAM Academy
Texas DAEP Law
Texas Education Code Chapter 37, Subchapter A, authorizes district-level DAEP programs for school officials to manage severe behavioral problems within their schools. Under Texas Education Code Section 37.008, district officials are to remove students to DAEP only when they are unruly, dangerous, or disruptive. School officials should not be removing students to avoid providing disability accommodations, special education services, or routine instructional support, or to improve school rankings by dumping low-performing students into DAEP programs. But those untoward maneuvers happen, badly damaging the affected students. We can help you fight for your student's good cause by gaining the instructional support and services your student needs in a Waxahachie school regular classroom while avoiding the disaster of DAEP removal.
Waxahachie Area DAEP Program
The Waxahachie area maintains the Waxahachie Challenge Academy, located at 55 Northgate Drive in Waxahachie, as its DAEP program. Like other DAEP programs, the Waxahachie area schools tout the Challenge Academy as a strong and positive program. However, its promotion, including the claimed dedication of its staff, doesn't change its DAEP student population. Typical of other DAEP programs, the Challenge Academy maintains a strict dress code prohibiting exhibiting jewelry, logos, or emblems, or exposing cleavage or substantial skin. The Waxahachie ISD Student Code of Conduct authorizes teachers, building principals, or other school officials to seek removal of a student to the Challenge Academy's DAEP program for literally any violation of the Student Code of Conduct's dozens of listed General Conduct Violations. Don't let Waxahachie school officials pressure you to consent to your student's Challenge Academy DAEP transfer. Instead, let us help you fight your student's DAEP removal charges.
Texas DAEP Program Statistics
Texas DAEP programs, like DAEP programs in other states, are notorious for their poor academic performance. The University of Texas at Austin's Education Review found that although 84% of Texas regular classroom students graduate high school in four years, less than half (just 44%) of first-time DAEP enrollees, and only one in four DAEP second-time enrollees, graduate on time. The Waxahachie area's Challenge Academy may claim a strong DAEP program, but those claims don't change the severely troubled student population.
Waxahachie ISD Student Code of Conduct
Texas Education Code Sections 37.006, 37.007, and 37.008 list the authorized grounds for DAEP removal. The Waxahachie ISD's Student Code of Conduct is careful to adopt those statutory grounds in its DAEP removal section, even though it promptly adds every other possible General Conduct Violation to its DAEP removal grounds. We can help you and your student examine the Waxahachie area school's disciplinary charge against the statutory grounds and Student Code of Conduct grounds for removal, and investigate and evaluate the removal evidence, to ensure that we effectively challenge the allegations and preserve your student's regular classroom enrollment.
Waxahachie Area DAEP Removal Excuses
The Texas statutes authorizing DAEP removal, along with the Waxahachie ISD's Student Code of Conduct, should at least somewhat limit and constrain your student's school officials from banishing your student to DAEP for just any common disciplinary grounds. Keep in mind that DAEP should be only for severely disruptive, unruly, or dangerous students. Yet you may find that Waxahachie area school officials are already making excuses and creating rationales for your student's removal that have little or nothing to do with severe danger and disruption.
The biggest school incentives to remove students from DAEP can have to do with the accommodations and special education services that federal and state laws require for students with qualifying disabilities. Removing a student to DAEP instantly relieves the regular school from those burdens. Waxahachie area regular schools can also improve their reputation among parents and state performance statistics simply by moving a struggling student, although sound and non-disruptive, to DAEP. That's not DAEP's purpose: to make it easier, less costly, or more efficient to run a regular school. But that's how some school officials abuse it. Don't let your student's school shirk its legal and ethical responsibility to your student to provide sound, varied, and accommodative instruction.
Waxahachie Area Grounds for DAEP Removal
Waxahachie ISD's Student Code of Conduct authorizes DAEP removal on multiple statutory grounds organized into two sections, one for discretionary DAEP removal and the other for mandatory DAEP removal. The following two sections address how our attorneys can help students avoid both mandatory and discretionary DAEP removal on disciplinary charges.
Waxahachie Area Discretionary DAEP Removal
To understand how we can defend discretionary DAEP charges, recognize what discretionary means. Waxahachie area school officials may either remove your student to DAEP or not when issuing discretionary DAEP charges. That discretion gives our attorneys the option not just to advocate for lesser sanctions like in-school suspension or loss of school privileges but further to advocate for no sanctions, in favor of remedial relief. Remedial relief can take the form of mentoring, counseling, training, or extra education, all good for your student and none leaving any disciplinary mark on your student's good record. Here are the discretionary DAEP removal grounds that the Waxahachie ISD Student Code of Conduct authorizes the Campus Behavior Coordinator for your student's school to pursue:
- group bullying inciting violence;
- individual bullying triggering suicide attempts;
- sexting, sharing non-consensual intimate student images;
- partaking in a fraternity, sorority, secret society, or gang;
- committing criminal mischief;
- engaging in criminal street gang activity;
- committing assault with offensive or provocative contact;
- committing assault, threatening imminent bodily injury;
- committing a felony crime off school grounds.
Waxahachie Area Mandatory DAEP Removal
Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 together provide for mandatory DAEP for misbehavior involving a greater degree of danger or disruption than the above discretionary DAEP offenses. Although mandatory DAEP means that Waxahachie area school officials must remove the accused student to DAEP if they find one of the enumerated violations, our attorneys can still use the available evidence to prove that your student did not commit the alleged violation. We may alternatively be able to convince Waxahachie area school officials of the wisdom of reducing the disciplinary charge from a mandatory ground to a discretionary ground so that we can then advocate for remedial measures, your student's clean disciplinary record, and your student's retention in the regular classroom. The Waxahachie ISD Student Code of Conduct adopts these statutory grounds for mandatory DAEP:
- makes a bomb threat, terroristic threat, or false fire alarm;
- commits a felony or statutory assault on school grounds;
- possesses a controlled substance on school grounds;
- possesses a dangerous drug on school grounds;
- possesses marijuana or THC on school grounds;
- possesses alcohol or e-cigarettes on school grounds;
- commits statutory public lewdness on school grounds;
- commits statutory indecent exposure on school grounds;
- is under the influence of aerosol inhalants on school grounds;
- commits statutory harassment against a school employee;
- commits statutory retaliation against a school employee.
Waxahachie Area DAEP Defenses
Waxahachie area school disciplinary charges threatening DAEP removal do not mean that your student is bound to suffer discipline. We can raise whatever factual or legal defenses your student's circumstances warrant. When we appear on your student's behalf in the matter, Waxahachie area school officials expect us to advocate diligently for your student, using all available evidence. We may be able to show a defense of mistaken identity, mistake as to the acts in which your student engaged, retaliation against your student, a cover-up by the reporting teacher or student, false charges to coerce your student into other acts, or an extraordinary emergency affecting your student's usually sound judgment, among other defenses.
Waxahachie Area DAEP Mitigating Factors
Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires district officials who are contemplating DAEP removal of a student to recognize specific mitigating factors in the student's favor. Mitigating factors can relieve your student from a DAEP disciplinary charge even if your student committed the alleged violation. Let us make your student's best case in mitigation of any penalty, whether DAEP or a lesser sanction. The Waxahachie ISD Student Code of Conduct incorporates the statutory mitigating factors. Those factors include:
- the student was in a foster care conservatorship;
- the student was homeless;
- the student's disability kept the student from appreciating the wrong;
- the student had a clean disciplinary record;
- the student acted in self-defense defined as reasonable belief in the need for self-protection.
Waxahachie ISD DAEP Placement Hearing
Texas Education Code Section 37.0081 requires the district to conduct an administrative hearing that meets Texas Education Code Section 37.009's hearing requirements, if school officials intend to remove your student to DAEP for longer than ten days without your consent. The Waxahachie ISD Student Code of Conduct also assures a hearing relating to DAEP removal. Our attorneys can invoke your student's right to a hearing to present all available defenses and defense evidence, while challenging the school's removal case.
Waxahachie Area Emergency DAEP Placement
Texas Education Code Section 37.019 authorizes emergency DAEP removal before a hearing, presuming that district officials can show that DAEP removal was necessary for teacher or student safety, or the conduct of school instruction and operations. If your student's DAEP emergency removal exceeds ten days, we can invoke your student's post-removal hearing right to make the best case for prompt reinstatement in the regular classroom.
Waxahachie Area DAEP Appeal
Texas Education Code Section 37.009 further authorizes appeal of a DAEP removal decision. Appeals allow for a second or subsequent review of the DAEP removal by a higher school or district authority. The Waxahachie ISD's Student Code of Conduct authorizes the first appeal to the school principal and implies a second appeal to the district board. Let us pursue your student's appeal rights to obtain a reversal of the DAEP decision, if you have already lost your student's hearing.
Alternative Special Relief
If you have already lost both your student's hearing and all appeals, we may be able to gain alternative special relief and regular classroom reinstatement on the direction or recommendation of a district oversight official, the general counsel's office, or outside retained counsel. Our attorneys have the reputation and relationships to do so in many cases.
Premier Waxahachie Area Schools DAEP Defense
If your student faces DAEP removal in the Waxahachie, Texas area, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team out of our Dallas office for your student's best defense. We help students across Texas and nationwide defend school disciplinary charges to preserve their regular educational program. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.
