Texas High School Student Defense

High school can be an incredibly difficult time. Rarely do you hear from any adult that their high school years were the best and most conflict-free. While most parents hope the most trouble their child faces is getting grounded for talking back, teenagers tend to get into more trouble than that, and sometimes serious trouble. Underdeveloped teenage brains don't excel at controlling emotions and truly processing potentially life-altering consequences of their actions. All teenagers make mistakes, and if your child faces school disciplinary action, the Lento Law Firm Student Defense Team can help mitigate the consequences. For assistance, call us at 888-535-3686 or contact us online to schedule a consultation.

Relevant Texas Laws, Regulations, and Policies

There are a few laws, regulations, and policies in Texas that detail offenses warranting disciplinary or legal action to determine the appropriate disciplinary action to be taken against a student. The ones you should be aware of if your child is facing disciplinary action are:

You should also look to your child's school district's specific school code of conduct for relevant policies. Nearly all, if not all, of the offenses discussed below will be detailed in your child's school code of conduct.

High School Student Searches

One incredibly important topic to address when discussing high school disciplinary offenses is the legal issues surrounding student searches in schools. Searches can be the basis for your child being accused of many offenses, as discussed in the sections below. For legal purposes, a search is the looking through or inspecting someone's person or property. To be considered a search, the person must have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the areas or items being inspected. Both your child's school and law enforcement may be involved in a search of your child, but the standards they must meet to legally search your child differ, and we will go into further detail on those standards in this section.

Searches Conducted by School Officials

Each school's code of conduct should detail where students have an expectation of privacy and where they do not. Students should not have an expectation of privacy in any school-owned or controlled property, including, but not limited to, desks, lockers, and school-issued technology. The school doesn't need to justify a search of its own property.

Students have a reasonable expectation of privacy on their own bodies and property, such as clothing, backpacks, vehicles, and electronics. But the law isn't so cut and dry when it comes to student searches of this nature. Even if a student has an expectation of privacy, some laws allow otherwise.

The 4^th Amendment of the United States Constitution and the Texas Constitution protect students from unreasonable searches while on school premises or while attending school activities. This means that while the school cannot conduct unreasonable searches, it can legally conduct a reasonable search of a student regardless of their expectation of privacy. You may wonder what is considered reasonable or unreasonable; different people may have different interpretations. There is only one definition that matters under the law: a reasonable search is justified at the inception of the search, and the scope of the search is limited to what is reasonably related to the circumstance that justified the search in the first place.

For example, if a student says to another student that they have a gun in their backpack, this is reported to a school official. In that case, the school official now has the authority to search the backpack despite the fact the student generally has a reasonable expectation of privacy. In this situation, the search will be considered reasonable so long as only the backpack is searched because it was the backpack where the student claimed to have a gun.

This is a simplified example; the reality of what searches are reasonable will require the assessment of a variety of factors, including who is conducting the search, what they are searching for, and more. The lines for reasonable searches get particularly blurry when it comes to searching students' phones and tech devices. Because phones hold so much personal private information, there is a high standard for phone searches, and the legal search within the phone itself is typically very limited, for example, to only the photos or videos if a photo or video is the basis of the incident resulting in the search.

Schools are often doing their best to balance school safety and student privacy, but sometimes a line is crossed, and it is your child they have crossed the line with; you should know their rights and legal options. More details on searches related to specific violations will be provided below. Still, the Lento Law Firm is more than happy to go over the specifics of your child's case and see if the school has acted inappropriately in searching for your child.

Searches Conducted by Law Enforcement

Unlike searches conducted by school officials, law enforcement searches will require a warrant to search your child and their possessions. This is because law enforcement has a higher standard for their search to be legal; this standard is probably the cause. Probable cause means that law enforcement has a good reason to believe that your child has violated or is violating a local, state, or federal law. There are exceptions to requiring a warrant. A warrant is generally not required if the situation is considered as immediate and life-threatening.

Even when an incident on a high school campus involves a crime, it is up to the school whether they want to involve law enforcement.

Academic Misconduct

One of the most common issues for high school students is academic misconduct. Academic misconduct is an umbrella term for various infractions but generally encompasses offenses that question the integrity and honesty of the student. When we think of academic misconduct, we think of cheating in some form or another. Students, especially in high school, think everyone cheats a little, perhaps writing the answers to a test on their arm hidden by a sweatshirt or looking over a friend's shoulder for an answer, perhaps recycling the essay of an older sibling who received a favorable grade. While academic misconduct might be common, it doesn't mean that the consequences won't be severe. Many offenses can land your child in trouble for academic misconduct, including:

Copying the answers or work of another student
Allowing others to copy your answers
Having another person complete your assignment
Plagiarism
Using artificial intelligence (AI) to complete assignments
Self-plagiarism (submitting the same work or a portion of the same work you have produced for more than one assignment without explicit permission from your teachers)
Violating test conditions
Attempting or successfully bribing a teacher or person with the ability to alter your grade
Obtaining test answers in advance
Working with others on assignments against the teacher's direction
Sabotaging the work of other students

One particular violation that is on the rise is misconduct related to AI. Using AI can be a bit of a gray area. Of course, using AI like ChatGPT to write a paper or complete assignments is plagiarism, but some students are getting in trouble for using AI in any form. Some schools have prohibited the use of AI in education altogether and are employing AI detectors such as the websites GPTZero and ZeroGPT to find out if students' work contains AI written material. The problem is that many of these AI detectors are completely unreliable. Students all over the country are facing academic misconduct violations for their 100% original work. The Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team closely follows developments in AI student discipline cases. Our Team has successfully represented students throughout Texas and the nation in these cases.

Sexual Misconduct and Title IX

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs. All schools receiving federal funding must comply with Title X, including all private and public high schools. You might be wondering what sex discrimination means for high school students; when we think of sex discrimination, we commonly think of situations outside of the education system, like women being paid less in the workforce. Sex discrimination covers more than just what we traditionally view as sex discrimination; it also includes sexual assault, violence such as rape, sexual battering, sexual coercion, and harassment.

Under Title IX, schools must develop, distribute, and implement a policy against sex discrimination and have a designated Title IX coordinator. High schools have a responsibility to promptly address sex discrimination. Even if a student or their parent does not want to pursue a complaint or action, if the school knows or reasonably should know about possible sexual harassment or violence, it is required to open an investigation and resolve the situation.

Sexual misconduct is taken incredibly seriously in high schools. High schools have it particularly difficult because they are dealing with conduct that doesn't necessarily occur on the high school campus and because they are dealing with minors. The school must conduct a reliable and impartial investigation of the complaint. Both sides have the right to an equal opportunity to present witnesses and evidence and tell their side of the story. The parties will be promptly notified that the school will investigate the complaint and the subsequent outcome and informed of each party's right to an appeal.

In cases of sexual assault and violence, law enforcement may also be involved. High schools must take action under Title IX independent of any criminal investigations. The school investigation and a criminal investigation may occur concurrently. Your Lento Law Firm attorney can walk you through how Title IX investigations work and how to prepare for them and potential criminal investigations against your child.

Drug and Alcohol Violations

There are various drug and alcohol violations your child could be facing, including:

Possession of an illegal substance
Underage drinking
Possession of drug paraphernalia
Distribution or sale of drugs or alcohol to other students
Public intoxication due to alcohol or drugs while on school property

Maybe the allegations against your child have arisen from school-mandated drug testing, and you might be wondering if that is even legal. Texas school districts have adopted different policies on which students, if any, can be required to take drug tests. Each school district's rules can be different, but they must always be thoroughly outlined in the school's code of conduct. Drug tests are considered a search under the Fourth Amendment, meaning a school must have a reason for testing. Random drug testing is permitted throughout Texas for students participating in sports and other school extracurricular activities. Drug tests taken for sports and extracurricular purposes cannot be used for criminal or negative academic purposes.

Texas schools are not permitted to drug test all students. To drug test members of the general student body, a school needs a reasonable suspicion. It is best practice for the school to obtain written permission from parents and guardians before conducting drug testing on any student. Just because you have given the school permission to drug test your child doesn't mean you don't have the right to pursue action against the school if it has inappropriately used the results of that testing.

Violent Offenses

Often, teenagers struggle with controlling their emotions, and anger is no exception. In high school, everything feels like a big deal, like the end of the world. It can be hard for teenagers to look outside their high school bubble and make the best decisions for their future. With raging hormones and emotions, fights and physical violence are not uncommon. Any time your child intentionally causes bodily harm to another person at school, whether it be a student, teacher, or other staff member, you can expect them to be facing serious trouble, especially if a serious injury is involved. Even threats to harm others will create a fear of violence and warrant disciplinary action.

Texas schools are also required to develop and implement policies against dating violence. Dating violence in schools is very similar to domestic violence we see in adult relationships. Dating violence encompasses many forms of abuse, such as mental and emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. Dating violence may also be investigated by high schools under Title IX.

Weapons Violations and Hit Lists

Weapons violations are certainly a major concern in high school. With school shootings commonplace in high schools, entering high school with a gun or any other weapon, including knives, tasers, explosive devices, or partial arts weapons, will get you in trouble.

Texas law requires that each school district include an explicit prohibition in making hit lists in their school codes of conduct. A hit list is a list of people who are targeted to be harmed using a firearm, knife, weapon, or any other object to be used with the intent of causing bodily harm.

Bullying and Cyberbullying

Every school's code of conduct will contain an anti-bullying policy. Following an investigation, these policies require schools to discipline students found guilty of bullying. Students should also be aware that bullying and cyberbullying violate Texas Law. Cyberbullying is particularly prevalent, and schools are starting to crack down on cyberbullying.

Under a Texas law called David's Law, students can face severe consequences, including expulsion for buying or cyberbullying. The law defines bullying and cyberbullying as a single significant act or pattern of acts by one or more students against another student that exploits an imbalance of power and involves engaging in expression (written, verbal, or electronic) or physical conduct that:

Physically harms a student, damages a student's property, or places a student in reasonable fear of harm to the student's person or of damage to the student's property;
Is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive enough that the action or threat creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for a student;
Materially and substantially disrupts the educational process or the orderly operation of a school classroom; or
Infringes on the rights of the victim at school.

As discussed in further detail in the sections below, your child has a right to free speech under the First Amendment. We see politicians and celebrities say awful things about others all the time, and it's perfectly legal, but when it comes to bullying children, the laws and standards are different.

Truancy

Except for school students and private schools, Texas law requires students from the age of six to 19 to attend school. Students are not permitted to be absent for ten or more days within six months. While truancy has been decriminalized, parents can be held liable, and courts will get involved if the students, parents, and school cannot develop and implement a successful attendance plan to correct the situation.

Student Protests and Speech

Young people are notorious for their strong opinions, and despite having decades less experience on this planet than you do as a parent, they tend to think they always know better than you. While sharing these strong opinions through protesting used to be largely limited to college campuses, students younger and younger are getting involved with what they perceive to be the injustices in the world. Students have always protested, whether it was against the Vietnam War in the 1950s or over climate change over the past few decades. Students have the legal right to protest.

While schools might believe they are in charge, students have the right to protest under their First Amendment right to free speech and cannot face disciplinary consequences. Schools have the authority to take reasonable action to maintain a safe and functioning learning environment, so how students protest matters. For example, schools can discipline students for walkouts.

Students must also take into consideration that having the right to free speech doesn't mean they can say literally anything at all. There are unprotected forms of speech; therefore, schools can prohibit vulgar or offensive speech. This type of speech includes fighting words, language that incites criminal activity or violation, extortion or threats, and lewd or indecent speech. Anytime free speech involves what is protected or not protected, it can get confusing. We have dealt with many free speech cases at the Lento Law Firm.

Disciplinary Actions and Placements

Disciplinary action against your child can come in the form of school district action and law enforcement charges, depending on the offense's nature and severity. When considering the appropriate disciplinary action to take against the student, the Texas Education Code requires schools to consider various mitigating factors such as self-defense, intent, disciplinary history, homelessness, foster care state, disability, and more.

For minor or even some moderate severity offenses, students are likely to face low-stakes consequences such as warnings, reprimands, detention, or a short duration in-school or out-of-school suspensions. For more severe offenses, the Texas Education Code offers two alternative education programs: the Disciplinary Alternative Education Program (DAEP) and the Juvenile Alternative Education Program (JJAEP). Any option that takes your child out of their regular classroom is considered a disciplinary placement.

DAEP is an educational and self-discipline alternative instructional program adopted by local policy for elementary through high school students who are removed from their regular classes for mandatory or discretionary disciplinary reasons. Offenses that may land your child in a DAEP include but are not limited to, committing a felony off-campus, assaulting someone on or within 300 feet of school property, the conviction of a sexual crime, or selling drugs on or within 300 feet of school property.

According to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, which oversees the JJAEP, the JJAEP's purpose is “to reduce delinquency, increase offender accountability and rehabilitate offenders through a comprehensive, coordinated community-based juvenile probation system.” Students can end up in JJAEP when they have committed violations of the Texas Education Code, resulting in either mandatory expulsion from their school for serious infractions of the student code of conduct, discretionary expulsions for serious infractions that occur off-campus as well as other infractions of the student code of code, or are court ordered to the JJAEP due to specific offenses or probation conditions.

Parents and guardians must be immediately notified if the school takes certain disciplinary actions against a child or they are taken into law enforcement custody. Immediate notification is required for students placed in in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, DAEP, or JJAEP. Any time a child is removed from their regular classroom setting, the school must follow pre-established procedures outlined in the Texas Education Code and relevant school district policies. In all of these programs and disciplinary actions, the school must provide students with the opportunity to complete coursework required for graduation and methods for completing coursework without using the internet.

The type of disciplinary action discussed in this section is exclusionary discipline, which removes a student from their regular classroom assignments, such as suspensions, DAEP, JJAEP, and expulsion.

Disciplinary placement can be incredibly damaging to your child's education and future. You should do everything you can to prevent your child from facing the long-term consequences of a permanent record following them in life and preventing them from future educational and professional opportunities. The Lento Law Firm Student Defense Team works tirelessly to help Texas high school students avoid disciplinary placement; let us fight for your child, too.

Restorative Practices

While exclusionary discipline has a long history of use in Texas schools, some districts are moving towards a method called restorative practices. The Institute for Restorative Justice and Restorative Dialogue defines restorative practices as "a relational approach to building school climate and addressing school behavior." Instead of removing a child as punishment for their action, the school would focus on a student feeling a sense of belonging, social engagement, and accountability. Texas school districts implementing restorative practices have seen significant decreases in suspensions. If your child is facing disciplinary action, your Lento Law Firm attorney can help you make the case to your child's school that a restorative practices disciplinary approach may be the most appropriate option.

Due Process

Children, just like every other American in this country, have the right to due process, which guarantees that the government cannot take a person's basic rights away without matters being resolved through established rules and principles to ensure that all individuals are treated fairly. Children in this country have the right to a free and appropriate public education. When the government (i.e., the school system) takes this education away through disciplinary action, the student is entitled to due process.

If your child's school is attempting to take disciplinary action against them through a disciplinary placement, the school must comply with local and state laws and school district regulations. What due process looks like will differ between Texas school districts, but some processes apply to all schools. For example, a due process hearing must be held under the Texas Education Code before a student can legally face expulsion.

A due process hearing is not required when a child is not facing expulsion, but a conference is. When a student is removed from their regular classroom, the school must notify the parents within three days. A conference will be scheduled where the campus behavior coordinator, school officials, teachers, parents, and the student can meet. At the conference, the student can explain what happened from their perspective, respond to their removal, and suggest disciplinary action.

Aside from these guaranteed processes, the rest is at the local school district level. School districts can decide that the result of the conference is final, and other school districts allow students to appeal the decision.

Areas We Serve

The Lento Law Firm has assisted students and their families throughout Texas. Our Team spends a lot of time in the urban area school districts, including the Houston Independent School District, the largest public school system in Texas, Dallas Independent School District, Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, Northside Independent School District, Austin Independent School District, and Fort Worth Independent School District. While we focus mainly on urban areas, our Team works to help families all over the state, from Bells Independent School District down to La Joya Independent School District.

Why You Need a High School Student Discipline Defense Attorney Today

It is unlikely your child's school will ever suggest you get a student defense attorney. In fact, schools hate when attorneys get involved, but you are there to protect your child, not make the school district comfortable; they likely aren't making this process comfortable for you or your child. As soon as you find out about the allegations against your child, retain the Lento Law Firm to guide you through the upcoming disciplinary process. It can be hard to stay calm when you are concerned about your child's education and future. Still, we can help you collect the relevant information, review the student code of conduct, and take all the right actions to get the best result with the least amount of pain and suffering.

Whether your child has committed a serious or minor offense, they are still a child whose rights need to be protected, and the Lento Law Firm Student Discipline Team will ensure your child's school stays in line. We hold schools accountable for following the appropriate laws and procedures and work to get your child the best possible outcome. There is nothing more worth fighting for than our children's education and future success. To get started, call us at 888-535-3686 or contact us online today.