Facing transfer to a Texas disciplinary alternative education program (DAEP) can be daunting. DAEP students lose their regular school relationships, structure, and activities. Yet returning from a DAEP program to the regular classroom can be equally daunting, trying to repair reputation and renew relationships. Engage the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Student Defense Team if your Texas K-12 student faces DAEP charges. Follow this guide if your Texas K-12 student is preparing to return to the regular classroom. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to engage us for our guidance, advocacy, and advice. Our attorneys are available across Texas out of our Austin and Houston offices and nationwide out of other offices.
Texas DAEP Is Disciplinary
To know how best to prepare to return from Texas DAEP, you and your student should understand the nature of DAEP, including its program goals and objectives. Make no mistake: Texas DAEP is generally a disciplinary program, basically like the old-school boot camp or reform school. The Texas legislature established DAEP in the 1990s expressly for the purpose of continuing the education of troubled students whom the regular schools could not serve because of safety and security concerns. Statistics indicate that a significant number and percentage of DAEP students are in DAEP because of non-serious, discretionary discipline, like talking back to teachers. Some parents and students even prefer DAEP for the flexible, unstructured, specialized program DAEP permits. But DAEP is still a disciplinary program. Texas DAEP is supposed to be for students who have committed serious offenses worthy of suspension and expulsion. Your student should prepare to return to the regular school, ready to meet the stigma that can come with returning from a disciplinary school, as explained in a paragraph below. If your student faces disciplinary charges and hasn’t begun DAEP, let us help fight those charges.
The Form and Format of Texas DAEP
To know how best to prepare to return from Texas DAEP, you and your student should also understand the form and format of a DAEP program. DAEP programs are generally significantly less structured than regular school programs. Your student may have many fewer classroom days and hours than students back in the regular school program. Your student may have more study halls or free study time in DAEP than in the regular school program. Your student may have more individualized DAEP programming, with fewer students at the same grade level. The lack of structure in the DAEP program may or may not serve your student well. But that flexible, individualized format can be significantly different from the regular school program, where all or most students at each grade level face the same hours, classes, units, assignments, due dates, and benchmarks. Your student should get ready for the regimen and structure of the regular school classroom when returning from DAEP. No more going it alone at your student’s own pace.
The Impacts of Texas DAEP
To know how best to prepare for a return from Texas DAEP, your student also needs to understand some of the potential impacts of a DAEP placement. DAEP cuts off peer relationships, meaning that your student will need to reestablish old ties on new terms, when old friends might not be ready to do so. DAEP also cuts off old teacher relationships when those teachers might not be so ready to embrace a DAEP returnee so soon. DAEP also cuts off regular school co-curricular and extracurricular activities. DAEP thus isolates a student from the regular school community. Your student will need to prepare for the full life of a regular school program once again, or to navigate old relationships and former programs on new terms. Your student may, in other words, suddenly be the outsider and a suspicious one at that. Adjusting to a new reputation in old relationships can be a social challenge for your student. Help your student prepare for those challenges with as much self-insight and personal stability as possible.
The Duration of Texas DAEP
To know how to help your student prepare for a return from DAEP to the regular school program, you also need to know the duration of DAEP. DAEP placements can be short-term, simply to ensure the appropriate punishment, evaluation, and remediation of the disciplined student. Yet DAEP placements can also be longer term, as much as one year. In either case, the Texas school code requires that the school and district state the duration of DAEP when making the DAEP decision. The same Texas school code also limits DAEP to no more than one year, unless the district determines that the student is unsafe to return to the regular school or that DAEP is in the student’s better interest. In short, your student could be away for just a few weeks or for as much as one year or more, before returning to the regular school program. The longer your student is away, the more adjustments your student will need to make to return to the regular school program. Keep the DAEP duration as short as possible. See the next paragraph.
Appealing and Challenging Texas DAEP
Let our attorneys help if you and your student wish to terminate DAEP to have your student return to the regular school program, but the district resists. The Texas school code requires that the district conduct a hearing if it intends to keep your student in DAEP beyond sixty days. The same provision also requires that the district conduct a hearing if it intends to keep your student in DAEP beyond the end of the school year, carrying over into the next school year. And as the prior paragraph just stated, DAEP must not last for more than a year, after which the district must offer a review hearing if intending to extend the student’s stay beyond one year. Under any of these three provisions, we can ensure that the district sets your student’s matter for a review hearing, where we can effectively advocate for your student’s return to the regular school. Let us help you appeal, challenge, and limit your student’s DAEP stay; the shorter the better.
Preparing to Return from Texas DAEP
You can now see clearly, from the above survey of the nature, format, impacts, and duration of Texas DAEP, some of the best steps for preparing your student to return from DAEP to the regular school program. Help your student focus on:
- remediating academics, to ensure that your student can keep up with the regular school program;
- overcoming the stigma of returning from a disciplinary program, with secure self-worth and stable emotions;
- reassuring peers and school officials of your student’s safety and security, while avoiding any appearance of threat or impropriety;
- keeping a clean reputation and stable relationships, again to reassure school officials of your student’s good character and fitness;
- preparing to meet the higher expectations of the regular school program, especially as to assignments and due dates; and
- expecting greater structure and rigor in the regular school program, with less flexibility and less individual accommodation and attention.
Invoking the School Transition Facilitator
Your student can face a tall order when returning from DAEP to the regular school program. Fortunately, your student’s school should offer a staff member to facilitate your student’s transition. Texas Education Agency best practices recommend that each school pay a regular staff member an additional stipend to serve as a DAEP returnee facilitator. Identify this staff member at your student’s school, and meet with the staff member to ensure that the staff member understands and appreciates your student’s needs and situation. Advocate with the school to appoint a facilitator if it currently has none. This staff member would be responsible for, among other things:
- reassuring teachers, administrators, and students that your student is able to conform to school behavioral standards and presents no safety or security threat;
- obtaining remedial services and accommodations to ensure that your student can catch up on missed assignments or other school work, including interceding with teachers and administrators for that relief;
- providing check-ins to ensure that your student can share challenges and concerns before they become problems, for the facilitator to address as necessary; and
- serving as a preliminary dispute resolver, in the event that your student faces issues with the transition that could otherwise devolve into new disciplinary proceedings or related concerns.
Our Attorneys’ Services to DAEP Students
You’ve seen above some of the services our attorneys can provide to your student, preparing to return from DAEP. To summarize, we can help you and your student fight the initial DAEP charges. We can also help you and your student appeal the DAEP decision to the district board. We can also help you and your student challenge any extension of DAEP beyond the initial term or end of the school year. And we can help your student obtain disability accommodations or other services upon their return to school. Engage the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Student Defense Team if your student faces any issues returning from DAEP. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to engage us for your case, anywhere across Texas or nationwide, out of our Houston and Austin offices, or our other offices across the country.