Carrollton, Texas, area schools, whether in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District or another nearby school district, enforce the same Texas Education Code provisions authorizing disciplinary alternative education placement (DAEP) as other schools. Disruptive, unruly, or dangerous students go to boot camp or reform school. Don’t let the euphemism DAEP fool you. These programs house students who have already shown themselves too intransigent in their rebellious character to remain in a regular school. If your Carrollton area K-12 student faces disciplinary charges threatening DAEP, call 888.535.3686 or use this contact form now to retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Student Defense Team. The skilled and experienced attorneys out of our Dallas office are available to provide your students with strategic and effective representation. Let us help you preserve your student’s dreams and ambitions, which are dependent on graduating from a regular high school program.
Carrollton Area Schools Student Defense
Strategic and effective DAEP placement defense in the Carrollton area schools requires our attorneys’ substantial skill and experience in student discipline defense. Avoid retaining an unqualified local lawyer who lacks the required knowledge, skill, and experience. The administrative school laws, rules, regulations, and procedures are all different. We can help you anywhere in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District or in nearby school districts like the Coppell Independent School District, Lewisville Independent School District, or Plano Independent School District. We can also represent your student in any of the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD’s two dozen elementary schools and all Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD high schools and intermediate schools, including:
Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD High Schools
- Creekview High School;
- Early College High School;
- Newman Smith High School;
- R.L. Turner High School;
- Ranchview High School;
- Marie Huie Special Education Center;
- Bea Salazar Learning Center;
- Mary Grimes Education Center.
Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Middle Schools
- Barbara Bush Middle School;
- Blalack Middle School;
- Vivian Field Middle School;
- Long Middle School;
- Perry Middle School;
- Polk Middle School.
Carrollton Area Schools DAEP Programs
Texas Education Code Section 37.008 authorizes school districts across Texas, including the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, to remove disruptive students from the regular classroom and school to place them in disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEPs). The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD’s DAEP programs include the Bea Salazar Learning Center at 2416 Keller Springs Road in Carrollton and the Mary Grimes Education Center at 1745 Hutton Drive in Carrollton. The euphemism DAEP shouldn’t fool you. We’re talking about disciplinary or reform schools that house students too dangerous and disruptive for regular schools because of their involvement with gangs, weapons, drugs, alcohol, pornography, sexual misconduct, and violence. Keep in mind the nature of these DAEP programs and their troubled student population when your student’s school officials offer, implore, or demand that you consent to your student’s DAEP placement. Do not give in. Let us help you defend and defeat your student’s DAEP charges.
Carrollton Area Schools Student Codes of Conduct
Your student’s school disciplinary officials may be telling you that you have no choice but to consent to moving your student to one of the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD DAEP programs. Yet you do have a say in the matter. Don’t cave into the school’s pressure. It is true that Texas Education Code Section 37.001 authorizes Carrollton area schools and other schools across Texas to place disruptive students in district DAEP schools when violating student conduct code rules. It is also true that Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 mandate DAEP program placement in certain severe misconduct cases. It’s also true that the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD has adopted a Student Code of Conduct that recognizes both permissive and mandatory DAEP placement. However, disciplinary charges are just allegations for which school officials may or may not have evidentiary support. Your student may have more and better evidence exonerating your student or making a good case for mitigating and eliminating any sanction. Our attorneys can help you and your student defend the disciplinary charges so that your student has the best chance to remain in the regular classroom where your student belongs.
Carrollton Area Schools Grounds for Removal
School disciplinary cases seeking DAEP placement often start with a short-term school suspension. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Student Code of Conduct begins with a list of hundreds of General Types of Prohibited Conduct sorted into the sensible categories: (1) misconduct involving others, (2) possessing prohibited items, (3) property misuse, (4) safety and disruption, (5) technology misuse, and the catch-all categories of (6) failure to follow rules and (7) other misconduct. Suffice it to say that virtually any form of school misconduct, however slight, could fall under one of the hundreds of items in these categories. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Student Code of Conduct further authorizes out-of-school suspension for any of these hundreds of violations. Thus, depending on how school officials construe your student’s actions, any of these violations could potentially lead to school official demands for DAEP placement.
Carrollton Area Schools Discretionary DAEP
Texas Education Code Section 37.001 gives Carrollton area school officials and officials in other Texas K-12 school districts authority for DAEP placement. Section 37.001 does not, on its own terms, require DAEP placement. Other sections, treated below, do so. However, Section 37.001 permits ISD boards to adopt student conduct codes detailing when the district’s schools may require DAEP placement. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Student Code of Conduct expressly authorizes DAEP placement for all of the above hundreds of General Types of Prohibited Conduct. The Student Code of Conduct also lists these additional grounds for discretionary DAEP placement:
- possessing a usable amount of marijuana;
- possessing drug paraphernalia;
- abusing the student’s own prescription drugs;
- buying or selling prescription drugs;
- being under the influence of another’s prescription drugs;
- preparing a hit list;
- offering to sell marijuana, controlled substances, or alcohol;
- street gang involvement;
- fraternity, sorority, or secret society involvement at school;
- possession of a knife with a long blade;
- engaging in persistent violations of the code of conduct.
Carrollton Area Schools Mandatory DAEP
Other Texas law requires mandatory DAEP placement. Texas Education Code Sections 37.006 and 37.007 each list several grounds that require a student’s DAEP placement. The Carrollton-Farmer Branch ISD’s Student Code of Conduct repeats the statutes’ mandatory DAEP grounds. Those grounds include any of the following conduct on school property or within 300 feet of school property or at a school-sponsored event:
- engaging in felony criminal conduct;
- causing bodily injury by assaulting another;
- selling or delivering a controlled substance to another;
- selling or giving marijuana or THC to another;
- selling or giving an alcoholic beverage to another;
- selling or giving an e-cigarette to another;
- engaging in criminal harassment of another;
- engaging in public lewdness or indecent exposure;
- firearm possession other than lawfully on the person;
- possessing a deadly weapon other than a firearm;
- possessing a knife with an overlong blade;
- misdemeanor criminal mischief;
- making a terroristic threat or false fire alarm;
- criminal retaliation against school personnel.
While the statutes and Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Student Code of Conduct label it as “mandatory DAEP placement,” in fact, your student may have multiple available defenses to DAEP placement, even when alleged to have committed a mandatory DAEP placement wrong. See the following sections articulating several of those defenses. Our attorneys can help your student evaluate, pursue, and prove all available defenses.
Carrollton Area Schools DAEP Defenses
Too many parents assume that because school officials have brought DAEP charges their student has surely done something wrong and will surely face some form of discipline, even removal to a DAEP program. Don’t make that incorrect assumption. Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD disciplinary charges are only allegations, not findings of misconduct. Our attorneys may be able to show one or more of the following defenses to your student’s charges, depending on the particular facts and circumstances:
- the allegations may be patently false, either because of a misunderstanding, guess, speculation, or conjecture, or because of the adverse witness’s conflict of interest, bias, prejudice, retaliation, or attempt to cover up the witness’s own wrongdoing;
- the allegations may be true as to the misconduct but incorrect as to the accused student’s identity;
- your student may have been reasonably mistaken as to the circumstances and acted innocently consistent with your student’s reasonable understanding;
- your student may have promptly corrected the mistake as soon as discovering the error, confirming your student’s innocence of any malicious intent or guilty state of mind;
- your student’s conduct, even if nominally a code violation, may not have caused any harm or loss, may not have disrupted any school instruction or operation, and may not have involved any other student or
- your student’s good character and prompt corrective action may indicate that DAEP placement or other sanctions would be harsh, cruel, and counterproductive to the school’s educational mission.
Carrollton Area Schools DAEP Mitigating Factors
Texas Education Code Section 37.001 requires Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD officials and other area school officials to consider each of the following additional mitigating factors before sending your student for a DAEP placement. If the factors weigh against DAEP placement, then school officials may and should relieve your student of the DAEP sanction. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Student Code of Conduct also recognizes these mitigating factors:
- self-defense justifying your student’s misconduct;
- no knowledge or wrongful intent supporting the charges;
- no prior school disciplinary record before these charges;
- disability kept your student from appreciating the conduct’s wrong;
- homelessness or foster care placement excuses the conduct.
The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Student Code of Conduct further encourages its school disciplinary officials to consider these factors in mitigation or aggravation of the disciplinary penalty:
- the degree, severity, and risk of danger;
- the misconduct’s effects;
- the student’s age and grade level;
- the misconduct’s frequency;
- the student’s demeanor during the misconduct;
- the student’s response to the misconduct charges;
- the disruption of the school environment.
Our attorneys may be able to make a compelling case under these factors that the DAEP placement of your student is unwise, unnecessary, and counterproductive.
Carrollton Area Schools Emergency Placement
Some DAEP matters in the Carrollton area schools and other locations involve an initial emergency removal that may also have resulted in a temporary DAEP placement. Texas Education Code Section 37.019 authorizes school officials to remove a student on an emergency basis if the student’s unruliness seriously interferes with school instruction or operations. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Student Code of Conduct recognizes and accepts the statute’s emergency placement authority. However, an emergency removal and DAEP placement must not last for more than ten days without school officials providing the student with a hearing.
Carrollton Area Schools DAEP Placement Hearing
Texas Education Code Sections 37.009 and 37.019 promise your Carrollton area school student the right to a formal hearing to dispute any DAEP placement. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Student Code of Conduct recognizes and respects that hearing right. Don’t assume, though, that the hearing right is self-executing. Instead, retain us promptly to effectively invoke your student’s hearing right. Our attorneys know how to present the best defense case at the hearing while challenging the school’s DAEP charges.
Carrollton Area Schools DAEP Appeal
If your Carrollton area school student has already lost the statutory hearing and suffered DAEP placement, then Texas Education Code Section 37.009 grants your student an appeal to the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD board. If the board affirms the removal to DAEP, then the county district court can hear a further appeal under a generous de novo review standard. We can help your student pursue, perfect, and win these board and court appeals to keep your student in the regular classroom.
Alternative Special Relief
We can also pursue our connections with district general counsel, outside counsel, or other oversight officials for alternative special relief, even if your student has already lost all appeals.
Premier Carrollton Area DAEP Defense
If your student faces DAEP charges in the Carrollton, Texas area, retain the LLF National Law Firm’s highly qualified Student Defense Team out of our Dallas office. We represent clients throughout the Carrollton area and surrounding area. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now. Learn more details here about Texas DAEP matters.