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If your Wisconsin high school student faces suspension, expulsion, or other school discipline for misconduct or academic progress issues, you need our skilled and experienced representation to preserve your student's education, school record, and future. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team for your student's Wisconsin high school defense in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, Racine, Appleton, Waukesha, Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Janesville, West Allis, La Crosse, Cheboygan, Wauwatosa, Fond du Lac, Brookfield, New Berlin, Wausau, Menomonee Falls, or any other Wisconsin location. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for highly qualified Wisconsin high school student defense.
Wisconsin High School Student Ambitions
Parents of Wisconsin high school students share their student's expectations and ambitions for a flourishing future. You probably know and endorse your student's ambitions and dreams. Those dreams may include that your student attends your own college or university alma mater or one of Wisconsin's other fine colleges or universities or a distinguished higher education program in another state. You may alternatively encourage your student's ambition to complete a vocational or professional program and earn a certificate or license for a rewarding job and career. Or you may hope that your student can pursue and achieve other valuable and worthy academic, vocational, charitable, social, recreational, and artistic goals. Your student's Wisconsin high school education is the platform and launching pad for those other ambitions. Don't let your student's Wisconsin high school disciplinary charges or academic progress issues spoil those laudable ambitions.
A Wisconsin High School Parent's Devotion
You would surely prefer that your student not have to face Wisconsin high school misconduct or academic progress issues. And you might even prefer that your student or others handle those issues without your involvement. But you probably also know that your student does not yet have an adult's poise, sense, judgment, skills, and experience, especially in academic, administrative, and professional matters. Your student may do great with teachers and peers but likely needs your adult help and mature judgment to navigate misconduct charges or academic progress issues. You know that as a high school parent, your job is not yet over. Your student needs help achieving the best possible outcome for your student's current Wisconsin high school issues. We can ensure that your student has the best possible outcome. Our highly qualified attorneys have the knowledge, skill, experience, and commitment to represent your student both strategically and effectively. Let us help.
Wisconsin High School Discipline Adverse Impacts
You need to make a judgment right up front about how seriously to treat your Wisconsin high school student's academic progress issues or misconduct charges. Here's what you need to know: those issues can have serious long-term impacts on your student's educational and vocational future and overall academic and personal development. You remember how important high school was to you and others you know to set you on the right adult course. Your student needs the same strong start. High school discipline can cripple your student's current and future education and prevent your student from qualifying for or gaining admission to preferred colleges, universities, or vocational or professional programs. Even discipline short of school suspension and expulsion and removal to an alternative disciplinary boot camp or reform school can interfere with your student's self-image and teacher and peer support network. Plenty of studies and reports show the potentially severe impact on student development of high school discipline. Let us help your Wisconsin high school student avoid those impacts.
Wisconsin's High School Discipline System
Wisconsin education laws authorize a rigorous system for high school discipline. Wisconsin Statutes Section 120.13 authorizes your student's Wisconsin high school to suspend or expel your student for disruptive conduct and other violations of the school district's code for educational decorum and standards. Similarly, Wisconsin Statutes Section 119.25 authorizes your student's Wisconsin school district board to adopt a policy authorizing your student's school officials to expel your student for qualifying wrongs. The list of wrongs your student's school district may punish is long. For another example, Wisconsin Statutes Section 118.46 requires your student's school district to adopt a policy punishing school bullying with suspension, expulsion, and alternative disciplinary placement. For another example, Wisconsin Statutes Section 118.45 authorizes school officials to test your student's breath for the presence of alcohol and to discipline your student for attending school while under the influence. Your student's Wisconsin high school disciplinary officials have plenty of authority on which to rely to follow through on school misconduct charges. Let us help your student achieve the best possible outcome for those charges.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has the responsibility to ensure that Wisconsin's K-12 public schools follow the above Wisconsin school discipline laws. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction accordingly offers your student's school district in-school suspension, expulsion, and another discipline while collecting reports and studying data on those disciplinary actions. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has the legislature's authority to adopt implementing regulations, which it has done on rare occasions. For instance, Wisconsin Administrative Code Section PI 33.07 regulates Wisconsin high school expulsions for truancy. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction also sets the academic standards that your student's high school will enforce to ensure that your student makes satisfactory academic progress. Your student's high school has the state's authority and responsibility to enforce those academic standards, including holding your student back or refusing your student's graduation. Your student's Wisconsin high school disciplinary officials thus have state agency support for their disciplinary measures. Let us help you level the playing field with our highly qualified disciplinary defense services.
Wisconsin Local School District Authority
You've already seen above that your student's Wisconsin school district has the authority and responsibility under Wisconsin Statutes Section 120.13 and other laws to suspend or expel your student for disruptive conduct, among other wrongs. Your student's current high school misconduct charges likely arise under a school district policy adopted under that statutory authority. Your student's high school officials may rely on district disciplinary officials to apply that student conduct policy. Your student's disciplinary proceeding may even quickly reach the school district level. We can help defend your student in disciplinary proceedings in any of Wisconsin's school districts including the Milwaukee Public Schools, Madison Metropolitan School District, Kenosha Unified School District, Green Bay Area Public School District, Racine Unified School District, Appleton Area School District, School District of Waukesha, Eau Claire Area School District, School District of Janesville, Sheboygan Area School District, Oshkosh Area School District, Sun Prairie Area School District, Wausau School District, Elmbrook School District, and West Allis-West Milwaukee School District.
Wisconsin Local School District Student Codes of Conduct
Your student's Wisconsin school district has very likely adopted a student code of conduct under the above statutory authority, like one or more of the following student codes of conduct adopted in the state's largest school districts:
- the Milwaukee Public Schools Parent/Student Handbook on Rights, Responsibilities, & Discipline defines four levels of discipline up to expulsion for a long list of prohibited actions;
- the Madison Metropolitan School District Secondary School District Policy Guide identifies several major categories of punishable wrongs;
- the School District of Waukesha School Board Disciplinary Consequences for Student Misconduct Policy 5600.01 has a long list of sanctionable misbehaviors and
- the Kenosha Unified School District Classroom Code of Conduct authorizes student removal for a long list of specific disruptive or endangering behaviors.
Beware the breadth of these Wisconsin school district student codes of conduct. Your student may have run afoul of a prohibition about which your student didn't know and didn't expect. We can help defend your Wisconsin high school student against disciplinary charges under school district policies like the above.
Wisconsin High School Academic Misconduct
Your student's Wisconsin school district student code of conduct likely addresses student academic misconduct. Academics are, of course, at the heart of the standards and expectations for student high school conduct. High school students are learning adult academic norms and standards that they will need in college or at the university, as well as in professions and vocations. Academic honesty and integrity tie closely to professional and personal trustworthiness, character, and competence. Your student's Wisconsin high school very likely prohibits academic dishonesty and cheating, punishing academic misconduct with various disciplines. The Racine Unified School District Code of Rights and Responsibilities, for instance, prohibits both academic dishonesty and cheating at two offense levels, punishable all the way up to long-term school removal for repeated or frequent offenses. Expect your student's Wisconsin high school teachers, principal, and school to enforce some form of academic dishonesty or cheating rules, potentially including the following:
- unauthorized materials or collaboration for academic tests or exams;
- unauthorized materials or collaboration on homework;
- plagiarizing the work of others without permission and attribution; and
- falsifying research or data submitted for academic credit.
Punishing Wisconsin High School Academic Misconduct
Some Wisconsin school district student codes of conduct may minimize or even largely ignore academic misconduct, treating the matter as educational rather than disciplinary. The Milwaukee, Madison, Waukesha, and Kenosha school districts may be among those districts leaving academic misconduct largely in the hands of teachers, who may lower grades, refuse credit, or require repeated work. However, other Wisconsin school districts, like the Racine Unified School District, define academic misconduct as a potentially serious offense warranting suspension, especially when repeated or frequent. Even if your student's district policy does not expressly identify academic misconduct as a punishable offense, your student's school officials may treat flagrant and repeated violations as warranting punishment for disruptive and disobedient misconduct.
Wisconsin High School Academic Discipline Impacts
Don't assume that a slap on your student's wrist for Wisconsin high school academic misconduct will have few or no consequences. School suspension can, of course, interfere with your student's education and valuable school reputation and relationships. But so can a reprimand or other modest discipline for cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic dishonesty. The high school may remove your student's impressive class rank, withdraw academic honors, and remove athletic, social, and club privileges. Colleges and universities may also reject your student's admissions applications for a high school record of academic misconduct. Academic misconduct can also affect your student's prospects for vocational certifications and professional licenses while also causing your student to lose the support of teachers and mentors. Beware of these and other adverse impacts.
Wisconsin High School Academic Misconduct Defense
Rather than let your Wisconsin high school student suffer unwarranted, unnecessary, and overzealous academic misconduct discipline, let our attorneys negotiate and advocate for alternative remedial relief. We may be able to show from electronic records and student statements that your student did not cheat. But even if your student committed academic misconduct, we may be able to arrange appropriate remedial education and training rather than have your student suffer discipline, marring your student's school record. Let us represent your student in academic misconduct defense. Your student's future is worth skilled defense.
Wisconsin High School Behavioral Misconduct
Behavioral misconduct charges can have an even worse impact on your student's academic progress, personal development, and future prospects. Behavioral misconduct does not directly involve academics. Instead, behavioral misconduct has the potential to adversely affect the school environment, such as by threatening student safety or the security of school property. Your student's Wisconsin school district student code of conduct very likely incorporates the state's mandated behavioral prohibitions regarding subjects like guns, drugs, and weapons in the school. See, for instance, Wisconsin Statutes Section 118.46 punishing school bullying and Wisconsin Statutes Section 118.45 punishing school attendance while intoxicated. Your student's Wisconsin high school behavioral misconduct charges, though, will probably arise under the school district's student code of conduct. Recall that the above student codes of conduct for the Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Waukesha, and Kenosha districts list many such behavioral wrongs, including acts like the following:
- alcohol or drug possession on school premises;
- tobacco or vaping products on school premises;
- pornography on school premises or school devices;
- misuse of or unauthorized access to school computers;
- trespass on school property;
- vandalism of school property;
- blackmail or sexting involving other students;
- harassment based on race, sex, religion, or disability;
- personal property theft on school premises;
- triggering school fire alarms without cause;
- damaging or destroying school fire suppression equipment;
- weapons possession on school premises;
- interfering with school transportation;
- insubordination toward teachers;
- disobeying the school principal;
- chronic absenteeism or truancy; and
- Encourage other students to engage in the above.
Wisconsin High School Behavioral Discipline Impacts
If Wisconsin high school behavioral discipline interrupts your student's education, with school suspension or expulsion and alternative disciplinary placement, your student is likely to face severe effects. School removal means loss of structured and scheduled instruction, leaving your student to languish for lack of support and discipline. School removal also isolates your student from peer and teacher accountability. Even if the school does not remove your student, behavioral discipline could disrupt your student's teacher and peer relationships, ostracizing and stigmatizing your student. Your student could also lose motivating athletic privileges, social privileges, and mentor support. Colleges, universities, and vocational programs may deny your student admission, depending on the nature and severity of the behavioral wrong appearing on your student's school record.
Wisconsin High School Behavioral Misconduct Defense
Don't underestimate the adverse effects of behavioral discipline. Instead, retain our highly qualified defense services. Fortunately, Wisconsin school law guarantees your student due process of law against disciplinary charges that threaten your student's high school removal. Wisconsin Statutes Section 119.25 promises your student the right to a hearing before an independent decision maker after fair notice of the disciplinary charges. These and other Wisconsin and federal laws, rules, and regulations ensure that we can invoke your student's procedural protections to present your student's exonerating and mitigating evidence while challenging the school's allegations of misconduct. Don't retain unqualified local criminal defense counsel to pursue these academic administrative protections. These procedures differ markedly from court proceedings. Let our highly qualified attorneys invoke these procedures strategically and sensitively on your student's behalf.
Wisconsin High School Sexual Misconduct Charges
Sexual misconduct charges are another risk your student faces, likely even greater than the risk that academic or behavioral misconduct charges may present, depending on the circumstances. Sexual misconduct charges can carry a taint of bad character, well beyond what academic misunderstandings or high school behavioral horseplay suggest. Your student's Wisconsin high school must enforce federal Title IX regulations prohibiting sexual misconduct. All of Wisconsin's public high schools do so to ensure their receipt of substantial federal education funding. The Milwaukee Public Schools Rights and Responsibilities Handbook, for instance, expressly acknowledges the duty of its schools to comply with Title IX. The Madison Public Schools likewise maintain a board policy mandating the school's Title IX compliance. Title IX prohibits not only sexual assault and dating violence but also stalking and sexual harassment. Your student's school district may extend those protections to bar various forms of sexual exploitation, indecent exposure, and voyeurism.
Wisconsin High School Sexual Misconduct Discipline Impacts
If your student suffers Wisconsin high school discipline for sexual misconduct, that discipline may be severe and may have long-term serious impacts. Title IX requires Wisconsin public high schools to prevent and punish sexual misconduct. High schools often do so with emergency removal, suspension, and expulsion. Your student may end up in an alternative disciplinary boot camp or reform school. Colleges, universities, and professional and vocational programs know that they can face civil liability and regulatory risks if they admit students whom they know to be sexual violence risks. Your student could lose admission to those programs. As in the case of academic and behavioral misconduct, and even more so, your student may even suffer severe impacts if the school only imposes minor discipline. Teachers, students, mentors, and others may refuse to associate with your student or simply stigmatize your student in ways that harm your student's academic, social, and personal development. Beware the potentially very severe impact of sexual misconduct discipline.
Wisconsin High School Sexual Misconduct Defense
Fortunately, the same Title IX regulations that encourage your student's Wisconsin high school to take sexual misconduct allegations most seriously also guarantee your accused student certain procedural protections. Your student has the right to retain our highly qualified attorneys to participate in your student's defense. Your student may also have the right to a hearing at which the accusers must appear for our cross-examination. We can present your student's own defense testimony and other exonerating witnesses and mitigating evidence at that hearing. If your student has already lost the sexual misconduct hearing, we may be able to appeal the adverse results to a higher district or state authority and even obtain court review and reversal, correcting legal and procedural errors. Let us help investigate other alternative special relief, even if you have exhausted all known procedures.
Wisconsin High School Academic Progress Issues
You surely want your students to have the best academic benefit from Wisconsin high school instruction. A high school education is the ground floor for future educational and vocational attainment. But your student's misconduct issues, learning disabilities, illnesses and injuries, and other life challenges can seriously interfere with your student's academic progress. Yet your student's Wisconsin high school must enforce certain academic standards. High schools cannot generally just ignore whether students are meeting state benchmarks. Recall that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction sets the academic standards that your student's high school will enforce. Your student's teachers and principal may hold your student back, delay or refuse your student's high school graduation, or even expel your student to an alternative disciplinary school if they believe that your student's absenteeism or lack of effort is disobedient, insubordinate, and disruptive. Your student may have more at stake than just making good grades.
Addressing Wisconsin High School Academic Progress Issues
Let our highly qualified attorneys help if your Wisconsin high school student faces academic progress issues. Your student may have an undiagnosed or unaccommodated learning disability. Your student may need remedial education due to excused and unavoidable absences. Your student may alternatively suffer school bullying and harassment that adversely affect your student's academic studies. If your student faces academic progress issues, we can invoke the school's and district's procedures to advocate for your student's relief and remediation for any of these causes and on other legal and factual grounds as we discover them from our investigation. Your student has important rights and protections under the federal IDEA law, federal Americans with Disabilities Act, and other federal and state laws, even when the issue has to do with academic progress. Let us help your student face and overcome academic progress issues.
Wisconsin High School Disciplinary Sanctions
Wisconsin Statutes Section 119.25 and other Wisconsin school laws cited above authorize your student's Wisconsin high school to impose discipline right up to school suspension and expulsion. While your student has a right to Wisconsin public education, your student can lose that right to disciplinary charges. Several Wisconsin statutes, including Sections 115.28, 118.153, and 118.164, authorize or require Wisconsin high schools to place removed students in an alternative disciplinary school, sometimes known as a boot camp or reform school. Alternative schools may advertise their supportive environment. However, your student is at a much greater risk of failing to complete the high school program at an alternative disciplinary school because of the unstructured instruction, different expectations, and different student populations. Removal, suspension, expulsion, and disciplinary placement could be the death knell to your student's high school and further college or university education. Wisconsin high schools also have the authority to impose lesser discipline, such as revoking athletic team privileges, social event privileges, and club and intramural privileges or requiring your student to perform school or community service. Any discipline, though, could appear on your student's school record, affecting your student's future prospects.
Wisconsin High School Disciplinary Sanction Issues
Your Wisconsin high school student has the right to expect fair, balanced, and restorative treatment from the school's disciplinary officials. Some school districts, like the Milwaukee Public Schools, even promise to use restorative measures over punitive discipline in appropriate cases. Nevertheless, promises and expectations are one thing, while disciplinary outcomes can be quite a different thing. Your student may, unfortunately, face biased disciplinarians who want to make an example of your student rather than protect the school's interests and your student's educational and developmental interests. Sanctions can bring their own issues. Let our attorneys help your student avoid unnecessarily harsh and destructive discipline. We may be able to show your student's school principal and other disciplinary officials that your student's remedial education, training, or other restorative relief will achieve all school interests for safety, security, and operational integrity while helping rather than harming your student. Don't let your student become a deterrent example. Let us help you keep school officials accountable for the school's educational mission. School may be a highly regulated environment, but it should not be a penal colony.
Limits on Wisconsin High School Discipline
Wisconsin school law and federal laws and regulations place certain limits on school discipline. We may be able to invoke those school laws and regulations to protect your student against unduly harsh and destructive discipline. For example, Wisconsin Statutes Section 118.31 prohibits school officials from imposing corporal punishment. That prohibition means that your student's Wisconsin high school teachers, principal, and other officials should not be proposing to swat, paddle, or otherwise use force against your student for disciplinary purposes. They may briefly restrain a student for emergency safety purposes but not discipline with force. For another example, Wisconsin Statutes Section 118.305 prohibits your student's Wisconsin high school from using confinement in a locked closet or room or physical restraint for school discipline. Confinement and restraint are permissible only for clear, present, and imminent risk of physical injury. Federal disability rights laws provide other limits on discipline. Let our highly skilled and knowledgeable attorneys enforce these limits to ensure that your student does not suffer unlawful Wisconsin high school discipline.
Wisconsin High School Student Defense Rights
As you can see from the abundant Wisconsin school law and complex administrative procedures above, your best move when your student faces Wisconsin high school misconduct charges or academic progress issues is to retain our highly qualified attorneys. We know the laws and have the skill to strategically and sensitively deploy them for your student's best outcome. We can, for instance, invoke the procedural protections that Wisconsin Statutes Section 119.25 and other laws and regulations promise your student. That means that we can arrange early voluntary settlement conferences, exchanges of evidence and information, and formal hearings to cross-examine adverse witnesses and present your student's defense evidence. If you have already lost all hearings, we may be able to appeal your student's discipline to a district or state authority to reverse erroneous and unsupported discipline. At the same time, we may be able to reach and negotiate with your student's district general counsel's office or other oversight officials for alternative special relief. We are also able to pursue civil court review and reversal in appropriate cases.
Premier Wisconsin High School Student Defense
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, Racine, Appleton, Waukesha, Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Janesville, West Allis, La Crosse, Cheboygan, Wauwatosa, Fond du Lac, Brookfield, New Berlin, Wausau, Menomonee Falls, and other Wisconsin locations to defend your student against Wisconsin high school disciplinary charges and academic progress issues. Hundreds of high school students in Wisconsin and nationwide have benefitted from our successful defense of misconduct charges and academic progress issues. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your Wisconsin high school student's case.
