If you believe your child has been improperly suspended, expelled, or alternatively reassigned – please contact Windsor Law today.
Suspension can be in school or out of school – either way, the student is not in class learning. If this occurs over a period of time that meets or exceeds ten total school days over the entire school year, a claim can be made for a change of placement. See School Suspensions: How Effective Are They? (wgu.edu)
Expulsion is an extended suspension and has an even greater impact on learning. When a child is expelled from school that means they are no longer allowed to attend school for a long period of time, 45 days, a year or longer.
Expulsions have a deleterious effect on a student’s social, emotional, and academic welfare. It is often impossible or nearly impossible to find another school that will take the student. We can guide parents to help their child deal with the expulsion and access their education through alternative means that do not include attending an alternative school aka Alternative Placement.
When either of these events (multiple suspensions or an expulsion) occurs, there are lost opportunities to learn, and these lost opportunities to learn will have an impact on school performance and result in increased dropout rates.
This is even more the case when the suspension(s) or expulsion leads to an Alternative Placement in a school for students with disciplinary problems.
Alternative Placement occurs when a student is assigned to an alternative education program offered by the school system for up to one full academic year and sometimes longer. An alternative placement changes the location of educational services to a different location for the student and this different location will be populated with other students who have undesirable and often dangerous behaviors. Alternative Placements or Schools are “supposedly” designed to educate students who have not been successful in regular schools, often because of behavior, disciplinary, and safety concerns. Rarely are these schools successful in addressing the educational needs of these students; instead, they serve as warehouses for unwanted students who are mostly minority students – contributing to the “school to prison pipeline” problem. See
Students with IDEA or 504 protected Disabilities and the rules related to alternative school placement.
If a student has a disability, there are procedural safeguards that must be adhered to before assigning them to an alternative school placement. Parents rarely know their child’s rights. Obtaining the best possible results often depends on the nature of the alleged offense and the student’s documented or suspected disabilities. This is a potential minefield for an uninformed parent. Each and every case is unique, and the facts need to be carefully considered to obtain the best possible outcomes. We at Windsor Law handle these cases exceptionally well.