16 What About School Misbehavior?
William hadn’t meant to hurt his classmate and friend. William and his friend had gone to school together for years. They’d always had an up-and-down relationship. While they regarded one another as friends, they were also frequently competitors. They also roughhoused with one another, usually on the playground or in gym class. This time, though, William and his friend had gotten into an argument in the hallway. William had shoved his friend who fell backward, hitting and cutting his head on the door of an open locker. William figured nothing would have come of it if his friend hadn’t required stitches to the head at the hospital. But now, William was on school suspension and faced a further proceeding that could result in expulsion and transfer to the district’s reform school. The school had accused William of bullying his friend, which was the farthest thing from the truth.
Behavior
Schools not only expect that students conform their academic practices to honor codes and accepted academic norms and customs. Outside of student academics, schools also expect students to behave in ways that maintain campus safety, security, and operations. Student misbehavior can seriously harm other students in their safety and distract them from their studies. Student misbehavior can also damage personal or real property and disrupt school operations. Schools thus discipline students for endangering or disruptive misbehavior. School behavioral discipline can be a very serious matter for a student, even resulting in school expulsion and, at the K-12 levels, transfer to an alternative disciplinary school. Take school behavioral disciplinary charges seriously, getting qualified defense advocacy when the stakes are high.
Codes
Schools at all levels maintain student codes of conduct closely regulating student non-academic behavior. States generally require public elementary and secondary schools to adopt safe-school programs, often including mandatory discipline for especially dangerous or disruptive acts like weapons on school premises or at school events. Student codes of conduct adopted under that legislation often have progressive levels of misbehavior, each level with its own more-serious sanctions. Colleges and universities also maintain student codes of conduct closely regulating non-academic behavior. Disciplinary charges under behavioral codes are most common when students injure or threaten to harm another student or member of the school community, steal or damage property, commit a crime, or bring prohibited items onto campus. Beware disciplinary charges for behavioral misconduct. They can interfere with or even destroy your educational goals.
Types
Student codes of conduct generally prohibit a wide range of behaviors. Student codes of conduct and the school officials who enforce them usually first focus on endangering behaviors, prohibiting fighting, assaults, threats, intimidation, harassment, bullying, hazing (initiation rites), weapons, explosive devices, and gang activity. Student conduct codes will also prohibit insubordination, disrespect, and disobedience toward instructors and other school officials, and unruly or disruptive behaviors interfering with instruction and school order. Student conduct codes will also prohibit property wrongs including theft, vandalism, trespass, computer misuse, and unauthorized access to school records and files. Student conduct codes also address health and morals issues, prohibiting drugs, alcohol, tobacco, vaping, pornography, and lewdness. Federal Title IX legislation also requires schools receiving federal funding to prohibit, prevent, and punish sexual assault and harassment including dating and domestic violence and stalking. Examine your school’s student code of conduct for the wide variety of wrongs it prohibits.
Sanctions
Student codes of conduct routinely grant broad discretion to school officials to impose a wide range of progressive sanctions to discourage and punish misbehavior, and protect students and operations. Sanctions may begin with warnings and reprimands and progress to probation, loss of privileges, short-term and long-term suspensions, and expulsion. In K-12 programs, expulsion may result in transfer to an alternative disciplinary program or boot camp, to satisfy mandatory-education laws. Retention and graduation statistics for those reform schools are generally poor, given the troubled student population, low expectations, unstructured program, and low motivation. Beware behavioral disciplinary charges. Sanctions can seriously impede or even destroy your educational program.
Impacts
The impact of behavioral discipline only begins with the loss of school privileges or interruption of schooling. Behavioral discipline of any degree can cause instructors, advisors, and mentors to withdraw their recommendations and other support. You could also lose access to honors courses, school awards, and scholarships, grants, or other financial support. You may also not gain admission to a preferred college or university, or to graduate or professional school. You could also find it difficult to obtain a professional license or certification. Your disciplinary record could also impact your reputation and relationships among friends, acquaintances, and the broader community. And discipline can impact job, career, and vocational training opportunities. Discipline can also discourage you, affecting your mental and physical health and outlook. Make your best effort to behave according to your school’s rules and expectations. If you face disciplinary charges with high stakes, get qualified defense representation so that the charges don’t defeat your educational goals.
Procedures
Just as with academic-misconduct charges, schools must generally provide protective procedures for students facing behavioral-misconduct charges. You should receive fair notice of the nature of any charges against you. You should also have the opportunity to contest those charges in a fair hearing before an impartial decision maker. At the K-12 level, the disciplinary decision maker may initially be your school principal. Your appeal of the principal’s decision to impose discipline may go before the district superintendent, board, or a panel or official whom the board appoints. At the higher-education level, your college or university would have a school official, often a dean of students, or panel of school officials, to hear your matter. Appeals may go before a higher official such as a provost or vice president. Court review may also be available for violations of a student’s procedural or constitutional rights.
Defenses
Just because you face behavioral disciplinary charges does not mean that the school will necessarily find that you violated school rules or that the school will impose a disciplinary sanction. You may have one or more defenses to the behavioral disciplinary charge. Those defenses may include that you committed no wrong, the complainant misidentified you, or that the complainant was retaliating against you with a false report. The complainant may alternatively have misunderstood your actions or intentions. You, too, may have misunderstood the circumstances. You may have made an innocent mistake and thus lacked the guilty knowledge or deliberate intent to violate school rules. Get qualified defense representation if you face behavioral discipline with high stakes.
Mitigation
Even if you committed a violation, you may have a good defense to raise in mitigation of any punitive sanction. You may, for instance, have been under an extraordinary one-time stress of some kind, such as a serious physical illness, brief mental delusion, or prescription drug reaction. You may also have had a clean disciplinary record and outstanding academic record. You may have promptly come forward to acknowledge, apologize, and account for your behavioral violation. Your violation may not have endangered anyone, damaged any property, or disrupted any school operation. You may have reputable character witnesses supporting you and may be able to show that punitive discipline is unnecessary. Get qualified defense representation to help you make out a case to mitigate any sanction, if you have a lot at stake in your behavioral disciplinary proceeding.
Remediation
Schools are instructional institutions, not penal institutions. Even if you committed a significant behavioral wrong, school officials may be open to remedial measures in place of punitive sanctions. You may, for instance, find it beneficial to submit to behavioral evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment such as medication, counseling, and mentoring. You may, for other examples, be willing to undergo additional education or training related to your wrong, provide restitution for any loss, and perform school or community service. Any actions that you can readily take that will both benefit you and protect and reassure the school community, while keeping your school record clear of discipline, may make an appropriate offer of remedial measures. Get qualified defense representation to help you advocate and negotiate for a non-disciplinary outcome to your school behavioral-misconduct charges.
Disability
Some conduct that appears to be deliberate misbehavior may instead be a manifestation of an undiagnosed or unaccommodated disability. Indeed, federal law generally requires a K-12 school to conduct a manifestation determination review before changing the individualized education plan (IEP) of any student because of alleged misbehavior. Don’t let your school blame you for its own fault in failing to provide you with disability accommodations and services. Invoke school disability evaluations and IEP review procedures if you suspect that you have a disability manifesting in alleged misbehavior. Get qualified representation to advocate your disability rights in any situation involving behavioral misconduct charges.
Reactions
Some conduct that appears to be deliberate misbehavior may alternatively involve the student’s reaction to bullying, harassment, or intimidation. A student accused of misbehavior may instead be acting in self-defense or acting out in response to bullying, threats, harassment, or other misconduct by other students, or even to sexual harassment or other intimidation or coercion by instructors or other school officials. Students may especially act out when they report their bullying or harassment, but school officials do not respond promptly to protect them. If that’s your situation, and you now face behavioral disciplinary charges, then get qualified representation both to defend the charges and to pursue your rights to school protection. You may even have a damages claim against the school and its officials who failed to protect you when aware of your harassment.
Reflection
Locate and review your school’s student code of conduct. Are you violating any of its rules and regulations? Do you have your own conduct to address, to ensure that you do not face behavioral disciplinary charges? Are you aware from first-hand observation of behavioral wrongs that other students are committing, that affect your school rights and interests? Should you be reporting misconduct by other students, to protect your own interests, the interests of other students, and the school’s operations and reputation? Have you already suffered a school finding of a behavioral violation, and suffered a school sanction? If so, seek qualified defense representation to consider invoking your appeal rights or other protections, to determine if you can clear your record. If you currently face behavioral disciplinary charges, consider retaining qualified representation to avoid discipline and a disciplinary record. If you do face allegations of a behavioral wrong that you know you committed, consider whether you can take remedial measures now, to reduce the likelihood of charges or punitive sanctions. Do you have a disability contributing to your behavioral issues? Or are your behavioral issues reactions to bullying or harassment committed against you?
Key Points
Schools punish behavioral wrongs to protect students and operations.
Schools publish student codes of conduct stating rules and violations.
Schools punish violence, property wrongs, and disruptive behavior.
Sanctions are progressive from reprimands to suspension or expulsion.
A disciplinary record can have severe collateral consequences.
Invoke your school’s protective procedures to challenge allegations.
Students may have any number of factual defenses to allegations.
Schools may accept student remedial measures in lieu of sanctions.
Schools must determine if disabilities contributed to the misbehavior.
Schools must not blame students for reacting to harassment.