NCJ Number
93223
Date Published
1982
Length
537 pages
Annotation
Designed to help students' advocates in their work on school discipline issues, this manual is devoted to an analysis of students' legal rights, including substantive rights, procedural rights, and access to information. Remedies, alternatives, and strategies are also considered.
Abstract
The section on substantive rights deals with rights which limit either the kinds of conduct which schools can prohibit or the kinds of punishment which schools can impose for misconduct. The substantive rights discussed relate to freedom of expression, first amendment guarantees with respect to religion, the right to privacy, and the right to notice of rules and punishments. Attention is also given to general legal concepts bearing upon unreasonable, excessive, or unauthorized rules or punishments, as well as the challenging of specific types of rules and punishments. The second major section addresses procedural rights, i.e., the school's obligation to use certain procedures when making a decision to punish a student. A discussion of the general principles of procedural rights is followed by the application of these principles to specific forms of discipline. Elements of due process are also reviewed. Other sections include a guide for access to student records and to information about the school system, which can be essential in advocacy; materials on remedies, disciplinary alternatives, and strategies: and legal rights of students in private schools. Material excerpted from the Massachusetts Department of Education's student rights and responsibilities handbook is included as a short-form summary of some of the key issues covered in the manual.