School Discipline Guide

Parents need to know:

The school is required to follow the suspension procedures in the Minnesota PFDA,* including:

• Holding an informal administrative conference* with your child where your child is notified of the grounds for their suspension and given an explanation of the evidence school authorities have, and where your child may tell their version of the facts. This conference takes place before the suspension except where it appears that your child will create an immediate and substantial danger to themselves or to people or property around them, in which case the conference takes place as soon as practicable after the suspension.¹

  NOTE: Private or confidential data about students is protected under state and federal law. If the school collects private or confidential data from a student as part of an informal administrative conference, then the school is required to provide them with a Tennessen warning.*² If you’re concerned that your child’s disability-related needs may have affected their ability to understand a Tennessen warning from a school administrator, you could report your concerns about this to the school administration. You could also work with your child’s IEP team to add appropriate accommodations to their IEP* that will support them through any future informal administrative conference.

• Personally delivering to your child a written notice explaining the grounds for their suspension, a brief statement of the facts, a description of the testimony collected, and a copy of the PFDA at or before the time that their suspension is to take effect. The notice may also include a readmission plan.* This notice will be mailed to your child within 48 hours of their suspension if no informal administrative conference is held on the grounds that they will create an immediate and substantial danger to themselves or to people or property around them.³ 
• Making reasonable efforts to notify you of your child’s suspension by telephone as soon as possible following their suspension and mailing a copy of the written notice of suspension to you within 48 hours of the informal administrative conference that was held with your child. If this conference was not held on the grounds that your child would have created an immediate and substantial danger to themselves or to people or property around them, the notice of suspension will be mailed to you within 48 hours of your child’s suspension.⁴
• Allowing your child the opportunity to complete all schoolwork assigned during the time they are suspended for full credit. You could ask your school principal to designate someone at the school to work as a liaison with your child’s teachers to allow your child to receive course materials and other information in a timely manner, complete assignments, and receive feedback from their teachers during their suspension.⁵

When your child is issued an out-of-school suspension for more than five consecutive school days but their total number of days of out-of-school suspension for this school year does NOT add up to more than 10 school days:

• The school administrator who issued the suspension must provide the district superintendent with a reason for the longer suspension.⁶

• The school must provide your child with alternative educational services* to the extent their suspension exceeds five consecutive school days. Services should begin on the sixth consecutive day of suspension.⁷
• Relevant members of your child’s IEP team, including at least one of their teachers, must meet as soon as possible but no more than 10 days after the sixth consecutive day of your child’s suspension. The purpose of this meeting is to determine what services are needed to help your child continue participating in the general education curriculum, although in another setting, and continue making progress toward meeting the annual goals in their IEP.⁸

Next steps:

You could consider requesting a meeting with all the required members of the IEP team to review your child's current IEP and Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP)* and decide if they are meeting your child's needs or if changes should be made. For example, the IEP team may decide to add more effective positive behavioral interventions, supports, and other strategies to the IEP and BIP to address the behavior that has gotten in the way of your child’s own learning or the learning of others and resulted in your child’s suspension.⁹

If your child does not have a BIP, you may want to talk with the IEP team about whether the school should conduct a Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA)* to better understand your child’s behavioral needs and then possibly develop a BIP for them.

To help you prepare for this IEP team meeting, you could talk with your child’s IEP case manager and gather specifics about the situations that led to your child getting suspended, information about what your child is struggling with at school, and ideas for supporting your child in new ways to ensure that their needs are met.  You could also contact a PACER advocate.

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* - definitions