NC 1504-2.1 Authority of School Personnel

Plain English summary

This regulation governs the authority of school personnel to discipline students with disabilities who violate codes of student conduct. It establishes procedural requirements for removal, placement changes, manifestation determinations, and continuation of educational services, including specific rules for weapons, drugs, and serious bodily injury incidents. The regulation requires that IEP teams conduct manifestation determinations within 10 school days of any change-of-placement disciplinary decision and mandates ongoing educational services for removed students.

Key requirements

• School personnel may remove a child with a disability for not more than 10 consecutive school days to an appropriate interim alternative educational setting, another setting, or suspension, to the extent those alternatives are applied to children without disabilities.
• After a child with a disability has been removed from his or her current placement for 10 school days in the same school year, during any subsequent days of removal the public agency must provide services to the extent required under paragraph (d) of this section.
• A child with a disability who is removed from the child's current placement pursuant to paragraphs (c) or (g) must continue to receive educational services so as to enable the child to continue to participate in the general education curriculum and to progress toward meeting the goals set out in the child's IEP.
• A child with a disability who is removed must receive, as appropriate, a functional behavioral assessment, and behavioral intervention services and modifications that are designed to address the behavior violation so that it does not recur.
• Within 10 school days of any decision to change the placement of a child with a disability because of a violation of a code of student conduct, the LEA, the parent, and relevant members of the child's IEP Team must review all relevant information in the student's file to determine if the conduct was a manifestation of the child's disability.
• If the LEA, the parent, and relevant members of the IEP Team determine that the conduct was a manifestation of the child's disability, the IEP Team must either conduct a functional behavioral assessment and implement a behavioral intervention plan, or review and modify an existing behavioral intervention plan, and return the child to the placement from which the child was removed.
• School personnel may remove a student to an interim alternative educational setting for not more than 45 school days without regard to whether the behavior is determined to be a manifestation of the child's disability, if the child carries or possesses a weapon at school, knowingly possesses or uses illegal drugs at school, or has inflicted serious bodily injury upon another person at school.
• Upon the end of the removal to the interim alternative educational setting for not more than 45 school days, the child shall be returned to the placement from which he/she was removed, unless the parent and the LEA, through the IEP Team process, agree to a change of placement.
• On the date on which the decision is made to make a removal that constitutes a change of placement, the LEA must notify the parents of that decision and provide the parents the procedural safeguards notice described in NC 1504-1.5.
• If the LEA, the parent, and relevant members of the IEP Team determine that the conduct was the direct result of the LEA's failure to implement the IEP, the LEA must take immediate steps to remedy those deficiencies.

Affected parties

• students with disabilities
• parents/guardians of students with disabilities
• local education agencies (LEAs)
• IEP Teams
• school personnel
• state education agency (SEA)

Official source

https://www.dpi.nc.gov/documents/publications/catalog/ec144-policies-governing-services/open#page=96