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Build a Longer Fuse Straight answers for parents of a teenager with a temper

Trouble at School

Questions to Ask the School

Written by
Jenna Hale
Last checked
In short

Work down the list below and tick what you have actually asked, not what you mean to ask. It is built from the questions that turn out to matter in the weeks after an incident: which rule was cited, how the days are counted, who outside the school has been told, whether a disability process applies, what is kept in the record, and how an appeal works. It gives no score and no verdict, because a list of questions cannot produce either. What it reports is what is still outstanding, which is the only honest output a checklist has.

Tick what you have actually asked, not what you intend to ask. The distinction matters more than it sounds like it should, because in the week after an incident almost everything feels as though it has already been dealt with.

Nothing here is stored or sent anywhere, and reloading the page clears it. Print the page and the list comes out blank, ready to fill in with a pen.

What happened, in the school's own words

The exclusion itself

Schoolwork and coming back

Who else has been told

Disability, where it applies

The record, and what leaves the building

The route out

Why is it framed as what you have not asked?

Because that is the only thing a list of questions can honestly report. It cannot tell you whether the school got it right, whether an appeal would succeed, or whether your child is in trouble. It can tell you which facts you are still missing, and missing facts are the thing that makes the fourth week worse than the first.

There is no score on this page and there will not be one. A number would compress twenty-seven unrelated things into a single figure, and the compression would destroy the information. Asking about the appeal deadline and asking about the attendance code are not worth the same amount, and they are not worth the same amount in the same way for every family.

Which of these matter most, if you only have ten minutes?

Four of them, and they are the four that stop being answerable if you leave them.

  • The appeal deadline. Deadlines in discipline policies are short and are often counted in school days. This is the only item on the list that expires.
  • Whether the incident has been referred to law enforcement. It changes what situation you are in, and it is a question people avoid asking because they are afraid of the answer. In the 2021-22 school year, districts referred about 220,000 K-12 students to law enforcement, and approximately 17 percent of those referrals resulted in school-related arrests.
  • Whether a disability process applies. The IDEA discipline regulations run on day counts and their own deadlines, including a manifestation determination within ten school days of a decision to change placement. If it applies and nobody says so, the clock still runs. Section 504 is a separate route with a separate question, which is why the first item in that band is asking the school to confirm which one your child is covered by.
  • The running total of excluded days. Almost nobody asks for this and it is often the number that explains what the school is actually responding to.

What this checklist deliberately does not do

It does not tell you to appeal, and it does not tell you not to. It does not tell you to get a lawyer, and it does not tell you that you do not need one. Those decisions depend on facts about your district, your state and your child that this page cannot see, and a checklist that pushed you toward any of them would be doing something other than helping you ask questions.

It also does not restate your state’s law. School discipline is state and district law, this site does not give legal advice, and the answer to almost every question on this page is a local document rather than a national rule.

Where the questions come from

The exclusion and appeal questions come from the shape of the process itself. The federal constitutional floor for a short public-school suspension is small, and what sits above it is district and state policy, which means the policy documents are where the answers are. That is covered in suspended for fighting.

The day-count and disability questions come from the federal special education discipline regulations, which turn on removals measured in school days. The records questions come from the federal student privacy rules and from the fact that retention and expungement are state matters, which is worked through in does a suspension follow them. The referral and threat assessment questions come from the federal data collection and the federal threat assessment model, and the process behind the second one is described in when a comment becomes a threat assessment.

The counsellor question is here because “the counsellor is handling it” is a sentence that sounds like an answer and is not one. See what a school counsellor can and cannot do, and in-school and out-of-school suspension for why the first question in the second band is worth asking even when you think you already know.

One practical note about writing

Send the questions as a numbered list in a single email rather than as seven separate messages. Numbered questions get numbered answers. A long paragraph containing seven questions reliably gets a reply that addresses two of them, and then the other five have to be asked again, which is how a reasonable request starts to feel like a campaign to everyone involved.

Follow-up questions

Does this work with JavaScript turned off, and does it print?

Yes to both. The list is ordinary HTML with real checkboxes and real labels, so it works untouched with scripts disabled and prints as a blank list you can carry into a meeting and fill in with a pen. With JavaScript on, a summary appears underneath showing what is still outstanding, and two buttons appear. Nothing you tick is stored or sent anywhere, and reloading clears it.

Why is there no score?

Because a score would be a claim this list cannot support. Ticking twenty-two of twenty-seven does not mean anything is going well, it means twenty-two questions have been asked. A number would also invite the exact behaviour the list exists to prevent, which is a parent deciding they have done enough and stopping.

Do I have to ask all of these?

No. Several sections will not apply to you, and leaving them unticked costs nothing. If there is no disability plan, skip that band. If nothing has been referred anywhere, the answer to the referral question is still worth having in writing, because assuming it is a different thing from knowing it.

Will the school think I am being difficult?

Most of these are questions that records staff, counsellors and assistant principals answer routinely. Asking for answers in writing is normal and it is not an accusation. If asking politely for a rule to be identified by number is treated as hostile, that is information about the situation you are in.

What if the school will not answer?

Note the date you asked and ask again in writing, addressed one level up. Where a question concerns a disability process, a records policy or an appeal deadline, the district office rather than the school building is usually the right place. A refusal to put a policy in writing is worth recording.

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