Opinion ID: 472144
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Other Disciplinary Measures

Text: 58 In what are surely the most troublesome portions of its two judgments, the district court ruled that handicapped children may not have their programs reduced, or be subjected to any other disciplinary measures save the two- and five-day suspensions authorized by sections 48910 and 48911 of the California Education Code, for conduct that is a manifestation of their handicaps. We believe this statement of law is overly broad. 59 A brief review of the principles we have recognized will be useful at this point. Under the EAHCA: (1) handicapped children may not be deprived of a free appropriate public education as a result of handicap-related misconduct, and (2) changes in a handicapped child's placement may be effected only through the EAHCA's unique procedural mechanisms. These principles do not immunize handicapped children from all discipline. School officials dealing with misbehaving handicapped children may freely employ reasonable disciplinary measures that neither work a deprivation of an appropriate public education nor are substantial enough to constitute changes in placement within the meaning of the Act. 60 The two- and five-day suspensions approved by the district court clearly meet both these criteria and are therefore valid. But such suspensions do not exhaust the types of disciplinary measures that are permissible. Informal and reasonable disciplinary measures that are less substantial--the sort that teachers and principals have traditionally used to maintain order in the classroom--are similarly inoffensive under the EAHCA. 61 When one ventures beyond these informal measures and the two- and five-day suspensions the district court approved, the path becomes dim and indistinct. At the time the district court's judgment was entered, California had no statutes authorizing suspensions of fixed duration in excess of five days. The district court obviously was justified in forbidding school officials from effecting ad hoc, unauthorized suspensions for longer periods. Recently, the California legislature added section 48912 to the Education Code. That provision empowers the governing board of a school district to suspend a student for as many as twenty, and in special cases thirty, 11 consecutive days during a school year. See Cal.Educ.Code Secs. 48912, 48903 (Deering Supp.1986). The district court's decree obviously does not address the validity of such suspensions. 62 Perhaps we should ignore the issue. There are occasions, however, when a bit of dicta, if dicta it be in this case, can conserve time and money. We believe this is such an occasion. The EAHCA provides no bright-line criteria for determining when a disciplinary measure becomes a change in placement. The question is one of degree and requires an exercise of sound judgment. We do not think that the suspension authorized by Code section 48912 amounts to either a change in placement or the deprivation of an appropriate public education. Therefore, we believe it to be valid. Several factors influence our decision. First, section 48912 establishes a normal procedure that does not single out handicapped students for adverse treatment. See 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.513 comment (1985) (While the placement may not be changed [absent EAHCA procedures], this does not preclude the agency from using its normal procedures for dealing with children who are endangering themselves or others. (emphasis added)). Second, the suspension period is fixed and temporary. Third, it gives school officials some needed breathing space for developing strategies to cope with the child during the pendency of any ensuing review proceedings. 63 In reaching this determination, we do not denigrate the value of a month's worth of school days. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the loss of even ten school days is a significant enough deprivation to necessitate procedural due process protections. See Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 572-76, 95 S.Ct. 729, 735-37, 42 L.Ed.2d 725 (1975). Serious though it may be, however, such a deprivation is not, in our view, so substantial as to constitute a change in placement or a loss of a free appropriate public education within the meaning of the EAHCA.