District of Columbia — school discipline

The published process

Notice and hearing before exclusion

The Code states two specific written-justification requirements rather than a general hearing right, for exceeding the twenty-cumulative-day cap and for an emergency removal: "The head of a local education agency provides a written justification to the student and parent describing why exceeding the 20-day limit is a more appropriate disciplinary action than alternative responses; or" "The student's conduct necessitated an emergency removal, and the head of the local education agency provides a written justification for the emergency removal to the student and parent." (§ 38–236.04(b)(3)(A)-(B)) Beyond those two written-justification points, the Code does not itself state a notice or hearing procedure; it requires each local education agency's own discipline policy to "Outline procedures for communicating with students and parents regarding disciplinary actions" and to "Articulate clearly the due process rights and procedures available to students and parents" (§ 38–236.03(b)(11)-(12)) — a delegation, carried further in the delegation map below.

Services during exclusion

"No student subject to a suspension may be denied the right to continue to access and complete appropriate academic work or to earn credit toward promotion or graduation during a suspension." (§ 38–236.04(d)) Each local education agency's policy must carry the implementing plan, quoted in the delegation map below. "The return of a student to school upon conclusion of an out-of-school suspension shall not be made contingent on a parent accompanying the student, attending a conference, or otherwise being present at the school." (§ 38–236.04(e))

The record made, and the appeal route

Not stated in the sources reviewed. No provision in §§ 38–236.01, 38–236.03, 38–236.04, or 38–236.05 states that a record of a suspension or disciplinary unenrollment proceeding is kept, names an appeal body, or states an appeal window; the sources reviewed name no District-level hearing officer, office, or forum. The due process procedure a family actually meets is delegated to each local education agency's own policy, which must "Articulate clearly the due process rights and procedures available to students and parents." (§ 38–236.03(b)(12))

If the student has an IEP or Section 504 plan

The disability layer lives on this site's District of Columbia special education page. The Code's own cross-reference states that a student's disabilities "shall be considered in a manifestation determination review conducted pursuant to section 615(k)(1)(E) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act". (§ 38–236.05(b))

The four rows above answer the questions an experienced adviser raises first, from the District's own code, or record that a question is not answered in it.

Timelines, as stated in the sources

All quoted; none calculated. From §§ 38–236.01, 38–236.03, and 38–236.04 as retrieved Oct 24, 2026.

On out-of-school suspension length: "Five consecutive school days for any individual incident in grades kindergarten through 5;" "Ten consecutive school days for any individual incident in grades 6 through 12; or" "Twenty cumulative school days during an academic year regardless of grade". (§ 38–236.04(b))

On the due process threshold: "a suspension of 6 school days or more shall be considered a long-term suspension." (§ 38–236.04(g))

On unexcused absences as a ground for unenrollment: "a student may be unenrolled from a local education agency if the student has accumulated 20 or more consecutive full-school-day unexcused absences." (§ 38–236.04(c))

No numbered timeline is stated in these sources for how much advance notice precedes a suspension, how quickly a hearing must be held, or how long an appeal has to be decided; those questions are delegated to each local education agency's own due process procedures.

What any of this means for a particular situation is for the local education agency and its processes to determine.

Assigned to local education agency policy by the quoted provision

The Code writes the frame and expressly hands most of the procedure to each local education agency's own discipline policy. Each entry below is a question a local education agency's own policy answers, with the delegating text quoted. No local education agency's policy is captured or quoted here.

The discipline policy itself. "Local education agencies shall adopt, in consultation with school personnel, students, and parents, school discipline policies to promote the safety and well-being of students and staff." (§ 38–236.03(b))

Due process rights and procedures. The policy must "Articulate clearly the due process rights and procedures available to students and parents." (§ 38–236.03(b)(12))

Communicating with students and parents about discipline. The policy must "Outline procedures for communicating with students and parents regarding disciplinary actions; and" (§ 38–236.03(b)(11))

The continuity-of-education plan. The policy must "Include a plan for continuity of education for any student subject to a suspension", ensuring the student "Continues the student's studies during the suspension and receives all appropriate assignments for the duration of the suspension;" "Can communicate with school personnel regarding academic work; and" and, on return, "has the opportunity to make up any school work missed during the suspension if the school work cannot be completed by the student during the student's suspension;". (§ 38–236.03(b)(4), (4)(A)-(C))

Publishing the policy to families. "A school, or local education agency, as appropriate, shall provide school discipline policies to students and parents and shall provide students and parents with explanations of the policies, including explanations of expectations, rights, and responsibilities of students and parents under the policies. The school, or local education agency, as appropriate, shall make the school discipline policy publicly available, including in a conspicuous place on the school and local education agency's website." (§ 38–236.03(d))

Records access, as stated in the sources

Not stated in the sources reviewed. No provision in §§ 38–236.01, 38–236.03, 38–236.04, 38–236.05, or 38–236.09 addresses inspection, disclosure, retention, or expungement of a discipline record. What § 38–236.09 does state is the discipline data kept on each student: "Each local education agency and entity operating a publicly funded community-based organization shall maintain data for each student that includes:" demographic data, discipline data, and special education services data, the discipline data beginning with "Total number of in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions, involuntary dismissals, and emergency removals experienced by the student during each school year;" (§ 38–236.09(a)(2)(A)) It does not say who may see that data for an individual student. The repealed § 38–236.08 would not have answered this question even before its repeal: it required the Office of the State Superintendent of Education to report to the Mayor and the Council on reducing suspensions and expulsions District-wide, not a parent's access to any individual student's own record. Office of the State Superintendent of Education guidance on student records and FERPA's federal rights, neither restated here, remain the uncaptured candidates for this question.

Change log

Oct 24, 2026 · Recipe widened to § 38–236.09; repeal of § 38–236.08 recorded as current (attended drift resolution). Recaptured first-party under recipe tools/recipes/district-of-columbia-discipline.json, widened this date from five sections to six (digest 01dc038bb526, from 4ebe7ed87277), by curl with the recipe's pinned browser user-agent; two consecutive runs were byte-identical. What the recorded drift was: source movement that broke no quotation. The repeal of § 38–236.08 recorded on Oct 13, 2026 is unchanged, and §§ 38–236.01, 38–236.03, 38–236.04 and 38–236.05 are textually unchanged since that date. The page passed the fidelity check against that capture as well as this one; it stayed listed as open drift only because the capture holding the repeal had not been promoted while the recipe could not yet reach the section the repealed one points to. That was a capture-scope gap, closed here by adding § 38–236.09 ("Annual reporting requirements") as source 6, with the same transport, extractor, scope and filters as the other five. Whether § 38–236.09 succeeds the repealed report: the sources do not say so. The repealed section required one report "Within 180 calendar days of September 19, 2013" from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education to the Mayor and the Council. § 38–236.09 is a separate standing duty whose history line begins with D.C. Law 20-17 and "as added June 23, 2015, D.C. Law 21-12, § 3"; D.C. Law 26-178 amended it (§ 10(c)) on the same date it repealed § 38–236.08 (§ 10(b)). This page does not describe it as a successor. It adds § 38–236.09 to the records-access section, for the per-student discipline data it requires each local education agency to keep, and to the source map; the docket and timelines are unchanged in substance. Not yet captured, unchanged: §§ 38–236.02 and 38–236.06, and OSSE guidance on student discipline. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter (review confirmed 2026-10-24). Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Oct 13, 2026 · Deepened to a full page (discipline-layer deepening pass). Re-captured first-party under recipe tools/recipes/district-of-columbia-discipline.json (digest 4ebe7ed87277): the same five sections as baseline, each from its own address in the D.C. Law Library. Four sections (§§ 38–236.01, 38–236.03, 38–236.04, 38–236.05) are textually unchanged from the Aug 30, 2026 baseline capture apart from a page-chrome line ("Piwik analytics") that no longer appears on any of the five section pages — immaterial, since it was never quoted. The fifth, § 38–236.08 (suspension and expulsion report), has moved: its heading now reads "§ 38–236.08. Suspension and expulsion report. [Repealed]", its body now reads "Repealed.", and its history line adds "Sept. 15, 2026, D.C. Law 26-178, § 10(b), 73 DCR 11074" after the two citations the baseline capture already carried. This is category (d) drift, the District's own doing: the section's substantive report-to-Council requirement, which this page never quoted, is gone. Retained with --result drift (hash 742081ec7002fd04); drift never promotes, so the standing packet still carries the pre-repeal text and check-all.py will correctly report this state as open drift rather than an unexplained failure. The repealed section is dropped from the docket's governing-authority row and from this page's framework; the source map keeps it as a row noting the repeal rather than silently removing it. The section page's own "Next" link now names § 38–236.09, "Annual reporting requirements," as the following section — plausibly the successor to the repealed reporting duty — but recipe widening is outside this routine's authority; § 38–236.09 is recorded as a recipe-scope gap in the source map and in a dated QUEUE.md note for the recipe-backfill process, and the page is built to full depth on the four unaffected sections alone, which is where all of its content already came from. Built sections 01–02 (the framework route by route, the four hoisted process rows, the timelines section, the local-education-agency delegation map, and records access) from those four sections; no additional source was needed to reach full depth. Findings recorded: (1) the Code bars suspension or disciplinary unenrollment outright for younger grades absent a willful-injury finding, and for grades 9-12 bars it for dress code, willful defiance, or off-campus conduct absent the same standard; (2) the Code states exactly two written-justification requirements (exceeding the 20-day cap, and an emergency removal) rather than a general notice-and-hearing right, and otherwise delegates notice, hearing, and due process procedure entirely to each local education agency's policy; (3) no provision in the four sections states that a record of a suspension or disciplinary unenrollment proceeding is kept, names an appeal body, or states an appeal window — a full absence at the District level, not merely an unstated detail; (4) records access (inspection, disclosure, retention, expungement) is not addressed in any of the four sections, and the repealed § 38–236.08 would not have answered it even before its repeal, since it required an aggregate report to the Mayor and Council rather than individual record access; (5) the Code bars informal exclusion outright: a student may not be removed from school or barred from returning for disciplinary reasons unless that removal is formally an out-of-school suspension or a disciplinary unenrollment. Unchanged from baseline: no District-level hearing officer, appeal forum, office, phone number, or email for parents appears in the sources; the two conflicting D.C. Law 22-157 applicability notes on § 38–236.04 are recorded as the District publishes them and neither is reconciled here; the Law Library publishes no currency date on the section pages beyond each section's legislative history. §§ 38–236.02, 38–236.06, and 38–236.09, and OSSE guidance, remain uncaptured; local education agency discipline policies, which this page's delegation map points at, remain never captured, as the module requires. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-10-13. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Aug 30, 2026 · Baseline page created (discipline-layer breadth sprint). Captured first-party under recipe tools/recipes/district-of-columbia-discipline.json: five sections of Part C of Title 38, Chapter 2, Subchapter II, each from its own address in the D.C. Law Library. Findings recorded: (1) the District legislates limits that many states leave to local policy — grade-based caps of five and ten consecutive school days and twenty cumulative days, a bar on out-of-school suspension for dress code, willful defiance, and attendance, and a bar on conditioning return on a parent's presence; (2) the Code fixes the due process threshold itself, deeming a suspension of six school days or more a long-term suspension for that purpose; (3) academic work and credit are protected during a suspension by statute, and each local education agency must carry a continuity-of-education plan in its policy; (4) the notice, hearing, and appeal procedures a family will meet are assigned to each local education agency, which must articulate them clearly and publish the policy conspicuously — a delegation, not an absence, and the entry that will anchor the full page's delegation map; (5) no District-level hearing forum, office, or parent contact appears in the sources; (6) § 38–236.04 carries two applicability notes about D.C. Law 22-157 that read against each other on the same page, one stating the creation of subsections (a) and (b) "has been implemented" following a repeal of the applicability provision and the other stating "that amendment has not been implemented"; both are recorded as the District publishes them and neither is reconciled here; (7) the Law Library publishes no currency date on the section pages beyond each section's legislative history, so the sources are dated by retrieval and by that history. Not yet built, pending the deepening pass: sections 01–02 (framework, hoisted rows, timelines), the delegation map, and records access. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-08-30. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Oct 25, 2026 · Internet Archive captures recorded. Captures requested this date by an automated capture pass; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: code.dccouncil.gov → https://web.archive.org/web/20261025045958/https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/38-236.09. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.