Florida — school discipline

Governing authority stated in the sources

The 2025 Florida Statutes: s. 1003.01 (definitions) and ss. 1006.07–1006.09, which state the discipline duties of the district school board, the district school superintendent, and the school principal respectively. — 2025 Florida Statutes, retrieved Aug 29, 2026

The lines the state draws

The statute defines its terms: "“Suspension,” also referred to as out-of-school suspension, means the temporary removal of a student from all classes of instruction on public school grounds and all other school-sponsored activities, except as authorized by the principal or the principal's designee, for a period not to exceed 10 school days and remanding of the student to the custody of the student's parent with specific homework assignments for the student to complete." and "“In-school suspension” means the temporary removal of a student from the student's regular school program and placement in an alternative program, such as that provided in s. 1003.53, under the supervision of district school board personnel, for a period not to exceed 10 school days." (s. 1003.01(13)) "“Expulsion” means the removal of the right and obligation of a student to attend a public school under conditions set by the district school board, and for a period of time not to exceed the remainder of the term or school year and 1 additional year of attendance. Expulsions may be imposed with or without continuing educational services and shall be reported accordingly." (s. 1003.01(10))

Offices and appeal bodies in these sources

Suspension belongs to the school, under board rules: "The principal or the principal's designee may suspend a student only in accordance with the rules of the district school board." Before a suspension, board rules "shall require oral and written notice to the student of the charges and an explanation of the evidence against him or her before the suspension. Each student shall be given an opportunity to present his or her side of the story." (s. 1006.09(1)(b)) Expulsion belongs to the district school board, which shall "Adopt rules for the control, discipline, in-school suspension, suspension, and expulsion of students and decide all cases recommended for expulsion. Suspension hearings are exempted from the provisions of chapter 120. Expulsion hearings shall be governed by ss. 120.569 and 120.57(2)". (s. 1006.07(1)(a)) On the way there, "When the district school superintendent makes a recommendation for expulsion to the district school board, he or she shall give written notice to the student and the student's parent of the recommendation, setting forth the charges against the student and advising the student and his or her parent of the student's right to due process as prescribed by ss. 120.569 and 120.57(2)." (s. 1006.08(1))
A route of review beyond the district school board's decision is not stated in the sources reviewed, and no state office, phone number, or email for parents appears in the sources; those absences are the finding.

Sources last checked

Aug 29, 2026

Reproduced from the state's own statutes quoted below: potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any situation.

This page assembles what Florida publishes in statute about K-12 school discipline. This is a baseline docket page: the governing sections, the lines the state draws, and the decision-makers and hearing framework, quoted with dates. The full sections (the framework route by route, the four hoisted process rows, every stated timeline, the district delegation map, and records access) follow as the discipline layer deepens behind its breadth sprint; the change log states exactly what is not yet captured. The statute's own vocabulary appears throughout: the code of student conduct, in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, expulsion, the district school board. Each district's codes of student conduct add procedural detail this page does not carry; the statute directs each board to "Adopt a code of student conduct for elementary schools and a code of student conduct for middle and high schools" (s. 1006.07(2)), and that delegation will anchor the full page's delegation map. For a student with an IEP or Section 504 plan, the disability layer lives on this site's Florida special education page. Confirm applicability with the district and the agencies. All dates on this page are quoted from the sources, not a deadline calculation performed for you.