Georgia — school discipline

Governing authority stated in the sources

State Board of Education rules, not the code: Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 160-4-8-.15 (Student Discipline), r. 160-1-3-.04 (School Law Tribunals and Appeals), and r. 160-4-8-.12 (Alternative/Non-Traditional Education Programs). Each rule page states its own currency: "Current through Rules and Regulations filed through August 14, 2026". The rules rest on statute they cite but do not reproduce, requiring that each local board "observe Georgia law in developing and implementing disciplinary hearings held by a disciplinary hearing officer, disciplinary panel, or disciplinary tribunal pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 20-2-751 through §20-2-759". (r. 160-4-8-.15(2)(k))
Those Official Code of Georgia Annotated sections are not published by the state among the sources reviewed. The Georgia General Assembly's site (www.legis.ga.gov, searched Aug 29, 2026) publishes bills and carries no first-party text of the Code; its own Legislation & Laws menu sends a reader to a commercial portal. That absence is a finding about the source landscape, recorded rather than filled from a commercial reprint, so this page quotes the rules the state publishes itself and names the code sections without reproducing them. See the change log. — r. 160-4-8-.15, retrieved Aug 29, 2026

The lines the state draws

The thresholds themselves sit in the uncaptured code sections; what the rules state are the limits and the clocks around them. On the hearing: "Disciplinary hearings shall be held no later than ten school days after the beginning of the student's suspension unless the school system and parents or guardians mutually agree to an extension." (r. 160-4-8-.15(2)(k)1) On the youngest students, a stated ceiling: "No student in public preschool through third grade shall be expelled or suspended from school for more than five consecutive or cumulative days during a school year without first receiving a multi-tiered system of supports, such as response to intervention, unless such student possessed a weapon, illegal drugs, or other dangerous instrument or such student's behavior endangers the physical safety of other students or school personnel pursuant to O.C.G.A. 20-2-742". (r. 160-4-8-.15(2)(l)) On setting: "It is the preferred policy of the board that disruptive students are placed in alternative education settings in lieu of being suspended or expelled." (r. 160-4-8-.15(2)(f)) And on what that setting is: "Each LEA shall provide an Alternative/Non-traditional Education Program/School to serve students in grades 6-12 with appropriate due process, who have been suspended from his or her regular classroom." (r. 160-4-8-.12(2)(a))
The rule states the requirement for grades 6-12; what is provided to a suspended student below grade 6 is not stated in the sources reviewed.

Offices and appeal bodies in these sources

The hearing and the first appeal are local; the second appeal is to the State Board. The rule's stated purpose is "to specify the procedures for appeals from local boards of education (LBOE) to the State Board of Education on issues respecting the administration or construction of school law." (r. 160-1-3-.04(1)) The local board's clock: "At the conclusion of the hearing, or within 15 days thereafter, the LBOE shall notify the parties of its decision in writing and shall notify the parties of their right to appeal the decision to the State Board of Education." (r. 160-1-3-.04(3)(a)6) The appeal is filed locally, not centrally: "The appeal to the State Board of Education shall be filed with the local school superintendent within 30 days of the decision in question." (r. 160-1-3-.04(4)(d)) The Department states the same in its own words and adds a warning: "The request for appeal should not be sent directly to the State Board of Education." Then: "The state board shall render its decision in a written order within 25 days after it hears the case and shall notify the parties in writing of its decision and of their right to appeal the decision to the Superior Court of the county wherein the LBOE is located." (r. 160-1-3-.04(4)(j)) On what the state cannot do, in the Department's own words: "Neither the State Board of Education, the State School Superintendent, nor the State Department of Education has the authority to mandate or direct hearings."
No state office, phone number, or email for parents appears in the sources reviewed; the Department's own page on these procedures publishes no contact block. That absence is the finding.

Sources last checked

Aug 29, 2026

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

This page assembles what Georgia publishes in its State Board rules about K-12 school discipline. This is a baseline docket page: the governing rules, the limits and clocks the state states, and the decision-makers and appeal route, 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. Georgia's vocabulary is worth carrying from the start: a hearing is held before a disciplinary hearing officer, a disciplinary panel, or a disciplinary tribunal; the body that hears the first appeal is the local board of education, which the rules abbreviate LBOE; and a "Disciplinary Order" is defined as "any public or private school or school system order that imposes short-term suspension, long-term suspension, or expulsion upon a student in such school or system." (r. 160-4-8-.15(1)(b)) Much of what governs a particular hearing is written by the district rather than the state: the rules require that "Each local board of education shall adopt policies designed to improve the student learning environment by improving student behavior and discipline. These policies shall provide for the development of age appropriate student codes of conduct that contain the following, at a minimum:" — a list of twenty items the rule then sets out. (r. 160-4-8-.15(2)(a)) That delegation will anchor the full page's delegation map; district codes of conduct carry procedural detail this page does not. One cost the rules do address: "When any party is unable to pay the cost of a transcript of the hearing because of indigence, the party shall be relieved from paying the cost if said party provides to the local school superintendent an affidavit to that effect." (r. 160-1-3-.04(4)(c)) For a student with an IEP or Section 504 plan, the disability layer lives on this site's Georgia 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.