Hawaii — school discipline
- The lines the state draws
- The statute states one length and one standard. On firearms: "Any child who, while attending school, is found to be in possession of a firearm, shall be excluded from attending school for not less than one year." That mandate is expressly modifiable: "The superintendent, on a case-by-case basis, may modify the exclusion of a child found to be in possession of a firearm while attending school." (§302A-1134(b)) Otherwise the ground is stated broadly and without a day count: "If for any reason a child becomes a detriment to the morals or discipline of any school, the child may be precluded from attending school by the principal, with the approval of the complex area superintendent". (§302A-1134(a)) No short-term or long-term suspension threshold and no emergency-removal provision appear in the statutory sources reviewed; the day counts a parent is looking for live in Chapter 19, which the state publishes only as a scan.
- Offices and appeal bodies in these sources
- Two officers appear by name, and so does an appeal. A principal acts "with the approval of the complex area superintendent", and "An appeal may be taken on behalf of the child to the superintendent of education within ten days from the date of such action." (§302A-1134(a)) The statute also states what must continue: "If a child is excluded from attending school, the superintendent shall ensure that substitute educational activities or other appropriate assistance shall be provided." (§302A-1134(b)) The Board of Education's own contact appears in the rules index used to locate Chapter 19: "P.O. Box 2360, Honolulu HI 96804 | Phone: (808) 586-3334 | Fax: (808) 586-3433 | boe.hawaii@boe.hawaii.gov" — the Board's general contact, not an office assigned to discipline appeals by the statute itself.
No discipline-specific office, phone number, or email for parents appears in the sources; that absence is the finding. - Sources last checked
- Sep 22, 2026
Reproduced from the state's own statute quoted below: potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any situation.
This page assembles what Hawaii publishes in statute about K-12 school discipline: who may exclude a student and how, what continues during an exclusion, where the appeal runs, and, because the statute assigns the firearm-case due process procedure to the Department's own rules, what that delegation looks like where those rules cannot be read at all. Hawaii is unusual in two ways worth stating plainly. It runs a single statewide school district, so the delegation this module maps in other states — from legislature to local board — mostly does not arise here; the procedures sit in the Department's own rules rather than in any district's code of conduct. And those rules, Chapter 19, are the document a parent actually needs, but the Board publishes them as a scanned PDF carrying no text layer, which means the chapter cannot be quoted, verified, or monitored for change by the same mechanical means this project applies to every other source. That is recorded here as a finding about the publication, not as a judgment about the rules. For a student with an IEP or Section 504 plan, the disability layer lives on this site's Hawaii special education page; the statute's eligibility subsection opens "Unless otherwise required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1400, et seq.". (§302A-1134(c)) Confirm applicability with the school, the complex area, and the Department. All dates on this page are quoted from the sources, not a deadline calculation performed for you.
The framework, as the state writes it
General exclusion (§302A-1134(a)). "If for any reason a child becomes a detriment to the morals or discipline of any school, the child may be precluded from attending school by the principal, with the approval of the complex area superintendent; provided that this section shall not apply to children participating in the executive office on early learning public prekindergarten program pursuant to section 302L-7." Before or alongside that exclusion, the statute directs help-seeking rather than only removal: "The department shall seek the active participation of other public and private agencies in providing help to these children before and after they have left school." The appeal quoted in the docket follows. No day count, no short-term/long-term threshold, and no emergency-removal provision accompany this ground in the statute; that absence is recorded rather than inferred, and the detail a parent needs is the province of Chapter 19.
Firearm exclusion (§302A-1134(b)). The mandatory one-year exclusion and its case-by-case modification are quoted in the docket. The due process procedure for this route is assigned entirely to Chapter 19, quoted in the docket's governing-authority row; this page cannot quote what that chapter itself requires. The statute does state one substantive continuing obligation regardless of the missing procedure — the services-during-exclusion sentence quoted below.
Age eligibility (§302A-1134(c)). Not a discipline route: the subsection caps eligibility to attend public school at age twenty, "Unless otherwise required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act", and is noted here only because it is the statute's own point of contact with IDEA, cross-referenced under the IEP/504 row below.
The published process
- Notice and hearing before exclusion
- For the general exclusion route (§302A-1134(a)), the statute states who may act and who approves — the principal, "with the approval of the complex area superintendent" — but does not itself state a notice-of-charges requirement or a hearing procedure preceding the exclusion; that absence is recorded rather than inferred. For the firearm route (§302A-1134(b)), the due process procedure is expressly assigned to Chapter 19 of the Hawaii Administrative Rules, which this page cannot quote because the Board publishes it only as a scanned document with no text layer.
- Services during exclusion
- For a firearm exclusion, the statute states a continuing obligation: "If a child is excluded from attending school, the superintendent shall ensure that substitute educational activities or other appropriate assistance shall be provided." (§302A-1134(b)) For the general exclusion route (§302A-1134(a)), no comparable services-during-exclusion requirement is stated in the sources reviewed; that absence is recorded rather than inferred from the firearm provision.
- The record made, and the appeal route
- The statute states one appeal, for the general exclusion route: "An appeal may be taken on behalf of the child to the superintendent of education within ten days from the date of such action." (§302A-1134(a)) No further appeal forum beyond the superintendent of education, and no statement of what written record the exclusion itself produces, appears in the sources reviewed. The statute states no separate appeal route for a firearm exclusion beyond the Chapter 19 due process procedure it assigns, which this page cannot quote.
- If the student has an IEP or Section 504 plan
- The disability layer (evaluations, the IEP team, manifestation determination, services during removal, and the dispute routes) lives on this site's Hawaii special education page. The statute's own point of contact with federal disability law sits in the age-eligibility subsection rather than in the exclusion provisions themselves: "Unless otherwise required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1400, et seq.," the twenty-year-old attendance ceiling applies. (§302A-1134(c))
The four rows above answer the questions an experienced adviser raises first, from the state's own statute, or record that a question is not answered in it.
Timelines, as stated in the sources
All quoted; none calculated. From HRS §302A-1134 as retrieved Sep 22, 2026.
On the appeal from a general exclusion: "An appeal may be taken on behalf of the child to the superintendent of education within ten days from the date of such action." (§302A-1134(a))
On a firearm exclusion's length: "not less than one year", modifiable by the superintendent case by case, quoted in full in the docket. (§302A-1134(b))
No other timeline — for notice, for a hearing, for a decision, or for a further appeal beyond the superintendent of education — is stated in the statutory sources reviewed. What any of this means for a particular situation is for the school, the complex area, the Department, and their processes to determine.
Assigned to district policy by the quoted provision
Hawaii runs a single statewide school district, so the delegation this module tracks in other states — from a state legislature down to a local school board's own code of conduct — does not arise here in the same form: there is no local board beneath the Department of Education to which the statute could delegate. The one delegation the statute itself states runs instead to the Department's own administrative rulemaking, for the firearm-exclusion due process procedure: "The due process procedures of chapter 19 of the Department of Education, Hawaii Administrative Rules, shall apply to any child who, while attending school, is alleged to be in possession of a firearm." (§302A-1134(b)) That chapter is the delegated answer to nearly every procedural question this page's hoisted rows above record as not stated — notice, hearing, and the record made — but the chapter itself cannot be quoted here because the Board publishes it only as a scanned document with no text layer.
Records access, as stated in the sources
No provision addressing inspection, correction, or expungement of a discipline record appears anywhere in HRS §302A-1134; that absence is recorded at the scope searched (the whole of §302A-1134, all three subsections). Chapter 19 of the Hawaii Administrative Rules may address records access as part of the due process procedures it governs, but it cannot be quoted here for the reason stated throughout this page. Federal records rights under FERPA are not restated here.
Source map
| Document | Location | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| HRS §302A-1134 (exclusion from school), statutory text | capitol.hawaii.gov | session-law history ends am L 2022, c 224, §3; retrieved Sep 22, 2026 |
| Board of Education administrative rules index (Title 8), listing Chapter 19 | boe.hawaii.gov | none published on the index page; retrieved Sep 22, 2026 |
| Hawaii Administrative Rules Chapter 8-19 (student misconduct and discipline) | linked from the Board's rules index | published as a scan with no text layer; not captured, and the finding is recorded in the change log |
| HRS §302A-1002 (reporting of crime-related incidents; the board's rulemaking duty) | in the same chapter of the statutes | capture pending |
| Department of Education parent-facing Chapter 19 materials | the Department's former Chapter 19 page now redirects to its homepage | capture pending |
Change log
Sep 22, 2026 · Deepened to full depth (discipline-layer deepening pass). Recaptured first-party under the standing recipe tools/recipes/hawaii-discipline.json (digest a9dd9365f804): HRS §302A-1134 (fetched through a session browser and supplied to capture.py, per the recipe's chrome transport — capitol.hawaii.gov returns HTTP 403 to a bare fetch and to the pinned browser user-agent alike) and the Board of Education's administrative rules index (curl). The statutory text reproduced the Aug 30, 2026 baseline's quotations unchanged; no new source was fetched. Built out sections 01–02 (the framework route by route, the four hoisted process rows, timelines, the delegation map, and records access) from the same two sources the baseline already held. Findings recorded rather than smoothed: (1) the Board of Education's own general contact — a P.O. box, phone, fax, and email — appears in the footer of the same rules-index page already captured for Chapter 19, a general Board contact rather than an office the statute assigns to discipline appeals specifically; the baseline's "no office, phone number, or email... appears in the sources" finding is corrected to reflect this, while the discipline-specific absence still stands; (2) no notice-of-charges or hearing procedure is stated in the statute itself for the general exclusion route (§302A-1134(a)); the firearm route's due process procedure is expressly delegated to Chapter 19, which cannot be quoted because the Board publishes it only as a scanned document with no text layer — the same reason the baseline could not quote it; (3) services during exclusion are stated only for the firearm route; the general exclusion route states none, and that is recorded as a genuine absence rather than inferred from the firearm provision; (4) the only appeal stated anywhere in the statute is to the superintendent of education, within ten days, for the general exclusion route; no appeal beyond that officer, and no appeal route at all for a firearm exclusion beyond the undisclosed Chapter 19 procedure, is stated; (5) no provision addressing records access, inspection, correction, or expungement appears anywhere in the statute; (6) because Hawaii runs one statewide school district, the delegation map records the statute's one delegation — to the Department's own Chapter 19 rulemaking — rather than to any local board, consistent with the baseline's framing. Still uncaptured: HRS §302A-1002 and any Department of Education parent-facing Chapter 19 materials (the Department's former page for these now redirects to its homepage). Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter. 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/hawaii-discipline.json: HRS §302A-1134 from the Legislature, and the Board of Education's administrative rules index. Findings recorded: (1) Hawaii Administrative Rules Chapter 8-19, which the statute itself names as the source of the due process procedures and which the Board's index lists by its full title, is published only as a scanned PDF with no text layer; it is therefore named and dated on this page but not quoted, and no optical recognition was used, because recognized text is derived text and not the state's own; (2) the statute states one removal length, a firearm exclusion of not less than one year, and then makes it modifiable by the superintendent case by case; (3) the general ground for exclusion is stated without any day count — a child who "becomes a detriment to the morals or discipline of any school" — so the short-term and long-term lines a parent is looking for are in the chapter that cannot be quoted, and that is recorded as not stated in the sources reviewed rather than inferred; (4) the statute states a ten-day appeal to the superintendent of education and requires that substitute educational activities or other appropriate assistance be provided during an exclusion; (5) Hawaii runs a single statewide school district, so this module's usual delegation from legislature to local board largely does not arise, and the delegation map for the full page will point at the Department's rules rather than at any district's code of conduct; (6) no office, phone number, or email for parents appears in the sources; (7) the Department's parent-facing Chapter 19 page at its former address now redirects to the Department's homepage, so it is listed as capture pending. Capture note: capitol.hawaii.gov returns HTTP 403 to a bare fetch and to the pinned browser user-agent alike, so the section was read through a session browser and supplied to the capture recipe; the capture is scoped to the statutory text and stops before the page's "Case Notes" heading, because this module quotes no court opinions. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-08-30. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.