Maine — school discipline

Governing authority stated in the sources

Maine Revised Statutes Title 20-A §1001, "Duties of school boards", which carries the whole discipline scheme inside the board's duties: subsection 8-A on due process standards for expulsion proceedings, subsection 9 on students expelled or suspended, subsection 9-A on the federal Gun-Free Schools Act, and subsection 9-C on reentry after expulsion. Each subsection carries its own public-law amendment notation and the section page prints no separate revision date; that absence is recorded here rather than filled. — 20-A M.R.S. §1001, retrieved Aug 30, 2026

The lines the state draws

Suspension is capped and then capped again by grade. "The school board may authorize the principal to suspend students up to a maximum of 10 days for infractions of school rules, except that the school board may not authorize the principal to issue an out-of-school suspension to a student who is enrolled in grade 5 or below except as provided under subsection 9-A or unless the principal determines that there is an imminent danger of serious physical injury to the student or others and less restrictive interventions would be ineffective. An out-of-school suspension for a student who is enrolled in grade 5 or below may not exceed 3 days." (§1001(9)) Expulsion carries a grade exclusion of its own: a school board "shall expel any student, except a student who is enrolled in grade 5 or below" on the grounds the subsection lists, and the board "may authorize the superintendent or principal to modify, in writing, the requirement for expulsion of a student on a case-by-case basis." Expulsion is bounded by the calendar or left open with conditions: a board may expel "for a specific period of time not to exceed the total number of instructional days approved by the school board for the current school year", or "for an unspecified period of time and authorize the superintendent to provide the expelled student with a reentry plan that specifies the conditions that must be met in order for the student to be readmitted to school after the expulsion." (§1001(9-C))

Offices and appeal bodies in these sources

Suspension is the principal's, on the board's authorization; expulsion is the school board's own, after a hearing the superintendent prepares. Before that hearing the superintendent must "Provide written notice to the parents and the student of:" "The date, time and location of the hearing;" "A description of the incident or incidents that occasioned the expulsion hearing;" "The student's and parents' right to review the school records prior to the hearing;" "A description of the hearing process;" "An explanation of the consequences of an expulsion; and" "A list of available free and low-cost legal services, which must be created and updated annually by the department;". The superintendent must also "Invite the parents and student to a meeting prior to the expulsion hearing to discuss the procedures of the hearing." (§1001(8-A)(A)) The hearing itself carries stated rights: "The student has the right to present and cross-examine witnesses;" "The student has the right to an attorney or other representation; and" "Witnesses must be sworn in and the chair of the hearing has the authority to swear in witnesses." (§1001(8-A)(B)) The decision comes by certified mail: "After a hearing on the expulsion, the school board shall provide written notice of its decision to the parents and the student by certified mail." (§1001(8-A)(C))
No appeal forum beyond the school board, and no state office, phone number, or email for parents, appears in the sources; those absences are the finding.

Sources last checked

Aug 30, 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 Maine publishes in statute about K-12 school discipline. This is a baseline docket page: the governing section, the lines the state draws, and the decision-makers and hearing rights, 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. Maine is one of the few states in this collection whose statute requires that the family be handed a route to a lawyer: the pre-hearing notice must include "A list of available free and low-cost legal services, which must be created and updated annually by the department". The department's obligation to create and update that list annually is stated in the same clause, which makes the list itself a state-published document a later pass should locate. Expulsion is framed as a duty rather than a power — the board "shall expel" a student, other than one enrolled in grade 5 or below, who is "deliberately disobedient or deliberately disorderly", for "infractions of violence", for possessing a firearm or dangerous weapon on school property without permission, for causing injury with a dangerous weapon or threatening to, or who "possesses, furnishes or trafficks in any scheduled drug as defined in Title 17‑A, chapter 45." — and the same subsection then states that a student "may be readmitted on satisfactory evidence that the behavior that was the cause of the student being expelled will not likely recur." (§1001(9)) Nothing in the scheme forecloses schooling: "Nothing in this subsection or subsection 9‑C prevents a school board from providing educational services in an alternative setting to a student who has been expelled." The federal firearms case is handled in its own subsection, where the board must adopt a policy for expelling and for "referring the matter to the appropriate local law enforcement agency." (§1001(9-A)) The whole due process subsection runs "in accordance with the districtwide disciplinary policies adopted by the school board pursuant to subsection 15‑A", which is the delegation that 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 Maine special education page. Confirm applicability with the school administrative unit and the agencies. All dates on this page are quoted from the sources, not a deadline calculation performed for you.