Mississippi — school discipline
- The lines the state draws
- Mississippi states one length, and states it as automatic. A student who possesses a controlled substance, "a knife, handgun, other firearm or any other instrument considered to be dangerous and capable of causing bodily harm or who commits a violent act on educational property as defined in Section 97-37-17, Mississippi Code of 1972, shall be subject to automatic expulsion for a calendar year by the superintendent or principal of the school in which the student is enrolled; provided, however, that the superintendent of the school shall be authorized to modify the period of time for such expulsion on a case by case basis." (§ 37-11-18) A second expulsion route runs on a count rather than a clock: a student aged thirteen or older for whom a behavior modification plan has been developed and who does not comply "shall be deemed habitually disruptive and subject to expulsion on the occurrence of the third act of disruptive behavior during a school year. After the second act of disruptive behavior during a school year by a student, a psychological evaluation shall be performed upon the child." (§ 37-11-18.1(3)) No suspension length, no short-term versus long-term threshold, and no emergency-removal provision appear in the sources reviewed; those absences are the finding, and the day counts a parent is looking for sit in the district's own discipline plan.
- Offices and appeal bodies in these sources
- The automatic expulsion is the superintendent's or principal's, and the statute states both its immediacy and its limit in one sentence: "Such expulsion shall take effect immediately subject to the constitutional rights of due process, which shall include the student's right to appeal to the local school board." (§ 37-11-18) That appeal to the local school board is the only forum named in the sources reviewed; the statute does not state a clock for it, and no further appeal, hearing procedure, state office, phone number, or email for parents appears. Those absences are the finding. What the sources do state is that the district's own plan must be checked by a lawyer every year: "The school board shall have its official discipline plan and code of student conduct legally audited on an annual basis to ensure that its policies and procedures are currently in compliance with applicable statutes, case law and state and federal constitutional provisions." (§ 37-11-53(1))
- Sources last checked
- Sep 8, 2026
Reproduced from the state's own statute guide quoted below: potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any situation.
This page assembles what Mississippi publishes about K-12 school discipline in the Department of Education's own guide to the school statutes. This is a full page: the governing sections, the lines the state draws, the notice and hearing the statute requires and delegates, what continues during exclusion, the appeal route, and, because the statute legislates the contents of the district's own code rather than the procedure itself, a map of the questions answered only in board policy. Mississippi requires the code of student conduct to be adopted and made available "at the beginning of each school year" and "developed in consultation with teachers, school personnel, students and parents or guardians." (§ 37-11-55) For a student with an IEP or Section 504 plan, the disability layer lives on this site's Mississippi 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. District discipline plans and codes of student conduct add procedural detail this page does not carry; the delegation map below points at exactly those questions.
The framework, as the state writes it
Automatic expulsion for a weapon, controlled substance, or violent act (§ 37-11-18). The one-calendar-year automatic expulsion, its superintendent-or-principal decision-maker, and the superintendent's case-by-case discretion to modify it, are quoted in the docket.
Expulsion of a habitually disruptive student aged 13 or older (§ 37-11-18.1). The statute defines the term "disruptive behavior" as conduct "so unruly, disruptive or abusive that it seriously interferes with a schoolteacher's or school administrator's ability to communicate with the students in a classroom, with a student's ability to learn," and not otherwise covered by weapon- or substance-related law. (§ 37-11-18.1(1)(a)) It defines "habitually disruptive" as such conduct on more than two occasions during a school year, where "no student shall be considered to be habitually disruptive before the development of a behavior modification plan for the student in accordance with the code of student conduct and discipline plans of the school district." (§ 37-11-18.1(1)(b)) The third-occurrence expulsion trigger and the second-occurrence psychological evaluation requirement are quoted in the docket.
Suspension or expulsion for damaging school property (§ 37-11-19). "If any pupil shall willfully destroy, cut, deface, damage, or injure any school building, equipment, or other school property he shall be liable to suspension or expulsion and his parents or person or persons in loco parentis shall be liable for all damages."
Classroom removal by a teacher (§ 37-11-55(d)). The code of student conduct must include "the right of the teacher to remove from the classroom any student who, in the professional judgment of the teacher, is disrupting the learning environment, to the office of the principal or assistant principal." The principal or assistant principal determines the student's placement; the return-to-classroom condition and the principal's disapproval procedure are stated in section 02 below.
Alternative to suspension: a parent attends class (§ 37-11-53(5)). "A school district's discipline plan may provide that as an alternative to suspension, a student may remain in school by having the parent, guardian or custodian, with the consent of the student's teacher or teachers, attend class with the student for a period of time specifically agreed upon by the reporting teacher and school principal." If the parent does not agree to or fails to attend, "the student shall be suspended in accordance with the code of student conduct and discipline policies of the school district."
Corporal punishment and personnel immunity (§ 37-11-57), a separate topic. School personnel acting "within the course and scope of his employment" are generally immune from liability "for any action carried out in conformity with state or federal law or rules or regulations" governing "control, discipline, suspension and expulsion of students", except for "excessive force or cruel and unusual punishment". The statute defines "corporal punishment" for this purpose as "the reasonable use of physical force or physical contact by a teacher, assistant teacher, principal or assistant principal, as may be necessary to maintain discipline, to enforce a school rule, for self-protection or for the protection of other students from disruptive students." (§ 37-11-57(1))
Bullying or harassing behavior prohibited (§ 37-11-67), a related topic. "No student or school employee shall be subjected to bullying or harassing behavior by school employees or students." (§ 37-11-67(2))
No source reviewed states a suspension length, a short-term versus long-term threshold, or a separate emergency-removal provision; those absences are recorded rather than inferred.
The published process
- Notice and hearing before exclusion
- For the automatic weapon/substance/violent-act expulsion, the statute states an outcome rather than a procedure: the expulsion "shall take effect immediately subject to the constitutional rights of due process, which shall include the student's right to appeal to the local school board." (§ 37-11-18) The code of student conduct that every district must adopt is required to include "Procedures to be followed for acts requiring discipline, including suspensions and expulsion, which comply with due process requirements". (§ 37-11-55(b)) That is a delegation with a standard attached, not an absence. For a classroom removal specifically, the statute does state a process: the removed student "may not be returned to the classroom until a conference of some kind has been held with the parent, guardian or custodian during which the disrupting behavior is discussed and agreements are reached that no further disruption will be tolerated. If the principal does not approve of the determination of the teacher to remove the student from the classroom, the student may not be removed from the classroom, and the principal, upon request from the teacher, must provide justification for his disapproval". (§ 37-11-55(d))
- Services during exclusion
- Not stated in the sources reviewed (§§ 37-11-18, 37-11-18.1, 37-11-19, 37-11-53, 37-11-55, and 37-11-57 were searched). The one continued-education mechanism the statute states is not a service provided during a suspension but an alternative to imposing one: a district's discipline plan "may provide that as an alternative to suspension, a student may remain in school by having the parent, guardian or custodian, with the consent of the student's teacher or teachers, attend class with the student". (§ 37-11-53(5))
- The record made, and the appeal route
- The only appeal forum named in the sources reviewed is the local school board, for the automatic weapon/substance/violent-act expulsion. (§ 37-11-18) The statute does not state a clock for that appeal, and no further appeal, hearing procedure, state office, phone number, or email for parents appears in the sources. What the statute does require is a periodic check on the district's own process: "The school board shall have its official discipline plan and code of student conduct legally audited on an annual basis to ensure that its policies and procedures are currently in compliance with applicable statutes, case law and state and federal constitutional provisions." (§ 37-11-53(1)) A parent, guardian, or custodian who "refuses or willfully fails to attend" a discipline conference "may be summoned by proper notification by the superintendent of schools or the school attendance officer and be required to attend such discipline conference". A parent who fails to attend is subject to a misdemeanor fine. (§ 37-11-53(2)(c), (3))
- If the student has an IEP or Section 504 plan
- The disability layer lives on this site's Mississippi special education page. Discipline for bullying of a student with a disability must "comply with applicable requirements under federal law, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 USCS Section 1400 et seq.)." (§ 37-11-69(1)(h))
The four rows above answer the questions an experienced adviser raises first, from the state's own statute guide, or record that a question is not answered in them.
Timelines, as stated in the sources
All quoted; none calculated. From Miss. Code Ann. §§ 37-11-18 through 37-11-69, as reproduced in the MDE Quick Reference to School Related Statutes and retrieved Sep 8, 2026.
On the length of an automatic weapon/substance/violent-act expulsion: "automatic expulsion for a calendar year" subject to the superintendent's case-by-case discretion to modify it. (§ 37-11-18)
On the psychological evaluation before a third disruptive-behavior expulsion: "After the second act of disruptive behavior during a school year by a student, a psychological evaluation shall be performed upon the child." (§ 37-11-18.1(3))
On implementing a behavior modification plan: "The plan must be implemented no later than two (2) weeks after the occurrence of the disruptive behavior." (§ 37-11-18.1(2))
On what counts as "habitually disruptive": conduct causing disruption on more than two occasions during a school year. (§ 37-11-18.1(1)(b))
On notice of an incident of bullying to a parent: districts must "Establish a procedure for providing notice of an incident of bullying to a parent or guardian of the victim and a parent or guardian of the bully within a reasonable amount of time after the incident". (§ 37-11-69(1)(c))
What any of this means for a particular situation is for the district and the agency to determine.
Assigned to district policy by the quoted provision
The statute legislates the contents of the district's own code and plan rather than the procedure itself. Each entry below is a question a district's own code of student conduct or discipline plan answers, with the delegating text quoted. No district's code of conduct or discipline plan is captured or quoted here.
The code of student conduct itself. "The local school board shall adopt and make available to all teachers, school personnel, students and parents or guardians, at the beginning of each school year, a code of student conduct developed in consultation with teachers, school personnel, students and parents or guardians. The code shall be based on the rules governing student conduct and discipline adopted by the school board". (§ 37-11-55)
The due process procedures for suspension and expulsion. The code of student conduct must set out "Procedures to be followed for acts requiring discipline, including suspensions and expulsion, which comply with due process requirements". (§ 37-11-55(b))
Specific grounds for discipline. The code of student conduct must state "Specific grounds for disciplinary action under the school district's discipline plan". (§ 37-11-55(a))
Behavior modification plan procedures for a second classroom disruption. The code of student conduct must set out "Procedures for the development of behavior modification plans by the school principal, reporting teacher and student's parent for a student who causes a disruption in the classroom, on school property or vehicles, or at school-related activities for a second time during the school year". (§ 37-11-55(f))
Gang-related activity policy. The code of student conduct must include "Policies and procedures specifically concerning gang-related activities in the school, on school property or vehicles, or at school-related activities." (§ 37-11-55(g))
The anti-bullying policy's content. Each district must include in its "personnel policies, discipline policies and code of student conduct a prohibition against bullying or harassing behavior and adopt procedures for reporting, investigating and addressing such behavior," including stated minimum elements such as parent notice, counseling options, and a posted reporting procedure. (§ 37-11-69(1), (3))
Whether a suspension may be replaced by a parent attending class. A discipline plan "may provide that as an alternative to suspension, a student may remain in school by having the parent, guardian or custodian, with the consent of the student's teacher or teachers, attend class with the student for a period of time specifically agreed upon by the reporting teacher and school principal." (§ 37-11-53(5))
Records access, as stated in the sources
Not stated in the sources reviewed (§§ 37-11-18, 37-11-18.1, 37-11-19, 37-11-53, 37-11-55, 37-11-57, 37-11-67, and 37-11-69 were searched). No provision addresses parent inspection, copies, or expungement of discipline records. Federal records rights under FERPA are not restated here.
Source map
| Document | Location | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| MDE Quick Reference to School Related Statutes, pages 20–29 (Miss. Code Ann. §§ 37-11-18 – 37-11-57) | mdek12.org | the document titles itself June 2024; retrieved Sep 8, 2026 |
| Miss. Code Ann. §§ 37-11-18 – 37-11-69, as published by the state itself | not published in fetchable full text on a first-party Mississippi site; the Legislature's host serves bill status rather than the Code | capture pending; the finding is recorded in the change log |
| Mississippi Administrative Code Title 7 (State Board of Education policies) on discipline | sos.ms.gov serves the administrative code as PDFs | not yet located for this layer; capture pending |
| MDE guidance on student discipline and safe and orderly schools | — | not located in this review; capture pending |
| District discipline plans and codes of student conduct | each district, per §§ 37-11-53 and 37-11-55 | never captured; the delegation map above points at them |
Change log
Sep 8, 2026 · Deepened to full page (discipline-layer deepening pass). Recapture through the standing recipe (tools/recipes/mississippi-discipline.json) reproduced the Aug 30, 2026 baseline's source text with widespread word-spacing loss (for example "Miss. Code Ann." became "Miss. CodeAnn.", "is not" became "isnot") across most of the captured pages — the poppler-build-mismatch pattern CLAUDE.md documents for Montana, Texas, and Colorado, here affecting far more of the document than those precedents. The recapture's own notes record poppler build 26.07.0 for the first time; the Aug 30, 2026 baseline predates that field and was evidently extracted under a different, no-longer-installed build. Because the damage is pervasive rather than a few isolated spots, the recapture was not retained and does not replace the standing packet: this deepening pass builds from the existing Aug 30, 2026 packet, whose text is undamaged, rather than laundering a degraded extraction into the record. The standing packet's own SOURCE 1 already covers pages 20–29 of the guide (Miss. Code Ann. §§ 37-11-5 through 37-11-81), which is wider than the docket's originally cited range of §§ 37-11-18 through 37-11-57; this deepening draws additionally on §§ 37-11-19, 37-11-67, and 37-11-69, already present in the standing capture but not cited on the baseline page. No new source was fetched. Findings recorded: (1) the notice-and-hearing procedure for the automatic weapon/substance/violent-act expulsion is a delegation with a standard attached (§ 37-11-55(b) requires due-process-compliant procedures in the code of conduct), while a classroom removal specifically has a stated statutory process — a mandatory parent conference before return, and a principal-disapproval check on the teacher's removal decision (§ 37-11-55(d)); (2) services during exclusion are not stated; the only continued-education mechanism found is a parent-attends-class alternative to suspension itself, not a service during one (§ 37-11-53(5)); (3) the only appeal forum named is the local school board, for the automatic expulsion route only, with no stated clock; (4) records access is not stated anywhere in the sources reviewed; (5) two anti-bullying sections (§§ 37-11-67, 37-11-69) newly cited this pass state substantive bullying prohibitions and district policy requirements, including a parent-notice delegation. Sources remain identified but uncaptured: the Mississippi Code's own first-party text (the Legislature publishes bill status rather than the Code), Mississippi Administrative Code Title 7, and MDE discipline guidance. 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/mississippi-discipline.json: the Department of Education's Quick Reference to School Related Statutes, scoped to pages 20–29, which carry Miss. Code Ann. §§ 37-11-18 through 37-11-57. Findings recorded: (1) Mississippi does not publish its Code's text on a first-party site this project can fetch — the Legislature's own host serves bill status rather than the Code, and the Code is published through a commercial publisher — so the state's fullest first-party statement of these statutes is an agency reference guide, and the statutes themselves are listed as capture pending rather than quoted from a non-state host; (2) the statute states one removal length, an automatic expulsion for a calendar year for weapons, controlled substances, or a violent act, which the superintendent may modify case by case; (3) a second expulsion route runs on a count — a third act of disruptive behavior in a school year by a student aged thirteen or older for whom a behavior modification plan was developed — with a psychological evaluation required after the second act; (4) there is no suspension length, no short-term versus long-term threshold, and no emergency-removal provision in the sources reviewed, and all three are recorded as not stated rather than inferred; (5) the only appeal named is to the local school board, stated without a clock, and no hearing procedure appears — the state requires instead that the district's plan contain procedures "which comply with due process requirements", which is a delegation with a standard attached rather than an absence, and the entry that will anchor the full page's delegation map; (6) the statute requires each district to have its discipline plan and code of student conduct legally audited annually against statutes, case law, and constitutional provisions, which no other state captured so far requires; (7) no state office or parent contact appears in the sources. Capture note: the guide is a 118-page document and the capture is scoped to the ten pages carrying the discipline statutes, so a review pass diffs those rather than every school statute in Mississippi. A certificate bundle for the Legislature's host (tools/certs/globalsign-rsa-ov-ssl-ca-2018.pem) was added while probing for a first-party Code source; it is not used by this recipe and is retained for the later attempt. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-08-30. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.