Arizona School Suspension Laws and Student Rights

Arizona school suspension laws give principals and district boards real authority to remove students, but they also set firm procedural limits on that authority. How much process your child is owed depends on three things: how long the removal lasts, how old your child is, and whether your child has a disability. The controlling statutes are ARS 15-841 (grounds for removal and expulsion) and ARS 15-843 (the procedures schools must follow).

The Ten-Day Line That Controls Everything

Arizona treats short-term and long-term removals very differently, and the dividing line is ten school days.

A suspension of ten school days or less is short-term. A principal or authorized administrator can impose it after an informal hearing. No written notice to the governing board, no formal hearing, no board-level decision is required.¹

Anything longer than ten school days is a long-term suspension, and it triggers a much more formal process, including written notice, a hearing before the governing board or a designated hearing officer, and the right to bring counsel. Districts must also adopt readmission procedures for any student suspended more than ten days or expelled.¹

If a school stretches a “short-term” suspension past ten days without giving you the long-term protections, that’s a procedural problem worth raising.

What Schools Can Suspend or Expel a Student For

ARS 15-841 lists the statutory grounds for expulsion: continued open defiance of authority, continued disruptive or disorderly behavior, violent behavior involving a dangerous instrument or deadly weapon, possession or use of a gun, and excessive unexcused absences (only for students old enough that attendance is no longer required).²

That list is a floor. The same statute lets districts expel students for other conduct “as the school district deems appropriate,” so most districts add drug and alcohol offenses, harassment, and other serious misconduct in their own written codes. If the school is citing a ground that isn’t in the statute, ask for the district rule it comes from. ARS 15-843 requires the governing board to adopt those rules in consultation with teachers and parents.¹

Firearms and Threats: Mandatory One-Year Expulsion

Two situations carry a mandatory minimum expulsion of one year. Bringing a firearm to school is one, though the district or charter can modify the requirement case by case.²

Threatening an educational institution is the other. That covers threats of physical injury to staff or students, threats to damage school property, and physically refusing to leave school grounds in order to disrupt operations. The school can shorten the expulsion if the student participates in mediation, community service, restitution, or a similar program that addresses responsibility for the threat, and it can require the parent or guardian to participate as well.³

Your Child’s Right to Notice and a Hearing

Even a brief suspension implicates a student’s constitutional interests, so some minimum process applies to every removal.

For Suspensions of Ten Days or Less

Before a short-term suspension, the school must give the student oral or written notice of the charges and an explanation of the evidence. If the student denies the charges, the student gets a chance to tell their side. This can be an informal conversation with the principal; no formal hearing is required.⁴

Normally the notice and the informal hearing happen before the student is sent home. If the student’s continued presence is a danger to others or to property, the school can remove the student immediately and give the notice and informal hearing as soon as practicable afterward.⁴

For Long-Term Suspensions and Expulsions

Once the school is looking at more than ten school days, the process changes. The governing board must be given written notice at least five working days before the hearing, including the date, time, and place. The board can conduct the hearing itself or designate one or more hearing officers to take evidence, build a record, and bring a recommendation back to the board.¹

You, your child, and your attorney have the right to attend, even if the board holds the hearing in executive session. You can access the minutes and testimony from any executive session and may record the proceedings at your own expense. If the board plans to hold the hearing in executive session, the written notice must tell you about your right to object in writing.¹

Appealing the Decision

If a principal or administrator (rather than the board) suspended your child for more than ten days, you can appeal that decision to the governing board. Districts must also have procedures for appealing a hearing officer’s recommendation when the board considers it.¹ Because appeals turn on the hearing record and any procedural missteps along the way, take detailed notes from the first meeting forward.

Special Rules for Kindergarten Through Fourth Grade

Arizona restricts suspending and expelling young children. Under ARS 15-843(K), a school can suspend or expel a student in kindergarten through fourth grade only if every one of these conditions is met:¹

The student is at least seven years old.
The conduct involves possession of a weapon, possession or sale of illegal drugs, immediate danger to others’ health or safety, or aggravating circumstances involving persistent documented behavior that has resisted targeted interventions.
Keeping the student in the building would create a safety threat that cannot reasonably be addressed another way.
The school has considered, and where feasible actually used, alternative behavioral and disciplinary interventions before resorting to suspension, and has documented what it considered.
The district has a policy letting K–4 students suspended more than ten school days apply for readmission after serving at least five school days, and letting expelled K–4 students seek readmission after twenty school days.

There is one carve-out. These strict criteria do not apply to a K–4 suspension of two or fewer days if the student’s total suspensions for the year have not exceeded ten days.⁵ Once either threshold is crossed, the full set of protections applies, and a school that skips them is violating state law.

Extra Protections If Your Child Has an IEP or 504 Plan

Students receiving services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and students with a Section 504 plan, get additional protections before a school can impose a significant disciplinary removal.

The Manifestation Determination Review

When a school decides to change the placement of a student with a disability because of a conduct violation, the school, the parent, and relevant members of the IEP team must conduct a manifestation determination review within ten school days. The review asks whether the behavior was caused by or had a direct and substantial relationship to the child’s disability, or whether it resulted from the school’s failure to implement the IEP.⁶

If the team finds the behavior was a manifestation of the disability, the school cannot simply punish the student. The IEP team must conduct a functional behavioral assessment and put a behavioral intervention plan in place, or review and update an existing one. The student must be returned to the placement they were removed from, unless the parent and school agree to a different placement as part of modifying the plan.⁶

If the behavior is found not to be a manifestation, the school can apply the same disciplinary procedures it would use for any other student. Even then, the student must continue receiving educational services that allow participation in the general curriculum and progress toward IEP goals, just in a different setting.⁷

The 45-Day Exception

Three situations let a school place a student with a disability in an interim alternative educational setting for up to 45 school days regardless of whether the behavior was a manifestation: carrying or possessing a weapon at school, knowingly possessing or using illegal drugs or selling a controlled substance at school, and inflicting serious bodily injury on another person at school. Even during those 45 days, the student must continue receiving educational services and, where appropriate, a functional behavioral assessment and behavioral intervention services.⁶

Teacher Classroom Removals Are Not Suspensions

Under ARS 15-841, an individual teacher can remove a student from the classroom when the teacher has documented that the student has repeatedly interfered with instruction or when the teacher determines the student’s behavior is seriously disruptive. This is not a suspension. The student goes to the principal’s office, and the principal decides next steps under district rules. If the teacher later refuses to readmit the student, a placement review committee of two teachers and one administrator decides whether the student returns to that classroom or is placed elsewhere. The principal cannot override the teacher without that committee’s agreement.³

Alternatives to Suspension and Getting Back Into School

Every Arizona district is required to establish an alternative to suspension program. These are discipline-intensive placements that keep the student doing academic work rather than sitting at home, either in an isolated location on campus or at an off-campus site. Programs can also involve community service, campus maintenance work, required parent supervision, and evaluation, and districts develop them with input from local law enforcement or school resource officers.² Not every student will qualify, but the district must have the program and the eligibility criteria in place. If suspension is on the table and no one has raised the alternative program, ask.

Expulsion doesn’t have to be permanent either. Any Arizona district can review the reasons for a student’s expulsion annually, or sooner at the request of the student or a parent, and consider readmission. Districts also have the option of reassigning an expelled student to an alternative education program instead of keeping them out entirely.² Request the review at the earliest opportunity the district allows.

1
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes Title 15 Section 15-843
2
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes Title 15 Section 15-841
3
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 15-841
4
Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975)
5
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 15-843
6
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 20 U.S.C. 1415(k)(1)
7
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 20 U.S.C. 1415(k)