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Erie board hears legal outline of district expulsion process, court order limits interim placements
Summary
Erie City School District officials reviewed legal limits and local practices around student suspensions and expulsions, including a decades-old federal consent decree (the "Jordan order") that restricts the district's ability to place students in interim alternative programs.
Erie City School District trustees received a legal and procedural overview of the district's student discipline and expulsion process on Jan. 8, with administrators and the district solicitor outlining what state and federal law require and where the board retains discretion.
Solicitor Jennifer Cornall told the board that Pennsylvania law and the Pennsylvania Department of Education regulations set specific due-process steps for students who are suspended or referred for expulsion. "School districts are required to send written notice to parents and students whenever students [are] suspended from school," she said, and districts must provide an informal hearing at the building level for suspensions longer than 3 days.
Cornall stressed a key statutory limit: "School districts are not allowed to suspend students for longer than 10 consecutive school days unless agreed to by the parents." She added that a district may extend an interim suspension to 15 school days…
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