This story about DAEPs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter
The most notable thing about Melissa’s son’s 6th birthday should have been the vacation the family took. Instead, it was the letter waiting for them when they returned home.
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Her child was assigned to the disciplinary campus in their school district in McKinney, Texas, for 30 days, the April 2024 letter told them, over allegations that the kindergartner had assaulted a teacher about a week prior. Melissa, whose last name is being withheld to protect her son’s privacy, said the incident occurred when the boy had struggled against a restraint, kicking a teacher.
State law requires school districts in Texas to have a disciplinary alternative education program, or DAEP, to send misbehaving students. Students 5 and younger are not allowed to be placed in these programs.
The letter was dated the day Melissa’s son turned 6.
“They waited until his birthday,” she said. “They already had this planned.”
Melissa’s son is one of thousands of elementary school students in Texas sent to these programs each year. In 2022-23, the most recent year for which data were available, nearly 4,000 such placements were made.
Lawmakers created Texas’ system of DAEPs as a punishment for the most serious infractions, including bringing drugs to school or harassing school employees. But school districts have wide latitude to send students for weeks or months at a time for a whole host of reasons, including minor misbehavior such as swearing or violating dress codes. Last year, legislators made it even easier for districts to send disruptive students to DAEPs. The programs themselves are often extremely strict and, critics say, offer lackluster education, typically on computers.
DAEP placements can be especially complicated when it comes to young students, who may be acting out as a result of a disability that has yet to be diagnosed or might lack the knowledge to understand why their behavior violates the rules. Meanwhile, experts say that removing young children from their classroom for any length of time can cause cascading social and academic effects for the rest of their time in school — without addressing any underlying issues.
“It’s not going to be a positive experience coming back,” said Shantel Meek, executive director of the Children’s Equity Project, a research and policy group at Arizona State University, noting that students will likely be behind on their work, feel stigmatized by their peers and be uncomfortable with their teacher. “Whatever behavior that prompted the suspension is now one little piece of a much bigger problem that probably snowballs over time.”
Texas law places no limits on DAEP placements for any child age 6 or above. Districts are only required to keep young students separate from middle and high schoolers in these alternative programs. The state does not regularly publish DAEP placement data by grade.
Texas Education Agency spokesperson Ricky Garcia said in an email that DAEP placements for young students are based on local district policies but that the agency “does promote alternative practices for students, such as Restorative Practices, especially for the younger students.”
He noted that discipline conferences over DAEP placements must be held within three days of administrators learning of a student’s misconduct — not a week later as Melissa says was the case with her son.
Officials with the McKinney school district did not respond to requests for comment.
Even before the DAEP placement, Melissa’s son struggled in kindergarten. She suspected he had a disability that was leading to behavior problems in school. But she said she was told he was too young to be diagnosed and, therefore, wasn’t able to secure additional supports or accommodations.
By December 2023, she said, she would receive regular reports from the school that he was having a hard time sitting still and would scream and climb furniture. Meanwhile, the reports from her son were just as troubling.
He would tell her, “Mommy, my teacher screams, my teacher yells,” she said. School administrators repeatedly restrained and suspended him, she added.
Melissa kept trying to have him evaluated for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder so he would qualify for special education services. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, children in special education are afforded certain protections related to school discipline. Texas school officials are required to consider disability status when determining DAEP placements.
Then came the DAEP placement for assault on a teacher. Melissa says she was never shown any evidence that her son injured the staffer whom he kicked. “He was 5. Come on,” she said. “I think they just didn’t want to deal with him anymore.”
Experts say it’s common for young students to exhibit some degree of challenging behavior in school. Absent support from the school, including school psychologists and aides, the experts say it’s understandable when teachers turn to kicking students out of the classroom. Large class sizes, where one adult is left to deal with more than 20 children, can also be a factor.
“When a kid crosses a line, whatever that may be, you’re already overwhelmed and not able to respond in the way that you need to,” said Tunette Powell, director of parent and family partnerships at the Children’s Equity Project.
Yet the consequences of doing so, particularly in elementary school, can be significant.
In the younger grades, friendships change quickly. A student sent away for a month can return to a new social dynamic in which they are alienated and feel ostracized. They can miss out on lessons crucial to foundational skills, such as decoding words or working with fractions, that will hinder them in school long term.
A review of DAEP handbooks from 75 Texas districts showed the programs typically mandate that students remain silent as they work through lessons. “That’s not how kids learn, especially little kids,” Meek said. They “learn through engagement and interaction with other people.”
During a 2025 legislative hearing, Texas Sen. José Menéndez, a Democrat, said he wondered if young students remained eligible for DAEP placements under a bill aimed at toughening the state’s school discipline.
Yes, answered bill sponsor Sen. Charles Perry, but he wasn’t expecting many 6-year-olds to be punished in this way.
“I can’t think of a single teacher nor district that would automatically remove that 6-year-old to a DAEP-type setting, unless it was so egregious and so habitual that it demanded that just for the safety of the area,” he said, speaking of the districts he represents.
District records show that elementary school students have been sent to DAEPs for a variety of reasons in recent years, not all of which appear to be related to school safety. Some were sent for attendance violations or defiance; many were under the vague category of “violation of local code of conduct.”
A first grader in Lamar Consolidated Independent School District was assigned to a DAEP for 15 days after putting feces in a water fountain, according to district records, while a second grader was given 20 days for “inappropriate language to staff.” Lamar officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Perry, a Republican, explained in the hearing that districts have limited ways to punish young children. “We don’t have a criminal or other process for under 10 years old, so, yes, 10-year-olds and under can go to DAEP,” he said. “It’s not required, but they can.”
And while some DAEP placements are mandatory, including for offenses that may also violate the law, experts say that there are good reasons to treat young children differently.
“The idea that an alternative school is filling a gap in our criminal legal system makes absolutely no sense,” said Kate Zinsser, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois Chicago. “They do not have the cognitive capacity to learn on their own to change their behavior.”
Unlike in the criminal justice system, school administrators assigning students to DAEPs do not need to allow an appeal under the vast majority of circumstances. Nor do they need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that students were acting out.
Joseph and Vera Southwell were told as much when they met with an area superintendent from Round Rock Independent School District to discuss their then-10-year-old daughter’s DAEP assignment. The fifth grader and some classmates were given a 20-day placement after they were discovered to have been smelling — or sniffing, according to the school district — Expo markers and Sharpies.
Their daughter had come to her parents saying a new friend had introduced her to the activity, but she’d grown concerned about the peer’s behavior. The Southwells brought the issue to the attention of school administration and soon after, all of the kids involved were punished for an “abusable volatile chemical offense,” a mandatory DAEP placement.
Round Rock ISD spokesperson Anastasia Drabicky said she could not comment on specific cases but noted “mandatory placements are dictated by the state.”
Joseph Southwell says the markers his daughter was smelling did not contain abusable volatile chemicals. Beyond that, though, he questions why she was punished for coming forward about worrisome behavior.
“Honestly, I’m proud of her,” he said. “Then we did what we’re supposed to do and the administration at the school acted like all the children were criminals.”
When they brought their concerns to Round Rock Area Superintendent Zac Oldham, he acknowledged that the district had a lower burden of proof than the justice system. “In a school, it’s a reasonable belief that something did occur,” he told the pair, according to a recording of the conversation shared with The Hechinger Report. “If there are multiple people saying the same story … that’s usually considered enough evidence.”
The law requires districts to consider some mitigating factors when assigning students to a DAEP, even for a mandatory placement. Among them is a student’s intent. In this case, school officials maintained that the students intended to get high and that several students told them as much. Southwell said his daughter didn’t know what the word meant.
“There need to be tight guardrails in proving intent in a 10-year-old,” he said.
In the meeting with Oldham, the administrator conceded “intent is tough.” He noted that he’d done his dissertation on the negative effects that DAEPs can have and that the district was working hard to reduce placements. He suggested that the district could do more teacher training on “exactly what intent looks like. At what age do you — are you able to — have intent and things like that. I think that’s great feedback.”
The Southwells were ultimately able to get the punishment overturned following a grievance process in which the district acknowledged there was no proof the markers contained abusable volatile chemicals. The ordeal left its mark on the family, though. Vera was inspired to run for the local school board.
Meanwhile, their daughter had lost trust in her school; the family unenrolled her and began homeschooling her.
Melissa made the same decision for her son back in 2024.
“Looking back, I feel bad not pulling him earlier,” she said. “I feel like he’s too young to go through all of that. It’s been really hard on him. He doesn’t trust teachers anymore.”
This story about DAEPs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.