The school is not following the law. What can I actually do about it?

What to do

1. Put the concern in writing to the principal. Say what happened, when, and which part of the law you believe was not followed.
2. Keep the dated copy. Every deadline below runs from the date you notified the school.
3. The school is to seek resolution within seven days of your notification.
4. If it is unresolved after 30 days, the school must provide the reasons it was not resolved. Ask for that in writing if it does not arrive.
5. At that point choose: request a parental concern hearing from the State Board of Education, or bring an action for a declaratory judgment.
6. Before choosing the court route, talk to an attorney. This guide describes the process; it cannot tell you whether your situation fits it.

The first thirty days

§ 115C-76.60 requires each school unit to have a procedure for parents to notify the principal of a concern. The school is to seek resolution within seven days of notification. If the concern remains unresolved after thirty days, the unit must provide the reasons it was not resolved.

That thirty-day mark matters: it is the point at which the escalation routes open. Before it, the process is internal.

Route one: a State Board hearing

You may notify the State Board of Education and request a parental concern hearing. It is heard by a qualified hearing officer — a member in good standing of the North Carolina State Bar with demonstrated experience in education or administrative law within the last five years. The officer issues a recommended decision within thirty days, and the State Board approves or rejects it at its next regular meeting occurring more than seven days after receiving it.

The school unit pays the hearing officer’s costs, not you.

Route two: court

You may bring an action against the school unit, under Article 26 of Chapter 1 of the General Statutes, for a declaratory judgment that its procedure or practice violates this Part of the law. A court may award injunctive relief, and on fees the statute says the court:

shall award reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs to a parent awarded injunctive relief

That is an unusual provision and worth understanding. Fee-shifting makes it possible to bring a case that would otherwise cost more than it could recover. It applies where the parent is awarded injunctive relief — not automatically.

These remedies are additional

The section states that its provisions are in addition to any other remedies or procedures authorized or permitted by law. Using this process does not give up other options.

A realistic note

Most concerns are resolved, or not resolved, in the first conversation with a principal. The value of knowing this process is mostly that it changes that conversation: a school that knows you know the timeline tends to answer differently from one that does not.