South Dakota School Discipline and Special Education: Suspension Rules, Shortened Days, and Your Child's Rights

When a child with a disability is repeatedly suspended, sent home early, or placed on a shortened school day, the school often frames it as a behavioral management strategy. Under IDEA and South Dakota administrative rules, it may actually constitute an illegal change in educational placement — one that requires a formal IEP meeting, Prior Written Notice, and in many cases a Manifestation Determination Review.

The gap between what schools tell parents and what the law actually requires is where children lose months of instruction.

The 10-Day Rule: What Triggers IDEA Discipline Protections

Federal law under IDEA, implemented through South Dakota's administrative rules, prohibits school districts from suspending a student with a disability for more than 10 cumulative school days in a school year without triggering additional protections.

Here is what the thresholds mean in practice:

Days 1–10: A district can suspend a student with a disability for the same reasons and using the same procedures as any other student. No additional IDEA-specific procedures are required during this window, though the district must still provide educational services if it provides services to non-disabled students who are suspended.

At 10 days (cumulative): The school must determine whether the behavior that caused the suspension is related to the child's disability. This is called a Manifestation Determination Review (MDR).

Beyond 10 days (pattern of short-term suspensions): Even if each individual suspension is short, a series of removals can constitute a pattern. South Dakota schools must analyze whether multiple suspensions: last more than 10 days total, are for similar behavior, and follow a recurring pattern. If yes, the pattern triggers the same protections as a single removal exceeding 10 days.

The SD DOE monitors suspension and expulsion rates through Indicator 4 of the State Performance Plan, specifically to identify districts showing systemic patterns of disproportionate exclusion for students with disabilities.

Manifestation Determination Reviews: What Must Happen

Once the 10-day threshold is hit, the IEP team — including the parents — must meet within 10 school days to conduct a Manifestation Determination Review. The MDR answers two questions:

1. Was the conduct in question caused by or directly and substantially related to the child's disability?
2. Was the conduct a direct result of the district's failure to implement the IEP?

If the answer to either question is yes, the behavior is a manifestation of the disability. The district cannot proceed with a long-term suspension or expulsion based on that incident. Instead, the IEP team must conduct a Functional Behavioral Assessment (if not already done) and develop or revise the Behavioral Intervention Plan.

If a parent disagrees with the outcome of the MDR, they can challenge it through a due process hearing. Under HB 1220 (passed in 2024), parties can now appeal a South Dakota due process hearing officer's decision to state or federal court within 30 days.

Why Shortened School Days Are a Discipline Issue

A shortened school day is not a minor scheduling adjustment. When a district reduces a student's school hours — sending a child home after lunch every day, for instance, or telling a parent to pick them up at noon because of behavioral issues — it is often functioning as an informal removal.

Under IDEA, any change in the amount of time a student spends in their educational setting can constitute a change of placement. A change of placement requires:

• An IEP team meeting
• Prior Written Notice (5 calendar days in advance under South Dakota's rules)
• Parental consent

What districts sometimes do instead is ask parents informally, over the phone, to start picking their child up early. This keeps the removal off the official discipline record, avoids triggering the MDR requirement, and effectively reduces the child's school hours without any of the procedural safeguards that are supposed to protect against it.

A 2020 state complaint in South Dakota found a district had used 11 transportation suspensions in three months without treating any of them as disciplinary removals subject to IDEA protections. Sending a child home on the bus early is still a removal — and if it happens repeatedly, it's a pattern that should be triggering all of the same protections as a formal suspension.

If your child is being sent home early on a recurring basis, document every instance with the date, time, reason given, and name of who contacted you. Then request Prior Written Notice for the shortened school day under ARSD 24:05:30:04. The district will have to formally justify the schedule change or stop implementing it.

Functional Behavioral Assessments and Behavioral Intervention Plans

If your child is being disciplined repeatedly, the school should have already conducted a Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) and developed a Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP) before reaching the suspension threshold. If they haven't, that gap is worth addressing directly.

An FBA is an assessment process that identifies what function the behavior is serving for the child — attention, escape, sensory input, communication — and what environmental factors trigger it. The BIP then specifies proactive strategies, teaching replacement behaviors, and supports to prevent the behavior from occurring.

You can request an FBA in writing at any time. Frame it as a request under ARSD 24:05:25:03 for an evaluation to address the behavioral area affecting educational performance. This triggers the 25-school-day evaluation timeline.

If the school has an existing BIP that isn't being followed consistently, that is a failure to implement the IEP — which is both a standalone IDEA violation and a factor that must be considered in any Manifestation Determination Review.

Special Circumstances: Weapons, Drugs, and Serious Bodily Injury

IDEA does allow districts to remove a student with a disability to an interim alternative educational setting for up to 45 school days — even without parental consent and even if the behavior is determined to be a manifestation of the disability — in three specific situations:

1. The student carries or possesses a weapon at school or a school function
2. The student knowingly possesses or uses illegal drugs or sells a controlled substance at school
3. The student has inflicted serious bodily injury on another person at school

During this 45-day period, the student must continue to receive educational services, participate in the general curriculum, and continue to receive services specified in their IEP. The IEP team must also conduct an FBA and implement a BIP if one is not already in place.

These special circumstances are narrow. Most behavioral situations — even significant ones involving aggression, property destruction, or self-injury — fall outside them and must go through the standard MDR process.

What to Do When Discipline Feels Wrong

If your child has been suspended more than 10 days this year, or if you've been asked to pick your child up early multiple times without a formal process, start here:

1. Count the cumulative days. Request a copy of all disciplinary records and attendance records for the school year. Many parents don't realize the 10-day threshold has been crossed because the days are spread across months.

2. Request a Manifestation Determination Review in writing. If the threshold has been crossed and no MDR has been held, demand one citing the 10-school-day requirement under IDEA.

3. Demand Prior Written Notice for any shortened school day. Cite ARSD 24:05:30:04. The district must formally document why they are changing your child's schedule.

4. Request a Functional Behavioral Assessment. If repeated discipline is occurring without an FBA or BIP in place, submit a written evaluation request.

5. File a state complaint if violations are documented. The SD DOE must investigate within 60 calendar days. Suspension-related complaints that are well-documented — specific dates, patterns, written requests that went unanswered — are among the most straightforward for investigators to resolve.

If you're dealing with repeated removals or a shortened school day imposed without proper process, the South Dakota IEP and 504 Advocacy Playbook at /us/south-dakota/advocacy/ includes the specific letter templates and MDR documentation tools South Dakota parents need to push back with the right legal language.

The discipline protections in IDEA exist because behavioral issues are frequently the most visible symptom of an unmet educational need. Suspension doesn't address the underlying need — it just removes the child from the environment where that need might be addressed. That's why the law requires a deeper look every time the cumulative threshold is crossed.

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