Good morning,

I would like an opinion on whether there is any legal liability on the private school that expelled my son from their preschool program.

Long story short my son was suddenly expelled at a time when we were led to believe that things were going fine (we got a phone call at 8:15am while driving him to school in which we were told that that would be his last day there).

We exchanged several emails with the president of the board of the institution. We explained that while we agree that this institution wasn't a good fit for our son, we disagreed on the modality of the expulsion which didn't allow us a smooth transition elsewhere.

In one of these emails the president wrote (I removed all identifiable references):
"
The other way in which we failed you was in, as you point out, not following our own policies and procedures (which are available in the Policy Manual on the website, I believe).

First, I don't believe we brought in other leads to observe MYSONSNAME's behavior. That could have been done. We are working now on hiring a Director of SCHOOLNAME Programs who will oversee our classrooms and teachers from a philosophical and curriculum standpoint; this situation reinforces the need for that position.

Second, the board was not involved in the expulsion. Personally, I do not believe that the board should be involved in student and classroom issues, in that members of the board bring conflicts of interest (insofar as we may have personal relationships with children and families), for the most part have no SCHOOLNAME or educational training, and have a decidedly high level operational role to play in the school, rather than classroom and student-specific. That said, the SCHOOLNAME policy, written in 1989, which all of us overlooked, dictates board involvement in matters of mid-year expulsion. PRINCIPALNAME did tell me in our regular meetings about MYSONSNAME's expulsion, but I am very sorry that none of us remembered that that policy was on the books. It isn't often used, and it doesn't seem logical to me, but it is there, and we should have reviewed the expulsion before it went into effect.
"

So: are they liable in a court of law?

Thanks!

A concerned father.

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