Dealing with Disruptions:
Your Rights Regarding Campus Visitors
In some situations, school district administrators may want to remove disruptive or undesirable
parents or citizens who otherwise have a legal right of access to a district campus. Texas has
several different statutes that prohibit campus disruptions and allow school districts to remove
campus visitors who disrupt school activities. Tex. Educ. Code §§ 37.105, .123-.124. In addition,
once a district gives proper notice, a person can also be removed from campus based on the
criminal trespass statute. Tex. Penal Code § 30.05. The following scenarios address when and
how these statutes apply in different situations.
1. What can the board do to limit disruptions by members of the public audience?
The school board has a right to insist that persons attending a meeting maintain order and
obey the board’s rules.

Local policy: TASB Policy BED(LOCAL) addresses this concern.

Board operating procedures: Many boards adopt specific operating procedures. These
procedures should set out specific responses that the presiding officer will use when
handling disruptions.

Criminal offense: It is a criminal offense for a person, with the intent to prevent or disrupt
a lawful meeting, to substantially obstruct or interfere with the meeting by physical action
or verbal utterance. Tex. Penal Code § 42.05; Morehead v. State, 807 S.W.2d 577 (Tex.
Crim. App. 1991) (en banc). Therefore, as a last resort, the board can request the assistance
of local law enforcement to escort a disruptive individual from a meeting.
2. What constitutes disruption or “disorderly conduct”?
Whether particular conduct rises to the level of disorderly conduct is an issue for the school board
to consider. According to one federal district court in Texas, “Being ‘disruptive,’ is not confined
to physical violence or conduct, but also encompasses any type of conduct that seriously violates
rules of procedure . . . established to govern conduct at [board] meetings.” Luckett v. City of
Grand Prairie, No. CIV. A. 3:99CV1752-L, 2001 WL 285280, at *5 n.2 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 19,
2001) (mem.). Examples of disruptive behavior include yelling, talking out of turn, and making
obscene gestures. Kindt v. Santa Monica Rent Control Bd., 67 F.3d 266 (9th Cir. 1995); see also
McMahon v. Albany Unified Sch. Dist., 129 Cal. Rptr. 2d 184 (Cal. Ct. App. 2002) (upholding
removal of an audience member who dumped trash at a school board meeting). The board should
take care to merely warn an individual who is mildly disruptive and remove only those
individuals who are substantially interfering with the board’s ability to conduct business.
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3. Can the presiding officer remove a board member who is causing a disruption?
Generally, the other members of a board do not have authority to exclude or remove a trustee
from a board meeting. Exceptions arise only in rare circumstances, and such a decision
should be made only with the advice of the school district’s attorney.

Open meetings: Generally, board members may not remove other board members from
office or bar them from participation in meetings. Garcia v. Angelini, 412 S.W.2d 949 (Tex.
Civ. App.—Eastland 1967, no writ).

Closed session: The attorney general has concluded that a school board may exclude a
school board member who has sued the district from a closed session where the board was
discussing the lawsuit with the district’s attorney. Op. Tex. Att’y Gen. No. JM-1004 (1989).

Disruptive behavior: The OMA does not specifically address whether the board has the
ability to remove a member of the board from an open meeting for causing a disturbance.
However, the school board does have the power to take actions to promote an orderly
meeting. Tex. Penal Code § 42.05. Therefore, if a board member’s conduct rose to the
level of “disorderly conduct” as established by the board, the board could have the
member removed.
Everyone’s a Critic
A parent of a second-grade student came on campus to observe his son’s elementary school art
class. During the class the parent became outraged over the class’s study of Michelangelo’s
David. The parent began yelling obscenities at the teacher. He then left the room, continuing to
yell obscenities loudly while walking down the hall. Has he committed a crime?
Yes, arguably he has disrupted class and violated a provision under the Texas Education Code.
Texas Education Code section 37.124 prohibits the disruption of class. A person commits a Class
C misdemeanor if the person intentionally disrupts the conduct of classes or other school
activities on school property. Disruptive conduct includes:
1. emitting noise of an intensity that prevents or hinders classroom instruction;
2. enticing or attempting to entice a student away from a class or other school activity that
the student is required to attend;
3. preventing or attempting to prevent a student from attending a class or other school
activity that the student is required to attend; and
4. entering a classroom without the consent of either the principal or teacher and, either
through acts of misconduct or use of loud or profane language, disrupting class activities.
Tex. Educ. Code § 37.124(c)(1); TASB Policy GKA(LEGAL).
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Can a disruptive parent be removed from the school campus? What about the person’s
parental rights to direct their children’s education?
Yes, a campus police officer can remove this parent from campus. Parents do have a
constitutional right to direct the education and upbringing of their children. This right is
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Pierce v. Soc’y of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).
However, parents’ statutory and substantive due process right to direct their children’s education
does not create a parental right of full access to school facilities. Courts have consistently upheld
the authority of school officials to control access to school property. In one case, a student’s
mother came on campus to observe her son in class during the instructional day. One of the
student’s teachers repeatedly asked the parent to leave after the parent observed an hour of her
class. When the parent refused to leave the school premises, she was arrested for criminal
trespass. The court held that the school district’s actions in asking the parent to leave and
ultimately having her arrested did not violate the mother’s constitutional right to direct her
child’s education. In its holding, the court noted that, “An exhaustive review of the case law
pertaining to the constitutional right of the parents to direct the education of their children
discloses no holding even remotely suggesting that this guarantee includes a right to access the
classes in which one’s child participates.” Ryans v. Gresham, 6 F. Supp. 2d 595, 601 (E.D. Tex.
1998); see also Lovern v. Edwards, 190 F.3d 648 (4th Cir. 1999) (rejecting claim that school
officials must allow parents boundless access to school property); Frost v. Hawkins County Bd.
of Educ., 851 F.2d 822 (6th Cir. 1988) (holding that parent who was arrested when she came on
to school premises to give child a private reading lesson was not deprived of her freedom of
expression or custody of her child without due process); Rodgers v. Duncanville Indep. Sch.
Dist., No. 3-004-CV-0365-D, 2005 WL 770712 (N.D. Tex. Apr. 5, 2005) (rejecting argument
that parent had right of access to school after administrators banned parent from campus for
repeatedly ignoring the administration’s directives).
And the Crowd Goes Wild
A family friend of a member of the volleyball team is a huge volleyball fan and never misses a
game. She cheers loudly and often taunts the opposing team. At a recent game, the friend got
into a shouting match with a parent from a rival school. The situation escalated, and both fans
were shouting obscenities and threatening each other with bodily harm. The school district
ejected the friend from the game and told her she could not return to campus for the
remainder of the season. Was the district allowed to eject the friend? Could she be banned
from attending future games?
Arguably, the friend committed a crime by engaging in disruptive activity on school property,
and the school district was authorized to expel her from the game on that basis. Moreover, based
on its authority to maintain order at school events, the district could enforce a suspension from
attending future events for a reasonable amount of time.
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A person commits a Class B misdemeanor if the person intentionally engages in disruptive
activity on the campus or property of any school in the district.
Disruptive activity is defined as:
1. obstructing or restraining the passage of persons in an exit, entrance, or hallway of any
building without the authorization of the administration of the school;
2. seizing control of any building or portion of a building to interfere with any
administrative, educational, research, or other authorized activity;
3. preventing or attempting to prevent by force or violence or the threat of violence any
lawful assembly authorized by the school administration so that a person attempting to
participate in the assembly is unable to participate due to the use of force or violence or
due to a reasonable fear that force or violence is likely to occur;
4. disrupting by force or violence or the threat of force or violence a lawful assembly in
progress; and
5. obstructing or restraining the passage of any person at an exit or entrance to the campus
or property or preventing or attempting to prevent by force or violence or by threats
thereof the ingress or egress of any person to or from the property or campus without the
authorization of the administration of the school.
Tex. Educ. Code § 37.123; TASB Policy GKA(LEGAL).
In order to find that this family friend disrupted an activity under section 37.123 of the Texas
Education Code, that friend must have intentionally disrupted the volleyball game by the threat
of violence. Op. Tex. Att’y Gen. JC-504 (2002). Depending on the circumstances of the
disruption, this could be difficult to prove.
Do community members have a right to watch extracurricular activities?
No, members of the community have no legal right to attend school activities. The school board or
its authorized representative may refuse to allow persons having no legitimate business to enter on
property under the board’s control and may eject any undesirable person from the property on his or
her refusal to leave peaceably on request. Tex. Educ. Code § 37.105; TASB Policy GKA(LEGAL).
The school district can keep a person who consistently disrupts events off school property by
taking steps to prepare for a criminal trespass charge. In order to commit a criminal trespass
under the Texas Penal Code, a person must enter onto property without effective consent after
the person had notice that the entry was forbidden. The notice that the entry was forbidden must
be an oral or written communication by the owner of the property or by someone with apparent
authority to act for the owner. Tex. Penal Code § 30.05(b)(2).
A school district attempting to pursue criminal trespass charges should have its local counsel draft a
letter to the disruptive person stating that, because of the person’s prior disruptive actions, the
district forbids the person from attending extracurricular events for a reasonable time, e.g., the
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remainder of the school year. The attorney should send this letter to the disruptive parent and carbon
copy the local district attorney. The letter will provide notice that the person is not permitted on
campus and allow the district to pursue criminal trespass charges against the person in the future.
When issues like these occur it is often a very delicate situation. We recommend that you consult
your local attorney for advice specific to your situation. As always, if you have any questions about
this topic or any other school law topic, please call us on the TASB Legal Line at 800.580.5345.
For more information on this and other school law topics,
visit TASB School Law eSource online at schoollawesource.tasb.org.
This document is provided for educational purposes only and contains information to facilitate a general understanding
of the law. It is not an exhaustive treatment of the law on this subject nor is it intended to substitute for the advice of an
attorney. Consult with your own attorneys to apply these legal principles to specific fact situations.
Updated January 2017
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