Bullying Under the Texas Education Code: David’s Law and Penalties

The Texas Education Code addresses bullying primarily through Section 37.0832, which requires every public school district to adopt policies prohibiting bullying and spelling out how schools prevent, report, investigate, and respond to it. The statute covers physical acts, verbal and written expression, and electronic communication, and it gives victims specific rights: parent notification within three business days of a report, the right to transfer classrooms or campuses, court injunctions against cyberbullies, and in serious cases, criminal charges under David’s Law.

What Counts as Bullying Under Texas Law

Section 37.0832 defines bullying as a single significant act or a pattern of acts by one or more students against another student that exploits an imbalance of power and involves written or verbal expression, electronic communication, or physical conduct. The conduct also has to produce at least one of these results:

Physical harm to the student, damage to their property, or a reasonable fear of either.
Conduct severe, persistent, or pervasive enough to create an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment.
Material and substantial disruption of the educational process or the orderly operation of a classroom or school.
Infringement on the victim’s rights at school.

Two features of this definition matter for families. First, a single incident can qualify; the statute does not require a pattern. Second, the “imbalance of power” language means the relationship between the students matters, not just the act itself.¹

Cyberbullying is written into the definition. It covers bullying through any electronic communication device, including phones, computers, email, text messages, social media, or any internet-based tool.¹

Where the Statute Reaches

Section 37.0832 applies to bullying in three places:

On school property or at any school-sponsored or school-related activity, whether on or off campus.
On school buses or other vehicles used to transport students to or from school or school-related activities, whether publicly or privately owned.
Off-campus cyberbullying, but only if it interferes with a student’s educational opportunities or substantially disrupts the orderly operation of a classroom, school, or school activity.

The off-campus cyberbullying provision matters because it means a student who sends harassing messages from home on a weekend can still face school discipline if the fallout spills into the school day. The school does not have to show the messages went out during school hours, only that the conduct disrupted the victim’s education or the school’s operations.¹

What the School Has to Do When You Report

Every district must set up a procedure that makes it easy for students and staff to report bullying, and it must include an anonymous reporting option. The Texas Education Agency’s minimum standards require the mechanism to accept both anonymous and identifiable reports.²

Parent Notification Deadlines

Once a bullying incident is reported, the school must notify the alleged victim’s parent or guardian on or before the third business day after the report date. The alleged bully’s parent or guardian must be notified within a reasonable amount of time. These are statutory deadlines. If your child’s school waits longer than three business days to tell you about a reported incident involving your child as the victim, the district is out of compliance.¹

The Investigation

Section 37.0832 requires each district’s policy to establish a procedure for investigating reports. In practice, a designated administrator reviews the complaint, interviews the alleged victim, the accused student, and any witnesses, and gathers evidence such as surveillance footage or electronic communications. Many districts set internal timelines of around ten business days, though the statute itself does not set a specific number.

When cyberbullying is involved, administrators may work with the district’s technology staff to retrieve messages or verify online harassment. When conduct potentially crosses into criminal territory, such as threats of violence or electronic harassment under Penal Code Section 42.07, school officials may involve law enforcement while continuing the school-level investigation.³

One thing to expect: the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act limits what the school can tell you about discipline imposed on another student. Even as the victim’s parent, you generally will not learn the specific consequences the other child received.⁴

Protection Against Retaliation

The district’s policy must prohibit retaliation against anyone who reports a bullying incident in good faith, including victims, witnesses, and bystanders. Punishing someone for reporting is itself a policy violation.¹

Discipline the Bully May Face

School districts have broad discretion to impose consequences for bullying, but the student code of conduct must specify the circumstances for each level. Consequences generally fall into three tiers: lower-level responses such as counseling referrals, behavior contracts, parent conferences, or in-school suspension; moderate responses such as out-of-school suspension or placement in a disciplinary alternative education program (DAEP); and, in severe cases, expulsion.⁵

Section 37.0052 singles out three forms of bullying serious enough to warrant DAEP placement or expulsion:

Bullying that encourages a student to commit or attempt suicide.
Inciting violence against a student through group bullying.
Releasing or threatening to release intimate visual material of a minor, or of a student 18 or older, without consent.

Bullying that includes assault causing bodily injury, harassment under the Penal Code, or terroristic threats may trigger mandatory DAEP placement under other provisions of Chapter 37.

Your Child’s Right to Transfer

This right is one of the most useful protections in the code, and many parents never hear about it. Under Section 25.0342, a parent or guardian of a student who has been a victim of bullying can ask the district to transfer the student to a different classroom on the same campus or to a different campus within the district. The school board or its designee must grant the transfer after verifying the student was a victim of bullying.⁶

One catch: if the transfer is to a different campus, the district is not required to provide transportation. For families without a reliable way to get their child to a farther school, this can make the transfer impractical despite the legal right to request it.⁶

David’s Law: Court Orders and Criminal Charges

In 2017 the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 179, known as David’s Law, after the suicide of David Molak, a San Antonio teenager who was cyberbullied. The law expanded the anti-bullying framework in two ways that matter directly to families.⁷

Injunctions Against Cyberbullies

David’s Law created Chapter 129A of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which allows a cyberbullying victim or the victim’s parent to seek a temporary or permanent injunction against the person doing the cyberbullying. A court can grant the injunction on a showing that the individual engaged in cyberbullying toward the victim. This gives families a legal tool separate from the school discipline process to stop the behavior.⁸

Criminal Penalties

David’s Law also amended Penal Code Section 42.07 to make repeated electronic communications intended to harass, annoy, alarm, torment, embarrass, or offend another person a criminal offense. The base charge is a Class B misdemeanor. The offense escalates to a Class A misdemeanor when the target is a child under 18 and the actor intends the child to commit suicide or engage in conduct causing serious bodily injury. Repeat offenders also face enhanced charges.³

Extra Protections for Students with Disabilities

When a bullied student has an IEP or a Section 504 plan, federal law adds obligations on top of Texas requirements. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a school has an ongoing duty to ensure a student with a disability continues to receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE). If bullying interferes with that, the school must act or risk a FAPE violation.⁹

Federal guidance from the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs states that when a student with an IEP is bullied, the school should convene the IEP team to determine whether the bullying has changed the student’s needs so that the current IEP no longer provides meaningful educational benefit. If it hasn’t, the team must revise the IEP to add or change services. This obligation applies whether the child is bullied because of the disability or for any other reason.⁹

Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, schools must also address bullying and harassment that is based on a student’s disability and that limits the student’s ability to participate in or benefit from school services. Failure to correct disability-based harassment that interferes with a student’s education may amount to both a FAPE violation and a civil rights violation.¹⁰

When Bullying Becomes a Federal Civil Rights Matter

No federal statute specifically prohibits bullying. When bullying targets a student because of race, color, national origin, sex, or disability, however, it can cross into discriminatory harassment, and several federal laws come into play. Schools that receive federal funding must address conduct that is unwelcome and objectively offensive, creates a hostile environment that interferes with the student’s ability to participate in school, and is based on a protected characteristic.¹¹

The relevant statutes include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (race, color, national origin), Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (sex-based harassment), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. When a school learns that harassment based on a protected characteristic may have created a hostile environment, it must investigate promptly and thoroughly, take steps to end the harassment, prevent recurrence, and remedy the effects on the targeted student.¹¹

A parent who believes the school has failed to address discriminatory harassment can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. That federal complaint exists independently of any state-level grievance and can run in parallel with it.

What to Do If the School Mishandles It

When a family disagrees with how a school handled a bullying situation or with the discipline imposed, every district is required to offer a formal grievance process. The TEA advises parents to act quickly: the typical deadline for filing a grievance is within 60 days of learning about the issue.¹²

The process generally moves through three levels. Start with the campus principal or administrator. If that fails, escalate to the district’s board of trustees, which can modify or overturn the decision. If you are still unsatisfied after the board’s ruling, certain decisions can be appealed to the Commissioner of Education at the TEA.¹²

In extreme situations where a student’s constitutional or statutory rights may have been violated, families can also pursue legal action in state or federal court. That path is rare in bullying disputes but becomes more relevant when a district repeatedly fails to act or when the bullying rises to the level of disability-based harassment under federal law.

1
State of Texas. Texas Education Code Section 37.0832 – Bullying Prevention Policies and Procedures
2
Texas Education Agency. Minimum Standards for Bullying Prevention
3
State of Texas. Texas Penal Code Section 42.07 – Harassment
4
U.S. Department of Education. 34 CFR Part 99 – Family Educational Rights and Privacy
5
State of Texas. Texas Education Code Section 37.001 – Student Code of Conduct
6
State of Texas. Texas Education Code Section 25.0342 – Transfer of Bullying Victim
7
LegiScan. Texas SB179 Bill Text
8
State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 129A
9
U.S. Department of Education. Dear Colleague Letter on Bullying of Students with Disabilities (October 2014)
10
U.S. Department of Education. Disability Discrimination – Bullying and Harassment
11
StopBullying.gov. Federal Laws
12
Texas Education Agency. Raising Concerns with Your School – Local Grievance Process