Can a school validly disqualify an honor student for a serious offense under the student handbook?

IT is the time of a new school year again and questions like this come up. Please read on and be guided by useful information, but remember that circumstances may vary in your school, and the advice here may not always be squarely applicable.

Here is a case that I encountered some years ago:

“X,” a Grade 12 SHS (senior high school) graduating student in a private school committed a serious offense. She attacked schoolmate “Y” inside the classroom during school hours. Her actuations before and after the incident indicated discernment and premeditation. She is 18 years old. Both X and Y were suspended after exhaustive due process by the school.

Here comes the problem. X is running for honors at the end of the school year. However, because of her serious offense, she was delisted from the honor roll, as the student handbook of the school clearly provides. She will graduate and her high grades will remain, but she won’t be given the distinction normally accorded to those in the honors’ list at the graduation ceremony.

The guardian of X was informed about this. The guardian did not accept the decision of the school. During the series of dialogues, she threatened school authorities, teachers and administrators, insulted and slandered them. She continued this attack on Facebook.

The patience of the teachers and administrators is now overstretched but they remained composed. X and her guardian went to the regional office of the Department of Education (DepEd) to complain.

Was the school correct in disqualifying the student from the school’s honor list?

Yes.

Legally speaking, while the relationship between the student and the private school is imbued with public interest, it is essentially contractual. This right of schools to promulgate their own rules is affirmed by the DepEd in DepEd Order 88 s. 2010, or the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools in Basic Education. The contract documents comprise the student handbooks, manuals, and other school policies and issuances. As long as these policies are reasonable, fair and published, it is legally binding on the school and its students.

Student X ought to know her student handbook. As a graduating student running for honors, she should have been more circumspect in her actions. But when she chose to attack her schoolmate for a personal grudge, making an effort to go several floors down from her classroom, she clearly knew what she was doing. She ought to have known that she would suffer the disciplinary consequences, one of which is that she would be delisted from the honor roll of her school.

When a student enrolls in a private school, a contract is instantly created. The school-student relationship is reciprocal. Thus, it has consequences appurtenant to and inherent in all contracts of such kind — it gives rise to bilateral or reciprocal rights and obligations. The school undertakes to provide students with education sufficient to enable them to pursue higher education or a profession. On the other hand, the students agree to abide by the academic requirements of the school and to observe its rules and regulations on discipline.

Can the student resort to court action to compel the private school to cause the inclusion of her name in the honor roll?

No. The academic judgment of the academe is recognized and preserved by the courts unless it is blatantly unfair or arbitrary. In a landmark jurisprudence on the matter, the Supreme Court maintained that, only when there is marked arbitrariness, will the courts interfere with the academic judgment of the school faculty and the proper authorities as to the competence and fitness of a student. The courts simply do not have the competence nor inclination to constitute themselves as admission committees of the schools and to substitute their judgment for that of the educational institutions.

“Were the courts to do so, they would conceivably be swamped with petitions for admission from the thousands refused admission every year, and next the thousands who flunked and were dropped would also be petitioning the courts for a judicial review of their grades.”

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