Family tragedy

Our daughter - new to the high school she was attending had a confrontation with another student. Someone from the school notified the police and our daughter was later arrested. The nightmare of it all was she was charged with three felonies (which later were dropped). The other student suffered a sprained ankle we were told and even though the other student instigated the confrontation, our daughter was found to be the guilty party because the other student had three witnesses (all friends of this girl) who stated that my daughter started the dispute.
This was tragic for our family in many ways - not only emotionally but financially as well. After the three days suspension from school when I visited with the Principal at the school to get my daughter reinstated, he and two other teachers were present and someone from the school district was present as well. I had no idea that these other people were going to be present at this meeting and I told the principal since he had made it a police matter I felt it would be necessary to have our attorney present before we could discuss the incident. I wanted to have my daughter reinstated to school and that why I was there. He kept attempting to talk about the incident and when I refused because we did not have our attorney present, he got angry with me and shouted " I will go for expulsion then". I couldn't believe how badly we were treated.
Our daughter is now attending a two-room community school with children that have severe emotional & drug problems. Although she has been doing a great job and getting credits necessary towards graduation, we feel that she has slipped academically downhill. I strongly feel that her rights were violated - but am at a loss- she will need to reapply to the school district she left. I want to add too under the advice of our attorney at the time I signed an agreement to the expulsion - we were under such stress and emotional upheaval at the time - I regret having done that. Is there anything we can do now?

Your attorney, who knows all the facts and circumstances, is in the best position to answer your questions. I will defer to his/her advice.

If your daughter is a special ed student, there are some extra protections available to her.

Sounds like you might have some arguments for procedural or substantive violations of due process rights, but there aren't enough details in your post to tell for certain.

Therefore, I would suggest that you ask the person who knows the most about the laws in your state and the facts of your particular case. That would be your attorney.

add'l info -fam tragedy

Thank you for replying to my questions. There is alot more to this story - but the bottom line is that the mistake my daughter made in reacting too quickly to this other student landed her in Juvenile Hall for six days! It was very traumatic for her - as she wasn't able to sleep in her bedroom when she got home.
I believe the school was wrong to react the way they did, they never told us that she could attend another school while the case went through the court system - She was out of school for three months!!
The attorney we hired was inexperienced in these types of cases and $5000. later we realized that a public defender probably could have done the same for her.
Our daughter has had no prior arrests or trouble with the law. She did however have a bad school record (bad grades, cutting, fighting) that followed her into this high school. She did not have any affiliations with gangs (although they tried to pin this to her) nor did she ever do drugs or drink alcohol.
I still have nightmares as to how this snowballed the way it did. As a parent I realize that we should have been harder or more demanding on her than we were - but I really believed that she was just going through a teen rebellion stage that she would turn out to be a productive wonderful adult later on - I do think she will!!!!
She expressed to me the other day that when she graduates from school, she wants to send a copy of her diploma to the officer that arrested her (because he intimidated her on the way to Juvenile Hall by telling her that the school will never let her back in) and the judge from court - because she wants to show him that she is a good person. Thanks for reading this long reply!