Seven years ago, James A. Garfield High School in East Los Angeles set a school record with 613 student suspensions, out of a total enrollment of 5,000 students. The school, made famous by the 1988 film "Stand and Deliver", was no stranger to the high rates of student discipline all too common within the Los Angeles Unified School District. However, by the 2004-2005 school year, it had become clear to school officials that the proliferation of suspensions was having little, if any, positive impact on student conduct and simply resulted in more students missing a greater number of instructional days. In this article, the author talks about alternatives to student suspension and discusses how officials at Garfield High were able to use disciplinary alternatives in lieu of suspension because of the substantial discretion afforded to them by the California Education Code. The Education Code provides a variety of disciplinary alternatives to student suspension, which should be used only as a last resort.