When trying to implement the safe
and orderly environment correlate, educational leaders can easily fall into
common traps (Simonsen,
Sugai, & Negron, 2008; Horner, Sugai, & Horner, 2000). Behavior
management can be key to student, teacher, classroom, school, and district success. Whenever serving students with disabilities, effective
behavior management becomes even more crucial.
Failure to implement proper behavioral plans for students with
disabilities can have financial as well as academic consequences. Although less tangible, the emotional toll upon
students for inappropriate behavior management can be significant. District administrators must be aware of both
the educational and legal issues required for effectively managing the behavior
of students with disabilities. Therefore,
implementation of sachool-wide policies and appropriate interventions must also
provide the opportunity for case-by-case consideration.
Poorly managed classrooms and buildings negatively impact student
learning. Conversely, well-managed
classrooms and buildings positively impact student learning. Administrators and educational leaders can
take several steps to promote a district-wide climate that cultivates
well-managed classrooms and buildings. Administrators
and educational leaders can do the following:
1. Encourage all teachers to establish and define reasonable
classroom norms or rules and appropriately communicate these to each student. Each norm or rule should be stated in positive
terms. Assess student awareness of each
rule’s purpose.
2. Facilitate commitment from all staff for teaching students
the appropriate school behavior in a manner similar to teaching, reinforcing,
and assessing academic skills. Therefore
formal lessons on social skills, interpersonal problem solving, and conflict
resolution should be presented by teachers and counselors. Diverse programs designed to assist schools in
this regard provide significant professional development.
3. Establish universal expectations for various areas of
each building. Staff should be competent
describing what “respect” entails within the classroom, library, lunchroom, and
restrooms. This provides consistency
with norms or rules throughout the building. Common understanding of expectations eliminate
disagreements among students and staff, thereby reducing anxiety for students.
4. Convey explicit behavior expectations and consequences to
parents and families. This encourages
support from home, mitigates conflicts, and increases the positive
home-school relationship correlate.
Despite implementation of the above,
some students will not respond to school-wide strategies. Therefore, more individualized strategies will
need implementation. Knowing a range of
approaches and additional
preventative strategies mitigate chronic behavior problems.
Whenever students exhibit chronic
behavior problems, staff must know how to consider the root cause and purpose
for the problematic behavior before attempting to identify an appropriate
replacement behavior. Effective,
well-versed administrators draft policies and seek consensus for carrying out
disciplinary strategies. Depending on
the age of the student, including the student in discussions of the problem may
prove very helpful. Including the
student’s family members in identifying strategies tailored to the child’s
individual needs also proves helpful.
Whenever a student has an
individualized education program (IEP)
or a behavior intervention plan (BIP),
strategies need to be evaluated by child study team (CST) or intervention and referral
services (I&RS)
team. Typically, such child-centered teams
include the child’s parent[s], general education teacher, special education
teacher, and other school officials with specialized knowledge of the child’s
needs. This optimizes communication,
collaboration, implementation, and effective integration through the IEP or
BIP. Some preventative strategies may
include:
• Designate
specific support staff such as a counselor, social worker or aide, to regularly
check in with the student or help the student needing time or space to vent or cool
down.
• Adjust the timing or content of the student's academic
schedule. When appropriate, such accommodations mitigate
potential triggers that increase student stress and anxiety. For instance, it may be helpful to schedule
physical education between cognitively demanding academic classes.
• Directly teach the student various relaxation techniques, including
visualization, deep breathing, or yoga.
• Plan for the student’s need to take “timeouts” as an
accommodation to either settle down, become calm, or regroup.
• Develop a succinct crisis plan, outlining procedures for optimally
responding to the student's problematic behavior. Such a plan may provide training in non-aversive
behavior management. This includes positive
reinforcement and communicative strategies that all support staff and
stakeholders can universally utilize.
• Provide counseling, mentoring, or intense social skills
training.
• Provide services and supports “wrapped around”
the student and the student’s family. These
include interagency services provided at school, home, and in the community. Given involvement of multiple agencies it is
important that a care coordinator oversees support services.
Preventative strategies are more effective when based on
valid and reliable functional behavioral
assessment (FBA). Since individualized
strategies are intensive and may need to be in place over an extended period of
time, it is crucial to involve the family in all stages of developing and
implementing them. Once again, this encourages
support from home, mitigates conflicts, and increases the positive
home-school relationship correlate.
School-wide and
individualized preventative strategies intend to proactively respond to student behavior problems,
encourage desired behavior, and mitigate chronic behavior problems. However, some
students may continue to exhibit misconduct. When students with disabilities engage in
misconduct, administrators and teacher leaders must be aware that federal laws,
including Section
504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA), provide such students
with specific procedural safeguards.
IDEA and Section
504 prohibits schools receiving federal funds from discriminating against a
student with a disability because of that disability. For any student receiving special education
services, federal law permits the school to “remove” (i.e., suspend) the
student for up to 10 consecutive days for violating the school’s code of
conduct. The caveat is the discipline must
be consistent with the school’s treatment of students without disabilities who
have committed the same violation under similar conditions. Beyond that level of consequence, the school
must provide the student additional procedures, most notably a manifestation
determination. For example, when the
student’s IEP specifies bus transportation as a related service, suspending the
student from the bus due to chronic misbehavior for more than 10 consecutive
days constitutes a “change in placement,” thereby triggering the child’s right
to a manifestation determination. This
process determines whether or not the violation was a “manifestation” of the
child’s disability.
Under IDEA, an exception to the
10-day rule, occurs when a student commits a weapon or drug offense at school,
or if the student causes another person serious bodily injury at school. In such a case, the school may unilaterally
place the student in an interim alternative educational setting for up to 45
consecutive school days. Removing a student from
the education program designated in her IEP for either more than 10 consecutive
days or a pattern of removals accumulating more than 10 days, constitutes a
“change in placement.” This situation
requires the school convene a manifestation determination meeting whereby members
of the child’s IEP team will consider whether the violation was a manifestation
of the disability. If the team
determines that it was, the school may not change the student’s placement
without parental consent.
Under IDEA, when a manifestation
determination results in consensus that a student’s conduct was a
manifestation of disability, or if a school changes the placement of a child
with a disability by removal for more than 10 days, the school must conduct a
functional behavioral assessment (FBA).
The FBA examines the meaning, function, cause, or purpose of the student’s
behavior. The result of the FBA is a
creation of an effective behavior intervention plan (BIP) aimed at managing the
student’s behavior in the future. FBA
allows the team to isolate the reason for the student’s behavior problem. As a result, the team can formulate an
effective BIP that not only mitigates the behavior, minimizing intrusion upon
the school, but ultimately extinguishing the behavior and channeling the
student toward more acceptable and productive behaviors in the future.
Whenever a manifestation
determination conference results in the finding that a student’s violation
of a code of conduct was not a manifestation of disability, the school may
discipline the student as it would a student without a disability. This could thereby justify a change in placement. This change could result in expulsion or transferring
the student to an alternative school. However,
the school must continue to provide the student educational services that
permit access to the general education curriculum and opportunity to progress
toward stated IEP goals.
A proactive approach can mitigate the
conflict cycle that
exacerbates problematic behaviors (Fecser & Long,
2000). The increasing popularity of school wide PBIS
programs (Walker et al, 2005) exemplify schools recognize success based on
related research. Therefore, administrators
and teacher leaders should be well-versed in appropriate
district-wide and individualized preventative measures for managing student
behavior. Since the special education law
can be intricate and punitive for non-compliance, understanding the legal
issues related to the discipline of students with disabilities is essential. Professional development for staff and
stakeholders increases competencies, promotes collaboration, and mitigates
potential conflict. The result is
increased opportunity to sustain success and optimize the mission of learning
for all.
To
Cite:
Anderson,
C.J. (December 7, 2013) School-wide
approaches to mitigate behavior problems and optimize
References:
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