Tag: behavioral

Learning the skills to maintain expected behavior and follow school rules is part of education. All students learn social, emotional and behavioral skills. Students with special needs may get extra help in these areas of learning. Some have individualized behavior support plans.

When the pre-teaching and interventions fail to stop behavior from causing a problem, the school might call a parent to say, “Take them home.” What happens next could depend on how well-informed parents are about the rights of students with disabilities. This video provides key information to help.

First let’s talk about what exclusionary discipline means. If school staff remove a student from the place they are supposed to be during school, because of their behavior, then it’s exclusionary discipline. Out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and in-school suspensions count. An in-school suspension might mean getting sent to the office, for example.

Informal removals like when the school calls parents to take a child home because of their behavior is exclusionary discipline if parents feel they have no choice. A regularly shortened school day also may be a form of exclusionary discipline if the school offers this as the only option.

These final two points might seem like a surprise. Let’s clarify a few things. It’s important to know who is making the decisions. If the family chooses to take a child home early because they aren’t feeling well physically or mentally, then it’s not exclusionary discipline.

If an IEP or Section 504 team decides it’s in the student s best interests to attend school for fewer hours, then it’s not disciplinary. If a teacher takes a student into the hallway for a short chat before returning to class, then it likely doesn’t count as a disciplinary action.

Disciplinary removal from school is a decision made unilaterally by the school. If the family

believes they have no option but to take their child home or if the school imposes a shorter

day without having a meeting to talk it through, then it counts as exclusionary discipline.

The school would essentially be changing a student s placement without the consent of

the school-and-family team in charge of those decisions.

We need to know a few things about student rights to fully unpack this topic, so here’s a quick take  on student rights. They are shown here as a pyramid. All students have rights at the bottom. Students with special educational services are at the top and have all these rights.

Special education rights are protected by a federal law called the IDEA the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA protects the rights of students with Individualized Education Programs IEPs. IDEA has specific rules about what has to happen when a student with an IEP is excluded from school for behavior.

A student s Civil Rights are protected by federal laws also. The United States Office for Civil Rights OCR upholds these laws and provides specific guidance about what schools have to do when they discipline students with disabilities. Civil Rights laws protect students with IEPs, students with Section 504 Plans, and students with known or suspected disabilities who need to be evaluated to see if they are eligible for services. Sometimes discipline is the reason a student is evaluated to determine eligibility for services.

General Education Rights are protected by ESSA, which stands for Every Student Succeeds Act. Every child in the United States has the right to attend school, regardless of life circumstances that might include disability, poverty, racism, unstable housing, citizenship status, or something else. The public school responsible for serving a student cannot send them away without following specific state and federal rules.

To uphold the rights of students, schools are responsible to teach expected behavior in culturally appropriate ways and to help students stay in school and learning. The US Department of Education provides information about student rights. In July 2022, the Departments Office for Civil Rights published a 41-page document describing the rules schools must follow when they discipline students with disabilities. That document is called Supporting  Students with Disabilities and Avoiding the Discriminatory Use of Student Discipline under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The document includes information that students with disabilities and students who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color are disciplined at higher rates. BIPOC students with disabilities are the most impacted by discriminatory policies and practices. As part of their responsibility to support inclusion, schools may not exclude students in ways that discriminate. Knowing that schools are responsible to teach and cannot send students away without going through a formal, well-documented process, what’s a parent to do if the school calls and says to take the student home?

The rest of this presentation provides some guidance, summarized on this slide. The first step is to ask whether the student is being suspended. Requesting paperwork and tracking missed time is critical to hold the school accountable. An important number in this process is 10 that s how many days a student with a disability can miss due to discipline before the school is responsible to host a specific meeting called manifestation determination.

More about that in a moment. Communication is critical to improving outcomes when a student’s behavior is interfering with school. Families can ask for regular information about a student s behavior, and schools can send data tracking sheets home to make sure everyone knows how things are going. Let’s unpack these five points.

For a student to be sent home, the behavior must be severely disruptive or dangerous. If that’s what’s happening, then your child is being suspended or emergency expelled. Schools must report suspensions and expulsions to the family and to the state. If the school calls and asks you to take your student home, Step 1 is to ask: Are they being suspended?

If a student is being formally excluded from school because of their behavior, state law requires written notice to parents that includes: A description of what they did wrong including what school rule was broken Dates that the suspension starts and ends What the school tried first that didn’t work and why they chose to send the child home How the student will be provided education while away from school Information that the student and parents have the right to meet with a school administrator to talk about what happened And information about the family s right to appeal the action.

Note that all this information must be provided in a language and format that is accessible to the family. If the school says the student isn’t being formally suspended, then parents have choices. They can take the student home and call it a mental health day. Washington law requires schools to accept behavioral health reasons for students to be absent. On this slide are

a few questions families may want to consider asking:

• Parents can ask for a meeting to talk about services. If the student doesn’t have a Section
• 504 Plan or an IEP, it might be time to request an evaluation to see about eligibility for services. If the student doesn’t have a positive behavior support plan, a meeting could be arranged to talk about that option.
• Parents might say they want the student to stay at school and ask for information about how and where education will be provided if the student stays. Parents can request paperwork about what happened and what the school tried before calling home.
• Be sure to ask how the school will record the absence if the student leaves school.
• Will it be excused, unexcused, or recorded as exclusionary discipline?

One reason it’s important to document every time a student is sent away for behavior is a specific special education process called Manifestation Determination. Manifestation Determination is a formal name for a meeting where the school and family talk about what happened and decide whether the behavior was directly related to the student s disability.

If yes, the team determines that the behavior was a manifestation of disability. In that case, it’s especially important to consider what additional supports are needed to scaffold the student’s behavior doesn’t keep interrupting school and learning. Manifestation Determination is required when a student with disabilities misses 10 or more days of school because of behavior. Those days might include partial days, informal suspensions, and in-school suspension.

A Manifestation Determination meeting includes discussion about whether an IEP, Section 504 Plan, or behavior support plan is being followed appropriately and whether it’s got everything the student needs to successfully learn expected behaviors. If no, the team is responsible to make changes. That might mean gathering more information through an evaluation or bringing together more expertise from the district or outside providers. The team may discuss changing the student s placement.

Washington s state educational agency, OSPI, provides detailed information about manifestation determination and other disciplinary rules for students with disabilities. One place to get that information is a Technical Assistance Paper called TAP #2, available through OSPI s website, which is k12.wa.gov. PAVE provides a link on the page where you clicked to watch this video.

Here is a general tip for parents to prepare for ups and downs. If parents tell the school they want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly, they are setting up a communication pathway for whatever happens. Hopefully, collaborative problem-solving will result. For example, knowing what’s going well will help everyone support the student to build on strengths. Knowing what’s not going well might prevent problems from getting worse. Saying you want to know the ugly might help the school understand that you want to work together and don’t want them to gloss over a behavioral incident by sending your student home without an official suspension, for example. When every trouble is treated as a chance to learn and improve, progress can accelerate.

Here s a PAVE resource that might provide additional information you’re looking for. On our home page, under the calendar, is a Behavioral Health Toolkit, with information about crisis systems, school-based services, medical systems, family support agencies, advocacy opportunities, and more. Within the behavioral health toolkit is a video about best practices for supporting behavior at school. A Functional Behavioral Assessment is called an FBA. That assessment can gather information for schools and families to develop a positive behavior support plan.

The name for that plan is BIP Behavior Intervention Plan. PAVE s video can help families and schools work to make sure the FBA and BIP are unbiased and built to teach a student what they can choose instead of behaviors that are leading to problems. PAVE provides a sample letter requesting an FBA. Look for it within our toolkit of sample letters.

This training is provided by Parent Training and Information (PTI), a program of PAVE. Our non-profit has been helping families in Washington State since 1979. Students, family members, and professionals can get direct assistance by going to our website, wapave.org, and clicking Get Help. We provide language translation options. Your can also leave a message by phone to request help: 800-572-7368. If you need help with the accessibility of any of our resources, please let us know. This slide is a reminder that PAVE is not a legal service agency and cannot provide advocacy, advice or legal representation. Our goal is to empower families by providing information and access to resources.

Thank you for listening and learning today and for being an advocate for someone with unique needs! Remember that it’s not your job to hold up the entire world and that you need time to care for yourself and recharge your batteries. Please practice self-care and make sure your own social-emotional needs are a priority. PAVE is here to help at wapave.org.