Education is big business and the people (students) we serve are our customers. In the corporate world the customer is always right. Unfortunately in the educational arena, that assumption is not always correct. Therefore laws have been put in place to protect our customers from unwarranted stress and mistreatment. Many years ago, mistreatment to Blacks and disabled children and adults were accepted. Horror stories have been told of disabled people being locked in basements. Society wanted them out of sight and out of mind.
Those days are over and disabled individuals are treated in a humane matter and with respect and dignity. Unfortunately, school administrators used whatever they could use to exclude disabled children from education by using disciplinary measures (Wrightslaw, 2006). For a short period there was at least one law that assisted school children to fit into the educational mainstream. This law that gave disabled children rights was PL 94-142 and it allowed these children the right to a free appropriate education in the school of their peers. “Congress recognized that in certain instances school districts needed increased flexibility to deal with safety issues while maintaining needed due process protections in the IDEA” (Wrightslaw, 2006). Meanwhile, other acts and laws have been enacted to protect the rights of disabled children called Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA), Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (RHA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). According to Essex (2008), the law states that:
“Under IDEA 2004, all special education teachers fall under NCLB definition and must possess a special education certificate or pass a state licensing exam, must not have had a wavier based on emergency, temporary, or provisional basis, and must have earned a bachelor’s degree.
The Secretary of Education is authorized to approve proposals for up to fifteen states to allow school districts to develop a multi-year IEP for a maximum of three years with parental consent. The IEP may not necessarily be reviewed annually. Short-term objectives are no longer reviewed annually except for children who are meeting alternative assessment requirements and/or students with the most significant cognitive disabilities (p. 2)
These changes in the law represent the “need of State and local educational agencies to work to ensure that superintendents, principals, teachers, and other school personnel are equipped with the knowledge and skills that will enable them to appropriately address behavior problems when they occur” (Wrightslaw, 2006). The law changes also established a new development with respect to the rights of disabled children and it puts them in the same playing field as the regular educated population in regards to being educated and being disciplined. When children are under the jurisdiction of the school, teachers are said to stand “in loco parentis” (in the place of the parent) to the student. To properly carry out the basic functions of the school it is necessary for the teacher to have authority to direct the student and to punish for infractions, much as a parent would. This relationship of the teacher to the child is an essential element in establishing the standard of reasonableness in regard to punishment. The punishment must be in proportion to the gravity of the offense. It must be reasonably defensible in terms of its purpose, to determine improper conduct as in Williams v Ellington, 936 F. 2d 881 and Cornfield v Consolidated High School District, No. 230, 991 F. 2d 1316 (7Cir. 1993).
Withholding of privileges is a punishment generally judicially accepted. However, an activity from which a student is barred because of conduct must be in a category of a privilege rather than a right of the student. If that which is to be denied the student is an integral part of the curriculum, the ban could conflict with his right to participate in all elements of the curriculum under reasonable rules relevant to the subject.
Disciplining students, whether regular or disabled, is an everyday duty of school administrators. Some may think that a disabled student cannot be disciplined, but that is not the case. Disabled students are disciplined by the same general procedure as the regular population, as long as it is not a manifestation of their disability. But some laws may be used as guidelines. However, disabled students should not be disciplined to the point that their education is compromised “materially and substantially” (Essex, 2008).
A disabled student can be suspended for up to ten days at any point for any infraction that regular education students could be suspended. In fact, multiple suspensions can occur, but educational services must be provided to these students. School administrators must note that if multiple suspensions occur it may “constitute a pattern that is a change of placement because of factors such as the length of each removal, the total amount of time the child is removed, and the proximity of the removals to one another” (Wrightslaw, 2006).
References
Essex, Nathan L. (2008). School Law and the Public Schools. Boston, Massachusetts:
Pearson Education, Inc.
Discipline disables students. (2006) Federal Register/Vol. 71, No. 156 Retrieved November 10, 2008 from http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/discipline_faqs_osep.htm
8 comments:
Hi Mildred,
As an educational diagnostician I work closely with our school administrators in monitoring special education students discipline. I find that for the most part, administrators are not clear as to what the law says about discipline. This is hardly suprising since the law itself is not clear. Yes there is the "10 day rule" but informed discretion must exist in order to determine if there has been a pattern of behavior between student removals to rule if the 10 removals actually constituted a change of placement.
Rather than have multiple administrators interpreting this differently we have found it easier to simply request that administrators notify us (the sp.ed. dept) when they have reached 5 or 6 removals. We then hold a staffing for the student to review their behavior intervention plan and revise it if needed.
If the behaviors continue then we request notification of the 9th or 10th day of removals. We then have a manifestion determination meeting to answer the two pertninent questions: 1. Was the behavior a result of the student's disability and 2. Was the behavior a result of the school's failure to properly implement the student's IEP?
Even with this process, we still struggle with defining how a student's behavior is related to his disability. For instance, physical agression is not a dierect manifestation of an emotional disturbance but may be a by-product or the result of a coexisting diagnosis, such as conduct disorder (which alone, is not a qualifying diagnosis for ED).
Since the law is not absolutely clear as to what constitutes a change in placement the responsibility for interpreting the law falls on the administrators who issue the removals. These administrators are usually hapy to have someone else (special ed. department) share in the responsibility.
Donna
Mildred, These are very interesting points. In the past students with disabilities were disciplined rather harshly but thanks to the views of many, those students are more fairly disciplined. What I still have problems with are parents who do not want their child held responsible for their actions that have a disability. True a student with mental retardation may not be fully aware of the consequences of their actions, but a student with only a learning disability surely understand that they are expected to comply with school/classroom rules. Yet parents want to secure them being assigned disciplinary conditions by way of an IEP. How is this going to teach them to work outside the educational setting? Society is not so kind to those that have poor social skills or lack the skills to interacts with peers appropriately. As teachers, administrators,and parents we must use every moment as a teachable moment to demonstrate appropriate skills for inappropriate skills used. Students should be held accountable for their actions and not excused for misbehaviors just because they are disabled by condition. Laws are meant to protect injustice and I am surely glad times have changed for all children. However, I do feel still the education system has a way to go before consequences for actions are commensurate with the infractions committed.
Ivyspecial (Janis)
Disciplining Special Needs Children
Disciplining a child who is "differently-abled" is likely to bring out the best and the worst in a parent. Parents try to help a child make up for what's missing by increasing their love and attention, yet children with special needs trigger special frustration in parents. Be Prepared to run out of patience. Most of the parents are focussed on Down Syndrome that made them unhappier in life. Our most difficult adjustment in discipline was learning to cope with development in slow motion.
Most children go through predictable stages of development. However, most people know about when to expect what behavior and how long it will last. Parents known that two-years old temper tantrums will diminish once the child learns to speak. Knowing them that they do not have to weather this to go on forever, as do the frustrations in child and parents. For example, It may take this child a year to accomplish three month's worth of "normal" speech development.
Finally, parenting a special needs child is a touch job. In children's logic, being different equates with being inferior. This feeling may be more of a problem for siblings and other kids than for the developmentally-delayed child, at least years. Most children measure their self-worth by how they believe others perceive them.
Sign
Rosnel
This is an interesting idea as it isn't something most people would even think of. I admire your patience and hard work.
So I have to admit I'm a bit confused, this isn't my area of expertise at all. So when a student with special needs acts out and needs to be suspended, a whole chain of events must be in place before the suspension can even be executed? I don't understand the 10 day rule at all. What do they use to define discipline? When they talk about removals, where do they remove the students to? Home? Another school? What types of behavior modification is used (or can it be?) to assist the child and reduce the removals. When they remove the child what is the plan to keep their learning at the right stage? I admire all of you that work with these questions.
Special needs children do need laws that will prevent discrimination and promote equality. The problem lies in those children that are placed in special education in an attempt to remove them from the classroom for their disruptive behavior. This is the epitome of shooting yourself in the foot. Being able to discipline the child now is especially hard because of the limits that are placed. It becomes even more difficult if the behavior can be related to the disability. Placement has become more of a selective process now days, but many high school children were originally placed due to their classroom behavior.
After sitting in numerous child study meetings, I can say that where school personal make their first mistake is not knowing the laws and rights that pertain to students, espeically those students with special needs. Many actions that administration or school personel believe they are going to be able to make end up not occuring because they did not follow the appropriate chain of events that should be occuring. I have wondered and briefly researched, how much school policy and law administration must know before accepting their job assignment.
Mildred,
I agree that there have many positive changes regarding the treatment of special education students in schools. When I was growing up, we never saw special ed students. They were relegated to special classes and never integrated with regular ed students.
Today, the majority of students are included at least part of the school day. Even our most severely disabled students attend classes with regular ed students. The benefits for all students are innumerable. Watching the students interact, how can anyone think that both are not benefiting from the exchange?
Robilowe
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