Discipline and Special Education Students

People have many misconceptions about special education programs and students. There is even a hint of fear in the faces of visitors to schools with active special education programs. People aren’t mean, just ill-informed. It’s true that many special education children need extra discipline to thrive. Structure seems to be so very important to many children. Structure gives kids a sense of security; it’s always good to know what’s expected of you. This is the crux of any classroom management program, carefully defined and communicated expectations.

It’s not surprising that student discipline is a major issue when discussing special education.  Discipline is a hot button for many parents.  They want to be very sure their children are treated fairly when any type of punishment is administered.  Special education students have all the rights of due process that any other student may have, but they are also protected further by their IEP’s.

In school, students are generally expected to follow a set code of conduct.  That conduct is interpreted throughout the school by both teachers and administrators.  In individual classrooms the teacher is responsible for keeping order but has some fairly wide latitude in most schools about what will be allowed and what will not. A school with great leadership will have a consistent and fair set of codes of conduct for all children, but special education teachers are brought into the planning of the expectations early in the process.

The committee that meets to develop each IEP must determine if a student’s disability is defined by particular types of misbehavior.  In other words, a typical student who curses aloud in class would be punished for disrupting the class and making poor choices.  But a special education student that has been diagnosed with Tourette syndrome would be doing no more than exhibiting a characteristic of his/her disability.  To punish that person would be like punishing another student whose temperature went up because he had the flu.

Similarly, students with AD/HD may call out more often than other students.  They will also wiggle more and get up and move around the class.  These are not behaviors the teacher wants to ignore, but the key is to continually remind students of what appropriate behavior looks like in your school.

Most IEP’s include a discipline plan so that special education students face certain consequences for their inappropriate behavior. Many districts in the country are working on professional development programs with a protocol called RTI (Response to Intervention). It’s a leveled set of guidelines that define how a student will learn and behave. Teachers are being trained to use it to provide additional structure and support in the classroom.

It’s also a way to prevent unnecessary referrals to special education classrooms by teachers who are struggling with classroom management issues. With this program, it is carefully spelled out what is expected, and it provides ways for teachers to intervene on behalf of a student who is taking longer to adapt to the classroom rules than others.

Parents need to understand the programs schools have adopted for classroom management and discipline. This high level of understanding helps them become better partners in the education of the children.

Grant Name:   Standard Charitable Foundation Grants

Funded By:  Standard Charitable Foundation

P: 971.321.3162
F: 971.321.5243

The Standard
Public Affairs P12B
1100 SW 6th Ave
Portland OR 97204

Description:  Areas of funding interest include Community Development, Education Effectiveness, Disability and Health.

Program Areas:  Adult Literacy, After-School, Arts, At-Risk/Character, Community Involvement/Volunteerism, Disabilities, Early Childhood, Family Services, General Education, Health/PE, Homeless, Math, Reading, Safe/Drug Free Schools, Science/Environmental, Social Studies, Special Education.

Recipients:  Public School, Other

Proposal Deadline:  5/1/14

Average Amount:  varies

Website: click here

Availability:  All States

Special Education Teachers – Unique Professional Journeys

As a young teacher, I took great pride in my choice to become a special education teacher. My early assignments were in resource rooms where students came to me with many different challenges. In those days, we still used words like “retardation” to label and describe low functioning students (my age is showing). My specialty was Learning Disabilities and all the variations in learning styles that “LD” evoked. It takes great stamina and a special balance between caring and strictness with students to be a really great SPED teacher. I excelled in the first, failed miserably in the second. It happens often in classrooms, teachers step over an invisible line to become a friend. It’s not what they need. Fortunately, I knew this and worked hard to get training in classroom management techniques that proved very helpful in sorting out these priorities.

I was always struck by how often SPED referrals were generated by discipline and behavior problems that teachers couldn’t handle in the regular classroom. It’s actually still a big problem in schools, students are referred for the wrong reasons, clogging the system and costing money to evaluate and assign (or not). We need to find a way to support new teachers to help them with classroom management skills. I’ve seen referrals “go away” once a teacher is guided to find in-class solutions to tricky behaviors. RTI (Response to Intervention) shows great promise in providing whole building solutions to these problems.

After many years, I became aware of new technologies that showed promise for remediation of reading and math disabilities. I shifted my focus from working with slow and reading impaired students, to finding technologies that could be implemented in the classroom for real learning success. Our kids were responding so favorably to computers and certain learning software. I went back to school and received a master’s degree in library science with a concentration in technology integration. I never looked back.

I tell a personal story because it’s unique; all special education teachers arrive at their choices of classrooms in their own way and time. Administrators are often just grateful to have specialists on their staff to handle tough behaviors by keeping kids quiet and learning in a classroom.

These days, it’s tempting to plug a student into a computerized solution if nothing else is working. All the IEP’s and core meetings in the world can’t fix some of the problems we are seeing in society and families that impact student learning. There are solutions “in the cloud” that show promise, distance learning opportunities where a student may have an online mentor to guide them through tricky math and reading assignments. There’s something attractive about this online presence, non-judgmental and private. The student isn’t embarrassed to reveal his deficiencies in as glaring a way as he might in the traditional classroom environment. The opportunities are there to explore, the danger lies in keeping rigor in the quality of instruction that is provided.

Another thing I learned during my first 15 years in education was that many principals, especially old-school principals, are not good at supporting their teachers.  There needs to be a whole building effort to construct a special education program that provides support for students, but also can be pointed to for best practices in regular classrooms.

The law says we are supposed to provide the least restrictive environment for all students, removing kids from classrooms and placing them in resource rooms for at least part of the day provides an “escape-valve” for kids who just need some extra support. Today, with all the great possibilities that technology may provide, we need to work in teams to make informed decisions about educational methods and materials.

I see a grant writing solution for everything these days. In the case of special education, it might just be wise to seek some funds for a process of reflection. Professional development grants are fairly easy to get, grantors like to think their support is changing school culture in fundamental ways, and the best way is to train teachers to work together for improvement of instruction throughout the school community.

Baker & Taylor/YALSA Conference Educational Grants from American Library Association. This grant is funded by the Baker and Taylor Company. The two grants of $1,000 each are awarded to librarians who work directly with young adults in either a public or school library to enable them to attend the Annual Conference for the first time. Applications must be received in the YALSA office by December 1.

States: All states
Average amount: $1000.00
Address: American Library Association, 50 E Huron, Chicago, IL 60611
Telephone: 800-545-2433 ext 4387
Email: ngilbert@ala.org
Website: click here
Eligibility: public school, other
Program funded: library, professional development
Deadline to apply: 12/1/2013
Deadline comments: December 1 is the annual deadline