Parents who have children with disabilities need to be aware of discipline procedures in school and your child's rights. In most cases, schools will follow the schoolwide discipline program for all students, especially with the more serious offenses (fighting, disrespect, stealing, etc.). Schools can suspend students with disabilities for up to a cumulative 10 days and still be in compliance of the Individualized Education Plan. After ten days, schools are required to take a closer look at the function of the behavior and the discipline methods. Schools may automatically complete a Manifestation Determination Review after ten days of suspension or they may look for patterns in the behaviors. If the school sees that the suspension has occurred for the same behavior, or several behaviors over a short period of time a Manifestation Determination Review is necessary.
What is a Manifestation Determination Review?
A Manifestation Determination is a review, where the school and parents meet to determine if the student's misbehavior is a result of his or her disability. It is only for students who have an IEP or a 504 Plan and it is intended to protect students that have a disability. If the misbehavior is found to be due to the disability, the school must develop a new behavior plan for the student. The IEP team must meet within ten days to develop a Behavior Intervention Plan. The purpose of the Behavior Intervention Plan, is to develop strategies to help the student with a specific behavior and to have an alternate discipline plan. If parents disagree with the decision of the Manifestation Determine Review, they have the right to appeal. Schools should provide you with those rights and inform you of the procedures upon request.
After ten suspensions, federal guidelines require that schools provide alternative services when a student can not attend school. This may be sending a packet home for the student, a teacher or related service provider visiting the student, or an alternative setting.
The most important thing to understand is that all students including those with disabilities are required to follow rules for the safety and well being of all students. However, in certain instances a particular student will need a more specific Behavior Intervention Plan. Best practice is to develop this plan prior to severe discipline actions as prevention. It is only required following a Manifestation Determination Review for a student with a disability.
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- Erin N. King
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5 comments:
This was a great explanation. In our district, parents were not required to be at manifestation determinations but they were notified about these. Does the law say anything about this? I always felt that parents should be there if we were determining the future of the student. Also, before we could do a Behavior Plan we had to complete a Functional Behavioral Assessment. I like these because it makes the team look at the behavior, what happens before the behavior occurs, and what does the student get from behaving this way. It actually explains a lot when you look at this objectively. Thanks for explaining the Manifestation Determination so clearly.
In my experience parents are always invited to the meeting. I'm not sure if that's law or just best practice. I'll try to look into that. I agree the FBA is an integral part of the Behavior Intervention Plan! Thanks for commenting.
Hi Erin! I am a School Psychologist in Missouri and I am wondering about a related question to loonyhiker's. We have invited the parent to the MD review in various ways; regular mail, certified mail, voicemail, direct spoken conversation over the phone and face to face. In each circumstance the parent indicated he would attend. He did not. We held the MD review anyway. Were we as a district within our rights to continue with the meeting since we made multiple attempts to invite the parent? We found that the behavior WAS related to the disability, and have rescheduled an IEP meeting in the hopes that dad will attend that one, so we can determine placement as related to the behavior improvement plan. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!
I would think that since you've documented several attempts, you would be safe. However, I'm not 100% about this. It may even vary from state to state. You might want to dig into your state regs to find that one out for sure.
This is a very helpful article. I have a question regarding FBA and BIPs. They are extremely helpful for students who are having behavior difficulties related to their disabilities. However, we have some cases where a student demonstrates behavior and it is not related to their disability. If a student is classified and has unrelated behaviors to their disability is an FBA BIP required? Thanks for your input.
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