Question:

A 5th grade student with a history dating back to kindergarten of significant behavior problems including running out of classroom, chronic verbal and physical interruptions during instruction, verbal defiance toward teacher, chronic task refusal. I am the Special Education teacher and I would like to evaluate the child with functional analysis and develop a behavior support plan. The barriers I face are the Principal and School Psych. believing that the child will not "qualify" for any Special Education label (either SLD or ED), since we do not have a category of Behavior Disorder in the state of California. The child's academic discrepancies are only moderate (he reads at grade level, and "tests" well in math, although he never completes classroom assignments). The Principal's preference is to send the student to the "Opportunity Class" (an alternative education setting). I am troubled, since the student has had such a lengthy history of behavior problems, with no attempts by school to provide behavior support---the school historically has simply used punitive measures (in-and-out of school suspensions and detentions).

Answer:

Dear Special Education Teacher,

How wonderful of you to take on this responsibility, and how very unfortunate that this spirit is not shared by your colleagues. I, of course, agree with you totally, and so does the principle of Least Restrictive Environment!

Last month, I recommended the Behavior Support Plan developed by my colleague, Diana Browning Wright:

http://www.calstat.org/blank_plan.pdf
http://www.calstat.org/annotated_plan.pdf
http://www.calstat.org/ralph.pdf

But Behavior Support Plans have no chance of succeeding if there isn't a team effort or if punitive methods are the responses of choice by the administration.

Perhaps the principal would be more open to school wide behavior programs. Some are highlighted in a previous page: http://www.askaspecialist.ca.gov/archives/2001/behavior/December_2001.htm, but this is not going to help the student you write of soon enough. Pass this along to him or her:

What do we know?

• Coercion without caring doesn't eliminate problems nor reform ineffective environments
• Opportunities to forge relationships with caring adults coupled with engaging curriculum prevents discipline problems
• Discipline that is fair, corrective and includes therapeutic relationship building with students reduces the likelihood of further problems
• Solutions are found when behavior is seen as symptomatic of underlying problems that can be addressed with interventions and/or environment changes, rather than as requiring a sole focus on punishment
• Unacceptable student behavior exists in an ecology-solutions require addressing student needs, environmental conditions, teacher interactions and curriculum/student mismatch
• Suspension/Expulsion over reliance does not change the breeding ground of school dysfunction and student alienation
• Dangerous students do NOT become less dangerous to other students when they are not being educated in an appropriate school setting, they become more so!
• Schools-within-a-school and other peer relationship groups to reduce student alienation can dramatically reduce acting out in schools, especially large ones
• Balancing Zero Tolerance for violence, disruption and failure with Zero Personal rejection for an individual student "leaves no student behind"

From: "Effective Discipline for All Students" by Diana Browning Wright

Forming a caring personal relationship with this student may be the only feasible response available to you at this time. The notion of the "resilient child", one who survives against all odds, might offer an approach. Research on the resilient child supports the notion that those who "attracted favorable attention from at least one adult who responded to them with affection and interest…seemed to act as a life preserver which kept the child afloat in a turbulent environment. This critical person was not necessarily a parent. A grandparent, an older sibling, a sitter, or a teacher could fill the role as long as he or she "accepted the child unconditionally, regardless of temperamental idiosyncrasies, physical attractiveness, or intelligence." (http://www.nncc.org/Guidance/resil.child.html). You may be the only reinforcing link he has to school, the only thing that enables him to get there each day. Build in some special moments of each day in which you reach out to him and let him know that there is some adult who regards him as a worthwhile individual.

Thanks for your question and your concern.

Coming next month: ideas for working with a student with selective mutism.