Tips to Equip: Discipline Under the IEP, Part 1

Discipline under the IDEA- Part 1

In Part 1 of this series, we present an overview of the discipline process and how it is different for a child on an IEP. We also cover the importance of the Manifestation Determination meeting.

This is a very important area of the law in order to protect the child with special needs.

Historically, children of special needs were being suspended and expelled at much higher rates than general regular education students. So, Congress put in effect protections, so the child with special needs wouldn’t be punished for acts that were caused by their disability.

The law-
A removal of a child with special needs from the classroom for more than 10 school days in a school year constitutes a change of placement. And that change of placement triggers the protection of the manifestation determination meeting, which we will talk about in a bit.

The removal of 10 school days in a school year could occur consecutively, or they might occur in segments over the school year. Those segments would be counted towards the 10 day rule as long as those acts that resulted in the discipline were similar in nature.

Up to removal of the 11th day, the school can suspend a student with special needs just as they could a regular education student.

But after that 10th day, a manifestation determination meeting must be held. And the purpose of this meeting is to determine whether the child’s behavior was a manifestation of or caused by his or her disability.

If the act was caused by the child’s disability, and the law reasons that we don’t want to punish the student for that action because it is part of his/her disability.

That doesn’t mean the school can’t take other measures, such as adding behavior supports, conducting assessments. changing the child’s placement, or other IEP actions. But they can’t discipline the student.

So here is the law. Within 10 school days of the decision to change the student’s placement due to a code of conduct violation, the IEP team must review all relevant information in the students file, including the IEP, observations, and relevant parent information to determine:

1) If the conduct was caused by, or had a direct or substantial relationship to the student’s disability; and

2) Whether the conduct was directly caused by the failure to implement the IEP.

So the first requirement is to review all relevant information in the student’s file. And this goes beyond merely the student’s disability category on the IEP.

For example, if a student has a disability category of specific learning disability, but the assessments and IEP records also show that the student has ADHD (impulsivity), then School must take into consideration whether the act that was committed was impulsive or not. Because clearly impulsivity has been documented in the school’s file, and therefore must be considered beyond just the disability label of specific learning disability.