As you said, they are doing a good job this year.
But in our experience with difficult child 3 (when we were at the highway school where they finally got it RIGHT) - we also had problems, mainly when we had people unfamiliar with difficult child 3 mishandlnig the situation. And even when one such mishandlnig resulted in difficult child 3 throwing chairs and other furniture in the school hall and they had to get the other kids out and wait outside until someone could talk difficult child 3 down - he was not suspended. Not even given detention. I was told about it but the school accepted responsibility for the incident and did not penalise difficult child 3. because it brought its own punishment - because he got upset, he became angry at himself. He was sat down outside the school hall with his aide who explained where he had gone wrong, but also explained how perhaps he could try to handle things differently in the future. They role-played it verbally, his class teacher also did his best to set things in place to prevent a recurrence.
The thing is - the school IS donig the right thig, as far as they can. But there will always be people who don't know him, who don't follow the IEP or for some other reason the wheels fall off. It shouldn't be considered his fault. Of course he can't behave that way, but once it escalates, it's not his fault.
The aim of discipline is to teach and to prevent. If the child was unable to prevent his own reaction, then punishment is pointless and cruel, you're only punishing a kid for what he can't help. For being who he is.
If the kid realises he did the wrong thing but even with hindsight, you can't see any other likely outcome - then again, punishment is pointless.
If they still insist that difficult child must be punished, then I ask the question - the staff who breached the agreement, what is THeiR punishment? Because it's just as reasonable to insist that ANYBODY who bears responsibility, has to take the consequences of their actions. And the very least of their consequences, should be a meeting with you (*or their supervisor) explaining what they SHOULD have done, in order to prevent a recurrence.
If nothing is done to fix this, it will happen again.
I understand that the attitude of some schools towards discipline is - we will do what we can to prevent the child escalating, but once he does, even if he as provoked badly, then it is out of our hands, he has to put up with it. Otherwise the other students will see this childbehaving badly and getting away with it, and they will think this is all very unfair.
The thing is - other kids already see that it is unfair, they know that difficult child is highly reactive. Often, the other kids play on this and use this to their own advantage. They will deliberately provoke a reactive kid in order to relive their own monotony. So when kids are punished across the board (which is NOT a level playing field, even though it is superficially being made to look like one) then it actually can encourage bullying and triggering of difficult children.
But in the case of difficult child 3 and the incident with throwing chairs - the oter kids would have seen him getting a talking to. They saw him excluded from the activity. They probably breathed a sigh of relief. But they would have known that he has less capability in terms of being able to help it, than they have. In other words, it hoovers to be difficult child 3 anyway. Cut him some slack (this is from the other kids). I never heard a word of complaint about difficult child 3 not getting punished further for that incident.
It comes down to who does this and why. If another kid chooses to act out violently, to literally throw his weight around, he is doing it knowingly and with malice aforethought. The school staff make an individual decision as to whether the act is done with cold deliberation, or after extreme accidental provocation. The punishemtn has to vary accordingly.
I still say, a kid with an IEP, who has problems because the IEP was not only not followed but was totally ignored, should not be punished. It's like punishing the blind kid for failing to copy accurately form the blackboard.
Marg
