Schools Arresting Kids for Minor Behaviors; IDEA 2004 - IEPs for Kids with Behavior Problems

Sheila

Moderator
There are many internal links on this web page. Click on www.wrightslaw.com/nltr/06/nl.1025.htm to access them.

"1. Help! Schools Arresting Kids for Minor Behaviors
"Schools are having children with disabilities arrested for behaviors related to their disabilities. An outburst of any kind - a child who throws down a pencil during testing, or a child with autism who pushes another child who is pushing and shoving - is met with handcuffs and juvenile detention."

"Once the child is arrested, the school claims the situation is out of their hands - there is nothing they can do. What can we do to stop this practice?"

In What to Do When Schools Have Children Arrested for School-Related Behavior Problems, Pete Wright offers strategies to turn this negative experience into a positive outcome for the child.

Pete writes, "When a child with a disability is arrested for school-related behavior, this is an excellent opportunity to use the power of the juvenile court to force the school district to implement a good plan for the child - and have the Court monitor the school's progress." Read article

Learn more children with behavior problems. Learn more about juvenile justice and special education.


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2. IDEA 2004: What You Need to Know About IEPs for Children with Behavior Problems
"The school had my child with autism arrested. The charges were dismissed but I am afraid this will happen again. What can I do?"

In IDEA 2004: What You Need to Know About IEPs for Children with Behavior Problems, Pat Howey answers this parent's questions and offers strategies to use in dealing with this difficult situation.

As Pat explains, IDEA 2004 and the special education regulations include specific requirements for IEPs of children whose behavior impedes their learning or the learning of others -- including the training of teachers to use positive behavioral interventions and strategies.

More Ask the Advocate articles by Pat Howey. More What You Need to Know About IDEA 2004 articles.

Related Information

Preparing for IEP Meetings: Providing Information & Sharing Concerns by Pat Howey

10 Tips: How to Use IDEA 2004 to Improve Your Child's Special Education Program by Wayne Steedman, Esq.

Tip: If you want to learn to be a more effective advocate for a child with a disability, please join Pat Howey and Wayne Steedman for a Wrightslaw Special Education Law and Advocacy program in Champaign, IL on Saturday, October 28, 2006.

Pat and Wayne are also presenting a two-day Wrightslaw Special Education Law and Advocacy Boot Camp in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on November 4-5, 2006.


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3. Teacher Asks "What Are School's Obligations to Child with Emotional & Behavior Problems? "
"A student is a 15-year-old tenth grader who is diagnosed as 'seriously emotionally disturbed.' He is functioning on a 2nd grade level in academics. His placement is in a self-contained classroom, with a few hours in general education."

"What obligations do we have? Must we continue to provide special education services to him in this setting if we believe he is a danger to himself or others? What about the safety of the other students, teachers, and administrators?"

Pete answers these questions with a few of his own - and offers a plan to help the child - in What Are the School's Obligations to a Child with Emotional and Behavior Problems?

Learn more about children with emotional and behavior problems.



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4. Special Education Law & Advocacy Programs in IL & OK- Boot Camps in FL & MD

Wrightslaw offers a variety of special education law and advocacy programs taught by nationally-known experts in the field.

The Fall 2006 schedule includes these programs:

October 28: Champaign, IL - Special Education Law & Advocacy Training by Wayne Steedman and Pat Howey, sponsored by the C-U Autism Network. Download Registration Form.

December 5: Oklahoma City, OK - Special Education Law & Advocacy Training sponsored by Oklahoma Disability Law Center. Speakers: Pete and Pam Wright.

* Boot Camps *

November 4-5: Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Special Education Law & Advocacy Bootcamp by Wayne Steedman and Pat Howey, sponsored by the Unicorn Children's Foundation. Download Flyer & Registration Form
November 10-11: Columbia, MD - Special Education Law & Advocacy Boot Camp by Pete and Pam Wright, sponsored by the Howard County Autism Society. Download Flyer & Registration Form

2006-2007 Schedule l Program Descriptions l Online Training

We are now scheduling programs for 2007 and 2008. If you are interested in bringing a Wrightslaw program to your community, please read the Conference Information.

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5. Subscription & Contact Info
The Special Education Advocate is a free online newsletter about special education legal and advocacy issues, cases, and tactics and strategies. Newsletter subscribers also receive "alerts" about new cases, events, and special offers on Wrightslaw books. Subscribe

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When Schools Have Children Arrested for School-Related
Behavior Problems
by Pete Wright, Esq.

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Question: "Schools are having children with disabilities arrested for behaviors related to their disabilities. An outburst of any kind - a child who throws down a pencil during testing, or a child with autism who pushes another child who is pushing and shoving - is met with handcuffs and juvenile detention.

"Once the child is arrested, the school claims the situation is out of their hands - there is nothing they can do. What can we do to stop this practice?"

Pete Answers: This practice is not new. Schools were having children arrested for behavior related to their disabilities long before before Public Law 94-142 was enacted in 1975.

I am fortunate because I worked in the juvenile justice system for 10 years before going to law school. I knew that juvenile court Judges and juvenile probation staff were frustrated with schools, especially with special education. Schools are always looking for ways to exclude kids who are more difficult to educate and use juvenile courts as a way to accomplish this.

Because I worked in juvenile justice, when I was licensed to practice law in 1978, I was often appointed to represent children in juvenile court.

Use the Power of the Juvenile Court

When a child with a disability is arrested for school-related behavior, this is an excellent opportunity to use the power of the juvenile court to force the school district to implement a good plan for the child - and have the Court monitor the school's progress.

Junk IEPs
In most cases, the child's IEP is junk - it is inadequate and needs to be completely revised to address this child's needs. If the IEP is not based on current data and does not include present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, the child needs to be reevaluated.

You want current information on the child's academic skills, especially reading. If the child's academic skills are significantly behind the child's peer group, you would expect the child to be frustrated at school - and to develop behavior problems.

What has the school done to address these issues? (In most cases, the answer is "nothing")

Did the IEP Team Consider "Special Factors"?

The law requires the IEP team to consider "special factors," including behavior that impedes the child's learning or the learning of other children, when they develop a child's IEP.

Did the school complete a functional behavioral assessment on the child? Did the IEP team develop a behavior intervention plan? Did the IEP team develop positive behavioral interventions and strategies to address the behavior? Did school personnel actually implement these positive behavioral interventions and strategies?

Did the school revise the child's IEP and behavior plan to address the behavior that led the school staff to have the child arrested? Did the school train the child's teachers to use positive behavior interventions, as required by law?

To learn more about IEPs for children with behavior problems, read IDEA 2004: What You Need to Know About IEPs for Children with Behavior Problems.

Educate the Probation Officer

In most cases, Juvenile Probation Officers are valuable allies. When one of my kids was arrested, I would educate the Probation Officer about the child's disability, what the child needed, and what would happen if the child did not receive the necessary services.

Subpoena the Special Education Director

After a child is arrested, there will be an adjudicatory hearing (finding of fact, determination of guilt or innocence) or (depending on the Judge, Probation Officer, or facts of case) a dispositional hearing (figuring out what to do once Court determined it had jurisdiction).

I would subpoena the special education director to testify at the hearing.

When I put the Special Education director on the stand, like any other witness, she was nervous and scared. I got permission from the Judge to label the Special Education director as a "hostile witness" so I could use cross examination, rather than direct examination.

With cross, I was able to chew and chew and get lots of admissions that I could use at that time -- and later, in a due process hearing, if necessary. (I always had a court reporter transcribing the hearing.)

After I did this to a Special Education director for the first time, I was in a due process hearing with her a few weeks later. During a recess, she said she had never been so scared in her life. I never had to do this with that school district again.

At that point, I realized what a great weapon this was for the kids I represented. I followed the same approach in the other jurisdictions. It worked like a charm.

Ask the Judge to Monitor the School's Progress

At the end of the Hearing, the Judge entered Orders directing school to do x, y, and z. Another hearing was scheduled in three months to see what had happened and ensure that the school followed these Orders.

In most cases, when the return date rolled around, things were in good shape. The school district rolled out the red carpet for the child because they were afraid of going back to Court and answering to the Judge.

Sometimes the case would be dismissed at that point. In other cases, I would ask for another review hearing three, four or six months later. The fact that the Court was still monitoring the child's situation helped to ensure that the school continued to do what they were supposed to do.

Case Dismissed

When a youngster came to me with trumped up school/criminal charges, I sent my standard representation letter to the Special Education director, and requested the entire file. After the Special Education director received my letter, he or she often forced the principal (or whoever had filed the juvenile court complaint) to contact the court and get the case dismissed, with no appearances by anyone.

Juvenile Court Staff as Your Allies

The Juvenile Court Judge and juvenile court staff can be great allies in these cases.

I often received a call from one of the clerks of court, telling me that Juvenile Court Judge Jones had appointed me to represent a youngster -- and (by the way) the Judge thinks you might need to get the school district involved in the case. The Judge would like to hear from them, on the witness stand.

Nothing further needed to be said. I knew what my charge was from the Judge.

Bottom line: When you are fed a sour lemon, think about how you can turn it into lemonade, so it leads to positive changes for the kid.

Dealing with Arrogant School Officials

In my experience, people who work in affluent school districts are far more difficult to deal with that people who work in inner city or rural school districts. As Pam says, people who work in affluent districts are subject to "organizational narcissism." School personnel in affluent districts tend to view themselves as superior to people who work in less affluent districts. This belief is often manifested as arrogance. Most Judges do not share their beliefs.

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More Special Education & Juvenile Justice Resources at Juvenile Justice

From Emotions to Advocacy: The Parents' Journey
Undetected, unremediated learning disabilities are causally connected to many other serious life problems—from juvenile delinquency and substance abuse to severe marital problems, domestic violence, and chronic unemployment. Typically, learning disabled adults develop negative views of themselves as lazy or stupid—or worse. Most of these adults—numbering in the millions—have developed a strong, pervasive sense of having failed.

Stopping the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Pipeline is an ongoing effort to stop the flow of children from schools to jails. In August 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with attorneys from the Southern Disability Law Center and the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, obtained a class-wide settlement agreement affecting all special education students in Jefferson Parish.

Special Education and the Juvenile Justice System Juvenile Justice Bulletin from The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). This bulletin summarizes provisions of federal law as they pertain to special education and juvenile justice.

Created: 10/25/06
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What You Need to Know About IDEA 2004:
IEPs for Children with Behavior Problems
by Pat Howey, Paralegal and Advocate
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Question: Help! The school had my child with autism arrested. The charges were dismissed but I am afraid this will happen again. What can I do?

Answer: You are wise to think this may happen again. You need to write a letter and request that the IEP team meet to review and revise your child's IEP, in light of the behavior issues that led them to have him arrested. Your letter should include relevant information about your child's history and your concerns. (For more about this, read Preparing for IEP Meetings: Providing Information & Sharing Concerns)

But first, you need to learn what the law requires IEP teams to do when when children with disabilities have behavior problems.

The IDEA 2004 regulations and commentary to the regulations were published in August 2006. The law, federal regulations and commentary describe what IEP teams must do when a child's behavior "impedes the child's learning or the leading of other children."

Do not assume that your child's IEP team is knowledgeable about these requirements.

The questions and answers about the requirements for meeting the needs of children with behavior problems (below) are taken from IDEA 2004, the special education regulations, and the Commentary.

Note: Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition includes IDEA 2004 and the special education regulations. The book will be available in late Fall 2006. You can download the special education regulations and commentary and other resources from IDEA 2004 at Wrightslaw.

If a child’s behavior impedes the child’s learning or that of others, must IEP Teams base positive behavioral interventions and support on a functional behavioral assessment?

Yes. Conducting functional behavioral assessments typically precedes developing positive behavioral intervention strategies.

Does “consideration of special factors” address the behavioral needs of children with disabilities in the IEP process?

Yes. The IEP Team determines whether a child needs positive behavioral interventions and supports. If the behavior of a child impedes the child’s learning or the learning of other children, the IEP Team must consider the use of positive behavioral supports, supports, and other strategies to address that behavior. (20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(3)(B)(i), 34 C.F.R. § 300.324(a)(2)(i))

If the child's behavior impedes the child's learning or that of others, must the IEP Team develop a plan to address these problem behaviors?

Yes. If the child's behavior impedes his learning or the learning of others, the IEP team must include strategies, including positive behavioral interventions, supports, and other strategies to address that behavior. If the child's behavior that impedes learning is not addressed in the IEP, the IEP Team must review and revise the IEP to ensure that the child receives appropriate positive behavioral interventions and supports and other strategies. (34 C.F.R. § 300.324(a)(2)(i) and 34 C.F.R. § 300.324(a)(3)(i).

Must school districts train teachers regarding the use of positive behavioral interventions and support?

Yes. School districts must provide teachers with high-quality professional development, including the use of scientifically based instructional practices. School districts must ensure that personnel have the skills and knowledge necessary to improve the academic achievement and functional performance of children with disabilities. Each district must ensure that all personnel necessary are appropriately and adequately prepared. (20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(14), 34 C.F.R. § 300.156)

Each State must establish and maintain qualifications to ensure that personnel are appropriately and adequately prepared and trained, and have the content knowledge and skills to serve children with disabilities. (20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(14), 34 C.F.R. § 300.156(a))

Must school districts use research-based positive behavioral supports and systematic and individual research-based interventions when addressing the behavioral needs of children with disabilities in their IEPs?

Yes. School districts must ensure that scientifically based research drives their professional development activities and services. (34 C.F.R. § 300.226(b)(1))

The implementation of early intervening services specifically focuses on professional development for teachers and other school staff to enable such personnel to deliver scientifically based academic and behavioral interventions, and providing educational and behavioral evaluations, services, and supports. (20 U.S.C. § 1413(f)(2), 34 C.F.R. § 300.226(b)(1))

The definition of "scientifically based research" is included in the regulations (34 C.F.R. § 300.35). Scientifically based research is referenced in IDEA 2004 (20 U.S.C. § 1411(e)(2)(C)(xi)). The full definition of the term “scientifically based research” includes that a peer-reviewed journal published the research, or that a panel of independent experts through a comparably rigorous, objective, and scientific review approved it.

Must public agencies provide positive behavioral interventions and supports for all children identified as having an emotional disturbance?

No. IEP Teams make decisions on an individual basis for each child. IEP Teams need not consider such interventions, supports, and strategies for a particular group of children, or for all children with a particular disability. IEP Teams must consider the use of positive behavioral interventions and supports, and other strategies to address the behavior of a child whose behavior impedes the child’s learning or that of others. (20 U.S.C. 1414(d)(3)(B)(i)), 34 C.F.R. § 300.324(a)(2)(i))

More IEP & IDEA 2004 Resources

IDEA 2004: IEPs, Highly Qualified Teachers & Research Based Instruction Learn about new language in IDEA 2004 that is designed to ensure that children with disabilities are taught by highly qualified teachers and receive research based instruction. This article includes new requirements for personnel training, IEPs, and scientifically based instruction.

IDEA 2004: What You Need to Know About IEPs & IEP Meetings - How did IEPs change under IDEA 2004? What does the law say about developing, reviewing and revising IEPs? Who may be excused from IEP meetings, when, how? When can the child's IEP be changed without an IEP meeting? What services must be provided when a child transfers to a district in the same state? A different state? What are “multi-year IEPs”?

IDEA 2004: What You Need to Know About IEP Team Members & IEP Team Attendance - Learn about IEP team members and IEP team attendance, when team members may be excused from a meeting, and what parents and the school district must do before a team member may be excused.

10 Tips: How to Use IDEA 2004 to Improve Education for Children with Disabilities - Parent attorney Wayne Steedman explains how IDEA 2004 creates a higher standard for a free, appropriate public education and how parents can use NCLB to obtain a better IEP for their children. Learn how to include research based methodology in the IEP and ensure how to that the IEP goals are comprehensive, specific -- and measurable. Wayne advises you about pitfalls to avoid and offers advice about how you can resolve disputes without resorting to a due process hearing - and what you should do if you cannot resolve your dispute.

About Pat Howey

Pat Howey is an advocate who has helped parents obtain special education services and resolve special education disputes. Read more of Pat's answers to questions submitted by people just like you in Ask the Advocate.

As a member of the Wrightslaw Speakers Bureau, Pat provides training for parents, educators, and others who want to ensure that children receive quality special education services.

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Juvenile Justice
Delinquency l Juvenile Justice and Education l Resources
Articles | Safe Schools | Publications

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Juvenile Justice involvement in kids within the special education system is a hot topic. When the federal special education law was passed in 1975, Congress found that most children with disabilities were not receiving an appropriate education - and that millions of children were excluded from school altogether.

Today, schools continue to suspend and expel students with disabilities for behaviors that are a direct result of their disabilities. These children often become delinquent, feel worthless, are viewed as "failures," stop trying, and/or end up in the juvenile justice system as a result of their treatment by those who are charged with educating them.

Did you know that...

Seventy percent of children in the juvenile justice system have educational disabilities -- the vast majority have an Emotional Disturbance (ED) and/or Specific Learning Disabilities?
Children with ED fail more courses, earn lower grade point averages, miss more days of school, and are retained more often than other students with disabilities?
Children with ED have the lowest graduation rates of all children with disabilitiess, nationally, only 35% graduate from high school (compared to 76% for all students)?
Children with ED are three times more likely to be arrested before leaving school, when compared to all other students?
For children with ED who drop out of school, 73 percent are arrested within five years?
Children with ED are twice as likely to live in a correctional facility, halfway house, drug treatment center, or "on the street" after leaving school, when compared to students with other disabilitie?.
Children with ED are twice as likely to become teenage mothers as students with other disabilities? [Source: Stopping the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Pipeline]
If you are advocating for a child with these issues or you see these issues appear, the articles and resources collected on this page will help. If you are charged with educating such a child, take a moment to this about that child's problems. You can make a difference in the child's education and ultimate success in life.

Delinquency

Juvenile Defender Delinquency Notebook (PDF)
The National Juvenile Defender Center has revised and updated this manual for its 2nd edition, which is intended as an advocacy and training guide for juvenile defenders. Thirteen chapters cover everything from the initiation of the attorney-client relationship to appeals and related proceedings. Over 500 downloadable pages in which case you should stock up on ink cartridges and invest in several reams of paper. Available as a free PDF document.

Resources on Delinquency and Juvenile Justice from FAPE.org

Children of the Code Interview: Dr. Peter E. Leone on Juvenile Injustice Reading Difficulties, Special Education and Juvenile Delinquency
Dr. Leone is a Professor of Special Education who specializes in Behavior Disorders at the University of Maryland. He is the Director of The National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice which is a collaborative project involving partners from the University of Maryland, Arizona State University, the American Institutes for Research in Washington, Difficult Child, and the PACER parent advocacy center in Minneapolis.

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Juvenile Justice and Education

Strategies When Schools Have Children Arrested for School-Related Behavior Problems - Pete Wright shares strategies he used when schools had kids arrested for behavaiors related to their disabilities; juvenile courts as allies.

Stopping the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Pipeline is an ongoing effort to stop the flow of children from schools to jails. In August 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with attorneys from the Southern Disability Law Center and the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, obtained a class-wide settlement agreement affecting all special education students in Jefferson Parish. The agreement requires major systemic changes including:

improvements in the education provided to those with emotional disturbances,
reform of the parish's overly harsh disciplinary procedures,
counseling for emotionally disturbed children,
and the provision of job training and other services to help high school students transition into jobs upon graduation.
Sources for more information:

Jefferson Parish Special Education Case
Settlement Agreement (PDF)
Jefferson Parish Corrective Action Plan (PDF)
Publication: Stopping the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Pipeline by Jim Comstock-Galagan, Esq. and Rhonda Brownstein, Esq.
Special Education and the Juvenile Justice System Juvenile Justice Bulletin from The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC).
This bulletin summarizes provisions of federal law as they pertain to special education and juvenile justice. It discusses provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 1997 including: the definition of disability; free appropriate public education; identification, referral, and evaluation; the individualized education program (IEP); special education and related services, due process protections, and the "stay put" rule (that a student should usually stay in his/her current educational placement pending any court proceedings).

When Schools Criminalize Disability/Education Law Strategies for Legal Advocates
This booklet from the Center of Law and Education explores legal theories and strategies for challenging inappropriate school-initiated delinquency petitions and crime reports, and addressing their aftermath. This collection discusses approaches that, while well-grounded in law, may not have been tested in the courts. In particular, they focus on using education advocacy based on IDEA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act to hold local schools accountable when they criminalize the behavior for which they are legally obligated to provide appropriate educational services; obtain better outcomes for clients in the juvenile courts; enforce schools’ obligation to address behavioral issues as educational ones; and reduce the risk of future school-initiated delinquency petitions or crime reports.

GAO Report on Special Education: Clearer Guidance Would Enhance Implementation of Federal Disciplinary Provisions (PDF)
In the 2000-01 school year, more than 91,000 special education students were removed from their educational settings for disciplinary reasons. The GAO (General Accounting Office) was asked to determine where disciplined special education students are placed, the extent to which local school districts continue educational services for those students, and how the U.S. Department of Education provides support and oversight for special education disciplinary placements.

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Articles

From Emotions to Advocacy: The Parents' Journey
Undetected, unremediated learning disabilities are causally connected to many other serious life problems—from juvenile delinquency and substance abuse to severe marital problems, domestic violence, and chronic unemployment. Typically, learning disabled adults develop negative views of themselves as lazy or stupid—or worse. Most of these adults—numbering in the millions—have developed a strong, pervasive sense of having failed.

To Top

Resources

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention State Contacts
Includes a detailed search and clickable U.S. map to find contact information for the state representatives and organizations that administer many OJJDP programs.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
This program seeks to reduce the involvement of elementary and middle school students in delinquent behavior, violence, and gangs through its classroom curriculum, taught by law enforcement officers.

For the latest on juvenile justice issues, subscribe to any of the following e-mail lists:

JUVJUST:OJJDP's JUVJUST listserv provides information weekly on juvenile justice and other youth service-related publications, funding opportunities, and events.

OJJDP News @ a Glance: The bimonthly electronic newsletter OJJDP News @ a Glance highlights OJJDP activities, publications, funding opportunities, and upcoming events.

JUSTINFO: The National Criminal Justice Reference Service's biweekly electronic newsletter JUSTINFO offers information about publications, events, funding and training opportunities, and Web-based resources available from its federal sponsors, including the Office of Justice Programs, the National Institute of Corrections, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Subscribe or browse past issues.

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Safe Schools

Early Warning, Timely Response - A Guide to Safe Schools
Central to this guide are the key insights that keeping children safe is a community-wide effort and that effective schools create environments where children and young people truly feel connected. This is why our common goal must be to reconnect with every child and particularly with those young people who are isolated and troubled.

The Nuts and Bolts of Implementing School Safety Programs
This free publication, from the Vera Institute of Justice, helps teachers, principals, and school administrators identify effective and appropriate school safety programs. The manual identifies programs from around the country and describes the resources needed to implement each program.

School Policies and Legal Issues Supporting Safe Schools (PDF)
This free guide, from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, addresses the development and implementation of school policies that support safe schools. Section 1 provides an overview of guiding principles to keep in mind when developing policies at the district level to prevent violence. Section 2 addresses specific policy and legal components that relate to such topics as discipline and due process, threats of violence, suspension and expulsion, zero tolerance, and dress codes. Checklists are included to ensure that schools attend to due process when developing policies for suspensions or expulsions, search and seizure, or general liability issues.

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Publications

Acquiring and Utilizing Resources To Enhance and Sustain a Safe Learning Environment (PDF)
This free guide, from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Provides practical information on a spectrum of resources that concerned individuals and organizations can use in the quest to create safe schools. It draws on published research and also includes interviews with experts working on school safety issues at the state and local levels. Major topics covered include: What are resources? What role do resources play in safe school planning? Identifying and accessing resources and Appendix of online and print resources.

Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General
This report -- the first Surgeon General's report on youth violence -- is a product of extensive collaboration. It reviews a massive body of research on where, when, and how much youth violence occurs, what causes it, and which of today's many preventive strategies are genuinely effective."


Again, click on http://www.wrightslaw.com/nltr/06/nl.1025.htm to access important links in these articles.
 

Martie

Moderator
Sheila,

Thanks for posting this.

Pete Wright is a real positive guy but I have a hard time seeing how putting a child in handcuffs and ending up in juvenile detention is a "positive experience." I'm sure following Pete's advice would lead to a better outcome than not but what needs to happen is to have schools stop criminalizing behaviors that are manifestations of a child's disability. Further, in my opinion this is a direct effect of NCLB pressure.

A bad situation and another reason why if your child has any acting out behavior, he or she should not go to middle school without an IEP. In highly punitive school districts, the legal protection of an IEP is needed in elemnentary school.

Martie
 

Sheila

Moderator
This is a particularly sensitive subject for me, so I did a double take on that sentence too. lol

When I reread it, I interpreted it with the cleche of "when given lemons, make lemonade."

[ QUOTE ]
...offers strategies to turn this negative experience into a positive outcome for the child.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think NCLB has contributed; sd's use the police to push kids out of the public schools and into the juvenile justice system thereby transferring school districts' financial responsibility for children that cost more to educate than the average child.
 
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