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CHADD: IDEA DISCIPLINE PROVISIONS HOLD PROMISE FOR BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS

October 13, 1999

WASHINGTON - They may be complicated, adding paperwork and meetings to educators' and parents' already busy schedules, but the more detailed behavioral intervention plans required by the 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act will ultimately serve special ed. students better, Iowa administrative law judge Carl Smith says. Speaking last week at the annual Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder conference, Smith suggested the law's discipline provisions, released in detail last May, will keep educators and administrators "honest" when looking for a way to handle a student with behavioral problems.

Under prior versions of IDEA, there has been a distinct lack of recognition of behavioral needs, argued Smith. As a result, many schools have resorted to suspension and expulsion too often as the primary intervention for a student with behavioral problems. IDEA tries to push educators to view students with disabilities as people who need additional help, rather than as "bad kids," he said. The new discipline provisions make it harder for a teacher or administrator to jump to a quick decision to suspend or expel the student without data to back it up. "I believe one of the prime intents of behavioral intervention plans is to keep us all honest about this stuff," said Smith, who is also on the Drake University faculty and the CHADD board of directors.

IDEA '97's basic discipline provisions codify placement in interim alternative settings, the requirement that a behavior must be examined as a possible manifestation of the student's disability, the parent's appeal process and law enforcement and judicial authorities' roles. Bearing most of the burden of implementing the new rules are the school staffs, Smith noted. Under the new IDEA rules, "there is a lot on the platter, a lot of expectations," he said. However, parents and teachers alike argue most school staff members, other than specialists like school psychologists, are not yet qualified to handle behavioral problems in any manner, much less comply with the new law.

A byproduct of IDEA's more clearly delineated rules for creating and following a behavioral intervention plan, Smith believes, is that schools may begin to include lessons on appropriate behavior and anger management skills as part of classroom instruction. "Educators have in some cases really looked upon that as something somebody else does," he said. Teachers and schools must stop saying "We don't do 'behavior,'" he added.

In fact, CHADD maintains in its position paper on discipline issues that the principles guiding behavior intervention apply equally well to general ed. students, not just those eligible for 504 plans under the Americans with Disabilities Act or individualized education plans under IDEA. "I believe these elements really do cross over beyond special education," Smith agreed. "There are some very salient concepts in there."8