Bulletin Boards |Shopping & Classifieds |Calendar |About Us

Front page

Behavior Management

Conflict Resolution

Early Intervention

For Educators

For Families

Internet & Assistive Technology

Recreation & Sports

Specific Disabilities

State By State

Transition

Washington Watch

Site Map

LATEST IN STEADY STREAM OF DISCIPLINE MEASURES COMES FROM SENATOR ASHCROFT

May 29, 2000

WASHINGTON -- The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's discipline provisions are again under fire in Congress, despite the failure of attempts last year to pass such measures in the now-stalled Juvenile Justice bill. A new bill from Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) called the "School Safety Act of 2000," bill S. 2517 on the Senate's roster, would allow schools to stop providing educational and related services to any students, including those with disabilities, who are suspended or expelled from school in cases involving weapons, illegal drugs or assaults on teachers or other school personnel.

Ashcroft's bill, which could be attached to S. 2, the Senate bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, would amend both IDEA and the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994 to allow school personnel to discipline a student with a disability in the same manner in which they would discipline students without disabilities in those particular cases. The bill would retain the current law's permission for a hearing officer to order a change of placement of a student with a disability to an interim alternative educational setting "for not more than 45 days if the student is deemed substantially likely to engage in behaviors that will injure the student or others."

The bill shifts the power to school districts, rather than the student's IEP team, for decisions regarding whether and where the student will continue to receive educational services during the suspension or expulsion period. In addition, the bill further states the school district is not required to bear the cost of such services. The bill further states that "All due process protections afforded to students with disabilities and their parents under IDEA are not applicable to situations where a student with a disability engages in" or threatens to engage in violent behavior or incidents involving weapons or drugs. "Mediation, impartial due process hearings, appeals, civil actions, and other due process protections afforded under IDEA are no longer required in situations where students with disabilities engage in the behaviors covered above," the bill states. Instead, students with disabilities will be entitled to the same procedural safeguards and disciplinary procedures that students without disabilities receive.

Ashcroft argues the bill "addresses a serious problem for schools in Missouri and nationwide: a dual discipline system that threatens the safety of students in the classroom." Noting the bill has won support from the Missouri Education Roundtable, which is comprised of the major statewide organizations representing teachers, administrators, school boards and parents, Ashcroft calls IDEA's current discipline provisions a "lenient federal program" that for about one student in eight in Missouri "affords special protection from normal discipline, even when the student's offense involves weapons, drugs, or physical assault on teachers."

Special education advocacy groups, including the Council for Exceptional Children and the National Parent Network on Disabilities, argue the measures in Ashcroft's bill are overly harsh, unfair and alarmist. "In the vast majority of discipline cases, parents and school officials reach agreement on appropriate discipline measures within the context of the traditional IEP process," the CEC said in mid-May. In the "rare" instances that IEP teams cannot reach agreement on how to handle a specific disciplinary situation, the CEC argues, IDEA contains clear and ample guidance on how to proceed.8