Education Week - March 21, 2018 - 15

Critics often single out special
education students in discipline
discussions, saying that the law
makes it hard for schools to aggressively handle disruptions
from students with disabilities.
Students with disabilities are
frequently suspended and expelled, however. Federal data
from the Education Department
found that about 12 percent of
students with disabilities faced
that discipline, compared with 5
percent of students overall.
Within the universe of children
and youth with disabilities, 25
percent of long-term suspensions
and expulsions are of students
with emotional disturbances,
though they represent a fraction
of the special education population.
"The notion that a kid can't be
disciplined if they have special
needs" is incorrect, said Mark
Martin, an parent attorney based
in Baltimore. "A principal can
go ahead and do that." But once
a suspension reaches 10 days
consecutively or 15 days cumulatively, the law says that students
with disabilities are entitled to
a "manifestation determination"
to see if the problem behavior is
tied to his or her disability. Certain offenses, such as carrying a
weapon, using or selling drugs,
or causing injury, allow schools to

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There are successful tools for
working with these students. But
help often comes late in a student's academic career.
A little over half, 52 percent, of
students with emotional disturbances are 13 to 17 years old. For
the special education population
overall, it's 34 percent.
There's a couple of reasons behind that, said Sharon Hoover, an
assistant professor of child and
adolescent psychiatry at University of Maryland School of Medicine, and the co-director of the
Center for School Mental Health.
Some mental-health issues manifest themselves in adolescence, and
some student problems aren't officially diagnosed until they're hard
to ignore-and hard to treat.
But schools have developed ways
to support students with mental
health needs, Hoover said. One
model used in Baltimore County,
Md., brings community-based
mental health providers directly
into the schools so that they can
provide counseling and other support services.
Having more trained counselors
available, plus universal screening
for mental health concerns "are not
easy fixes, but they're the natural
solutions," Hoover said.
"There are a lot of interventions
that have demonstrated success,"
Hoover said, and they don't involve
harsh discipline or arming teachers-suggestions coming from the
White House. But in the immediate
aftermath of a tragedy, those interventions can be forgotten, she said.
"We need to create conditions for
kids to feel connected." she said.
Research Analyst Alex Harwin
contributed to this report.

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Digital Directions

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Students with emotional disturbances can be suspended or expelled.

unilaterally make the decision to
remove a student from a school.
"A manifestation meeting is not
a 'get-out-of-jail free' card," Martin said.
And expulsion carries its own
risks, said Joseph Erardi, the former superintendent of schools in
Newtown, Conn. He joined that
district in 2014, two years after
the deadly mass shooting that
killed 20 students and six staff
members at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
He led a group of superintendents who wrote a paper offering
best practices for school leaders
around mental-health issues in
students.
"One of the greatest takeways is
that social isolation at any point
for a complex youngster is clearly
an opportunity for that child to
move into a more difficult space
in his or her life," Erardi said. Expulsion of such a student is "extraordinarily counterproductive
to the best interest of that child."

Photos by Brandon Thibod

Students with disabilities in general, and behavioral disabilities in
particular, are more likely than
their peers in general education
to be both the victims and perpetrators of bullying. Students with
emotional disturbances also face
high rates of self-harm.
One school known nationally for
its work for students with emotional disabilities and autism is
Centennial School, in Lehigh, Pa.
The school serves students from
elementary through high school
who are placed there by several
surrounding school districts. The
school serves about 100 students
each year, with the goal of returning them to their home setting.
Centennial has been profiled for
its elimination of restraint, seclusion, and time-out rooms. Instead,
the school has clear behavioral expectations and works under the assumption that students will need
to be explicitly taught those expectations, as they would be taught
math or English.
When students act out, "we treat
those behavior errors as if they're
an academic error," said Julie
Fogt, the director of Centennial
School. "We need to teach them a
better way. We're not going to punish it out of them."

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Education Week - March 21, 2018

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