Administrators have to oversee a lot of stuff. So, when some kid is wrecking havoc on the school, things tend to get pretty bad before anyone moves forward with getting the kid evaluated, mostly because the process is confusing and there’s nobody who really knows that to do in most buildings.

I was writing a response about this very topic tonight for a class I’m taking. I’m going to share it here. If you’re a SPED teacher, share this with your principal, then sit him/her down and have The Talk. Preferably BEFORE you really need it.

There’s nothing like having the “Eligibility Talk” with teachers to get my blood pressure up. I swear, it makes talking to my own kids about sex look like a walk in the park. In my current capacity (leading a new program for EBD), I get to field a lot of “I’ve got this kid who needs to come to your program!” requests. Nobody seems particularly happy when I tell them that they don’t just get to place a kid “because he’s always getting in trouble.” Some of the principals at the home schools “get it” (i.e. remember the contents of chapter three of this book), and others don’t (i.e. do not really understand the eligibility process and are hopeful that I will make the child either a. eat magic beans that will cure him of ODD, or b. roll him up in a rug and transport him to my program under cover of night. FYI…neither option meets the requirements for determining program eligibility.

For purposes of sharing what I know best, within the context of this assignment, I’ll discuss the eligibility process for determining what sorts of services a student with significant behavior disorders might require–and how to get those services in place. I could just as easily put some focus on looking at academic needs, but, chances are, there are lots of qualified SPED teachers who will already understand that process in your building…and behavioral problems can wreck the sanity, productivity, and general peace of your building faster than you can say “How dare you throw that chair at me!”

As an administrator, you’ll probably have an inkling pretty quickly about which kids are ornery, and which kids may well have something more going on. The trick to handling things sooner rather than later is to begin documentation as soon as you start to get that FIRST INKLING. If you document stuff well and don’t wind up putting the kid on a behavior goal or a BIP, you’re not out too much time. If you DO end up feeling like you need to push forward for those interventions, you’re well on your way. The fact is, under IDEA, you can’t start that reevaluation or initial evaluation for special education services until you can prove (in writing and practice) that you have exhausted every other MTSS tier 1 and 2 support your team can provide. And, honestly, for about 99% of the kids who are struggling behaviorally, employing those tier 1 and 2 supports will do the trick (provided, of course, they are implemented with fidelity and consistency).

I advise teachers/administrators to do a couple of things right away. Write a description of each incident in ABC data collection format (I’ll include a link to a form I use), coupled with either frequency count or duration. Every time the kid has what we, in my program, call a “major incident,” we add an entry to the form, which we keep in a Google doc that is shared with the team, as well as the parent (who only gets view-only access). Start the phone calls home; the parents will either be a big help, providing strategies to use with the kid that actually work well (in which case, hooray, problem solved), will be embarrassed that their kid is acting out at school, or will be spitting mad that you lying jackwagons are picking on their kid. Good documentation helps with any and all of these scenarios.

Have teachers and other staff begin to keep data about strategies that are being employed with the student, along with what the results of these are. If, after a few weeks and lots of strategies later, the student isn’t showing improvement, you’ll have a solid case for involving the school psych to get parental permission to open an evaluation (or reevaluation) on the student to determine if he/she meets eligibility for more/different/new special education services. I encourage you NOT to wait until the problem has been going on for months and months to begin this process; a reevaluation or initial evaluation are time-consuming and take a while to complete. Likewise, don’t open a file on a kid during the first week of school (for the same reason). An an LEA (that’s you, administrators), make sure you’re staying in the loop throughout the process and are attending meetings. Keep the LEA person consistent throughout the process (don’t have a different LEA attend each meeting) in order to make sure you’ve got your eye on things; even really good school psychs and behavior people sometimes miss a consent form (which will result in drama like a telenovela).

The checklists on pages 54, 55, and 56 of the course text (A Principal’s Guide to Special Education, David F. Bateman and C. Fred Bateman, 2014) are solid guides. However, in a crunch, make sure you’ve got your eye on the following items as LEA:

1. Consent forms (Notice and Consent for Initial Evaluation/Reevaluation, Consent for SPED Action, etc.)–make sure everybody (primarily the parent/guardian) signs off before you get started, or nothing you do will “count” later on. And check the dates–twice. Make sure NOBODY starts anything with that reevaluation or initial evaluation prior to the date you obtained parental consent (makes a bunch of drama).

2. Having all the required people attend the meetings. An IEP team MUST have the following: LEA (you, the administrator), SPED teacher, general education teacher, interpreter of results (usually the school psych, once you’re off and running with the data collection stuff), parent or guardian (you can’t do ANYTHING unless they sign off on it, so at least get them to agree to do a phone conference if they won’t come in person, then get them to sign the papers after), the kid (if it’s appropriate), other specialists who might be consulting (this is usually my role as the behavior specialist, but sometimes I put myself as the SPED teacher and have another member of my staff serve as the “behavior person”).

3. Watch the data collection practices. Make sure the team is documenting what they observe, what strategies they’re trying, and how well those strategies are working IN WRITING. If you can’t prove it, it’s like it never happened! It’s generally considered best practice to have two different data collection methods (pairing up ABC and either duration or frequency count are pretty typical when you’re looking at behavior…the methodology for academic goals is a lot more straightforward, and you won’t have a lot of trouble finding someone to help you with those in most buildings).

Here are some links to form examples for behavior data:

https://www.enraged2engaged.com/writingGoals.html (Links to an external site.)

Here are some links to a sample of a strategies matrix (where you document all the strategies you’ve used to help a kid). This one is a filled-in example:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O5_7jHRawLO-hwKgdVMcrk0dDFK7wsxhl4sYtF6igaM/edit (Links to an external site.)

If you get to the point where your team determines that a kid DOES need a behavior goal added to the IEP, here are some examples of “good” goals (since you and your teachers won’t see these all the time like you will the academic goals):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3da_KPoLQFOTVJRRWNxbWxzNUk/view

Here are some descriptions of the different types of behavior data your team might use, so you’ll have an idea what people are talking about:

http://www.pent.ca.gov/beh/fa/datacollection_dk.pdf