Managing Classrooms and Student Behavior

A Response to Intervention Approach for Educators

Catherine Lawless Frank, Jennifer T. Christman, Joni L. Baldwin, Stephen B. Richards

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138723122
• eBook ISBN: 9781351757379
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Managing Classrooms and Student Behavior provides the essential information necessary for understanding and applying classroom and behavior management techniques with a Response to Intervention (RTI) approach. The presentation and application of information more closely resembles the actual decision-making approaches used by individuals and teams of teachers, schools, and districts. This introductory, reader-friendly textbook can be used in undergraduate or graduate level courses with special education or both special and general education candidates. A companion website provides key ancillary materials such as PowerPoint presentations, a test bank, and an instructor's manual.

Part I
Foundations of Classroom and Behavior Management

1
Response to Intervention and the Law

An Overview

Catherine Lawless Frank

Chapter Objectives

After reading this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Summarize the laws that guide special education and protect the rights of people with disabilities.
2. Explain the ongoing cycle of assessment, analysis, decision-making, and instruction used in the Response to Intervention process.
3. Understand the components of each tier in the Response to Intervention process and how the ongoing cycle is used.

The Laws

In order to understand special education and to promote an inclusive classroom, which is essential to behavior and classroom management, it is important to be familiar with the legal framework. In the United States, there are three main laws that provide the framework, protect the rights of people with disabilities, and promote an inclusive society: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These laws ensure that people with disabilities receive reasonable accommodations and an appropriate education.

Americans With Disabilities Act

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that is designed to protect people with disabilities, including those that affect a person’s behavior, from discrimination by promoting accessibility in places of employment and entities that provide services, regardless of whether they receive federal funding. Under the ADA, a disability is a physical or mental impairment that affects one or more major life activities, such as walking, talking, working, or learning. This law guarantees a person “reasonable accommodations” based on the needs of their disability. What constitutes a reasonable accommodation varies depending on the environment and situation. Providing reasonable accommodations may mean allowing fidgets or movement breaks to accommodate a child when completing an activity in an extracurricular club, but it does not necessarily constitute changing the club’s meeting schedule for all children to accommodate one child. This law has limited influence on schools because most schools receive federal funding (Smith, 2001).

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is similar to the ADA but is designed for businesses and other entities that receive federal funding. It is also a civil rights law similar to the ADA, with the same definition of a disability (a physical or mental impairment that affects one or more major life activities) and the same requirements of reasonable accommodations. Section 504 differs from the ADA in that it is applicable to any place, program, and/or organization that receives federal financial assistance.

Because the majority of schools in the United States receive federal assistance, they must abide by Section 504. This law prevents discrimination to students with disabilities (including disabilities that impede behavior) by providing access to and reasonable accommodations within the school environment. It is not designed to provide special education services but the accommodations necessary to mitigate a person’s disability (Wright & Wright, 2015). A student who qualifies under Section 504 as having a disability could receive reasonable academic and/or behavioral accommodations but would not necessarily be entitled to the provisions of special education under IDEA. Section 504 has a broader definition of a disability than IDEA and allows students who qualify with a disability (that affects learning and/or participation in school) accommodations that they might not otherwise receive.

Determining what constitutes reasonable accommodations should be a multidisciplinary team decision. The team, consisting of general education teachers, special education teachers, parents (throughout this book, the term parents will be used to represent a student’s legal guardian or primary caregiver), school administrators, and possibly the student, may decide that reasonable accommodations for a student with attention deficit disorder are extended time on tests, preferential seating, and assistive technology to aid in writing. These accommodations are then typically written into a 504 Plan or Individualized Accommodation Plan, which is used to document the services and accommodations to be provided by the school. The components of a 504 Plan are not federally mandated as in the case of an Individualized Education Program (IEP), but this plan should outline the students’ needs and the reasonable accommodations and services provided to meet those needs (DREDF, n.d.; Skalski & Stanek, 2010; Stanberry, 2014).

An illustration of these two laws is Bobby, an eight-year-old boy who has recently been identified by a medical professional as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Through a multi-tiered system of support and a pre-referral process (discussed later in the chapter), it is determined that Bobby does not meet the eligibility requirements under IDEA. A multidisciplinary team consisting of Bobby’s general education teacher, a special education teacher, Bobby’s mother, and the school principal determines that Bobby’s disability does affect one or more major life functions, and in Bobby’s case it affects his time management, organization, and impulse control. The team determines that Bobby qualifies for services under Section 504 because the school receives federal funding. Bobby’s 504 Plan lists his accommodations as preferential seating near the teacher, teacher supervision in writing down assignments, seat breaks (run errands, get a drink of water, pass out papers), and extended time on tests. When Bobby goes to camp that summer, his mother shares with the counselors his 504 Plan. The camp is under the requirements of the ADA because it does not receive federal funds and provides Bobby with reasonable accommodations, including extended time on certain activities and seat breaks during meeting and craft times. In regard to the school and the camp, reasonable accommodations were provided to Bobby that allowed him to participate. See Table 1.1 for a sample 504 Plan.

Table 1.1 Sample 504 Plan

Sample 504 Plan
Jaidyn Christopher Elementary School
Date of plan:		Date of next review:
Student’s name: Bobby Washington		Date of birth:	Grade:
Parents/guardians: Nicole and Alfred Washington
Student’s areas of strength:
Bobby is a very social child who is friendly and outgoing. He has good relationships with his classmates and is often the first to volunteer to help a teacher or peer.
Description of eligibility determination and need:
Bobby was recently diagnosed with ADHD, which causes him to have difficulties with his time management, organization, and impulse control.
Area of Need	Accommodations	Responsible Party
Time management	Preferential seating near the teacher	General education teacher is responsible for all accommodations
Organization	Teacher supervision in writing down assignments
Impulse control
	Seat breaks (run errands, get drink of water, etc.)
	Extended time on tests

Individuals With Disabilities Education Act

In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed Public Law 94–142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. This law was later reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It governs and guarantees an appropriate education for children with disabilities from birth to age 21. IDEA differs from the ADA and Section 504 in that it provides greater legal provisions than reasonable accommodations but has a narrower definition of what constitutes a disability.

Table 1.2 Thirteen Disability Categories Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Disability	Description
Specific learning disability (SLD)	Affects the way a person learns, processes, understands, and/or uses language (listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations)
Intellectual disability (ID)	Deficit in intellectual ability (reasoning, planning, problem-solving, abstract thinking, comprehension, speed of learning, and learning from experience) and adaptive behaviors, which consist of learned skills used in everyday life, such as conceptual (time, money, language, literacy), social (interpersonal skills, gullibility, social responsibility, problem-solving, self-esteem), and practical (daily living, health care, transportation, financial awareness) skills
Emotional disturbance (ED)	Student’s mental health or behavior interferes with their ability to learn and/or participate in school
Speech and language impairment (SLI)	Affects a student’s ability to communicate
Autism	A neurological disorder that impedes behavior, communication, and socialization
Deaf-blindness	A significant degree of both hearing and vision loss
Deafness	The inability to hear most, if any, sounds
Hearing impairment	Limited ability to hear
Multiple disabilities	A combination of two or more severe disabilities
Orthopedic impairment	A physical impairment, such as neuromotor impairments (spina bifida, cerebral palsy), degenerative diseases (muscular dystrophy), and musculoskeletal disorders (rheumatoid arthritis, limb deficiency)
Other health impairment	An umbrella category for other disabilities that adversely affect a student’s ability to learn and/or participate in school
Traumatic brain injury	An acquired injury to the brain that affects a person’s ability to learn and/or participate in school
Visual impairment, including blindness	An impairment to a student’s sight that even with correction affects their ability to learn and/or participate in school

IDEA has six major provisions and identifies 13 different disabilities, each with a qualifying definition, that influences a student’s ability to learn and/or participate in school. See Table 1.2 for a list of disabilities and a summary of the qualifying definitions under IDEA. In order for a student to qualify for special education, the disability as identified under IDEA must negatively affect their ability to learn and participate in school. The student is then guaranteed the right to zero rejection, nondiscriminatory testing, a free and appropriate public education, a least restrictive environment, due process, and parental participation. An explanation of these provisions can be found in Table 1.3.

Imagine that Olivia is a fourth-grade, 10-year-old girl diagnosed with ADHD and a learning disability. Because Olivia has a learning disability (unlike Bobby in the previous example), she is guaranteed the provisions under IDEA. For Olivia, this means that she has a right to a free and appropriate public education regardless of the severity of her disability (academic and/or behavioral severity). In determining Olivia’s eligibility for special education, a multi-factored evaluation was conducted using nondiscriminatory testing. As part of this testing procedure, several people used multiple means of assessments in a nonbiased manner to ensure that Olivia met the requirements for special education. Once it was documented that Olivia was eligible, a multidisciplinary team, consisting of general education teachers, special education teachers, her parents, and a school administrator, determined the appropriate education, including any related services, for her. This appropriate education was documented on her IEP, which stated her academic and/or behavioral goals and objectives for the following year. The IEP also documented her least restrictive environment and appropriate accommodations. The procedures of this process were followed in a timely and collaborative manner under due process. Olivia’s parents were considered equal members of the multidisciplinary team, gave consent to the process, and were involved in the design of their child’s IEP.

Table 1.3 Six Provisions of the Individuals...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Part I Foundations of Classroom and Behavior Management
• Part II APPLICATION OF CLASSROOM AND BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: TIER 1
• Part III APPLICATION OF CLASSROOM AND BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: TIER 2
• Part IV APPLICATION OF CLASSROOM AND BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: TIER 3
• Index