Week 4: Student and Personnel Management

EDLD 5344 School Law Peggy Hale - #8014

Overview In this week’s assignment, you will complete your work with Joseph. Your final step will be to make suggestions about how management policies and procedures for special education students at your school can be improved. To complete the assignment, you must familiarize yourself with both statewide special education policies and those in place at your district and school. The assignment also requires you to use knowledge gained from your lectures and readings and from communication with leaders at your school, including your principal, special education coordinator, and classroom teachers. You are expected to cite the relevant law and/or policy that you used to formulate your answers. Use this rubric to guide your work.

Week 4: Student and Needs Accomplished Proficient Unacceptable Personnel Improvement Management

Investigating Cites course Explains some Provides a broad Does not Complaints material in actions that response that describe thoroughly should be taken lacks detail processes for explaining when (1 point) effective procedures for investigating investigation of investigating complaints school personnel complaints against a school (0 points) against school employee personnel, (2 point) including proper documentation techniques (3 points)

Manifest Cites course Explains in Provides a broad Does not explain Hearing material in general terms response that possible explaining the possible lacks detail outcomes of a manifest outcomes of a (1 point) manifest determination manifest determination hearings and determination hearing outlines in detail hearing (0 points) procedures for (2 point) disciplining special education

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students (3 points)

Appeals Cites course Demonstrates Provides a broad Does not material in general response that demonstrate explaining the understanding of lacks detail understanding of appeals process the appeals (1 point) the disciplinary regarding process related appeals process student to student (0 points) discipline discipline cases (3 points) (2 point)

In-Depth Uses information Provides general Provides a broad Does not provide Analysis from course suggestions for response that suggestions for materials and how to improve lacks detail improvement of personal school or district (1 points) school or district interviews to special special provide in-depth education education analysis of policies policies school or district (3 points) (0 points) special education policies and make suggestions for improvement (4 points)

Mechanics No or few errors Responses lack in grammar, clarity and depth spelling, or and/or have punctuation. multiple errors in (1 point) grammar, spelling, or punctuation. (0 points)

Week 4: Student and Personnel Management Directions: Refer to your lectures and readings from throughout the course to answer the following questions related to investigating complaints against school employees, disciplining a special education student, personnel documentation, and school liability. One morning, you hear a commotion coming from Joseph’s classroom. He is shouting and swearing at his teacher, and you are concerned that he may become violent. You call in campus security to restrain him. You call Joseph’s mother to your office following the incident, and she claims that the teacher has been antagonizing Joseph. She says that the teacher is resentful of the accommodations that have to be made for Joseph and has ignored his IEP. She also claims that the teacher is trying to embarrass Joseph in front of his classmates, which was the cause of his disruptive behavior in class that day.

Workspace How will you go about investigating the parent’s claim that Joseph is being singled out and discriminated against in class in a way that will ensure that you are not indifferent to the claim?

First, the principal should make sure that Joseph’s mother has been given the information that describes procedural safeguards which the law requires districts to give parents yearly.

She should assure Joseph’s mother that all procedural safeguards will be carefully executed with Joseph’s recent incident. Notifying parents when the “child’s behavior interferes with learning” (Texas Education Agency, 2009) was the first important step on the school’s part.

Explain to Joseph’s mother that the school’s need to restrain Joseph and remove him from the classroom was necessary to avoid injury to himself or someone else in the classroom. Inform her that school personnel are trained to properly handle situations where a student has to be restrained. Tell her that you will make sure that it was handled correctly and followed according to the school’s procedures. Acquire a formal statement from Joseph’s mother would be beneficial to the process and show her that you are carefully taking steps to perform a proper investigation into the incident. Assure Joseph’s mother that you would never support such actions by your teacher and that if she is found to be guilty of those accusations, then proper measures will be taken against the teacher. The principal will need to collect written responses from others in the class, especially the special education teacher who is in charge of Joseph’s

Individual Education Program (IEP) and who follows closely to make sure Joseph’s IEP is being carried out properly. Make sure that you inform Joseph’s mother that you will have a written summary with your conclusions, the evidence you examined, and necessary actions that you will take. Go ahead and schedule an ARD meeting that the information can be shared and changes if necessary can be decided as a group from this new incident.

If during your investigation you discover that Joseph’s mother’s claims do have validity, how will you go about documenting this teacher’s behavior? What is your district policy regarding actions that can be taken in this case?

A statement from this course that is alarming is that documentation is a difficult process, but one that is most important to a principal. After investigating the Joseph’s recent incident and finding some validity to Joseph’s mother’s claims, the difficult process begins. The principal will look through the teachers’ personnel file to verify other issues that were written where the teacher failed to follow district policy. Is there proof for the case that would show good cause that Joseph’s teacher is having repeated problems with failure to follow district policy? The principal should have documented the past ARD meeting where Joseph’s teacher neglected to notify Joseph’s mother of his progress as stated in his IEP. This was admitted by Joseph’s teacher in the past ARD meeting, and we can assume that she was given an oral directive by the principal to correct this, or the principal could have made an informal documentation about the incident. Either way, the principal has past occurrences and can formally document this teacher now. She can give the dates, details, and cite the school district’s policies and laws that were broken. It is in the best interest of the district for the principal’s notes to be detailed and any responses by the teacher should be included. In this documentation, the principal will have included specific directions and deadlines for the teacher such as professional development and/or other activities that could help the teacher overcome these issues. Also in the document is the opportunity for the teacher to respond in writing, if she chooses. Of courses, it is not a formal document unless it is signed by the teacher.

If the Little Cypress Mauriceville Consolidated Independent School District (LCM CISD)

Board feels that that the district has collected enough proof of cause against this teacher, then they can follow district policy to terminate this teacher. According to LCM CISD policies, a teacher can be terminated for good cause as determined by the Board. The teacher must be given reasonable notice in writing of the charges that is brought against them in a detailed manner so that the teacher has time to correct any errors that may exist (Term Contracts, 2005).

If the teacher requests a hearing, they have fifteen days from the date the notice was received to file a written request to the Commissioner with a copy provided to the District.

Who will participate in the meeting in which potential punishments are discussed? How will Joseph’s ARD committee determine the appropriate punishment for him regarding his classroom outburst?

Assuming that Joseph’s teacher has been given notice of termination, and has been suspended without pay, an unscheduled ARD meeting is needed to determine Joseph’s placement and disciplinary actions. According to the ARD guide, it is acceptable to exclude a general education teacher if you have agreed in writing beforehand (Texas Education Agency,

2010). There will be several issues that will have to be amended according to Joseph’s recent outburst. Joseph’s placement and discipline proceedings would need to be decided, since his behavior interfered with learning, and he violated school rules. Special education disciplinary actions are considered on a case-by-case basis. A special education student is required to follow the school’s code of conduct much like a student without disabilities; however Joseph’s

Behavioral Intervention Program (BIP) will have to be considered. Joseph did not commit a crime, but was restrained before the incident led to such measures. The ARD committee must decide if he should be suspended, removed from the classroom, and if there is a pattern for his behavior. He can be suspended up to three days or removed from the classroom setting for up to ten days within a school year (2009). Of course, once a decision is made, Joseph’s mother will have her own decisions to make. She must be notified and provided with the Notice of

Procedural Safeguard document at that time. After this, a manifestation determination review must be conducted to decide if Joseph’s disability was the direct cause the incident, or if it was the result of the school’s failure to implement Joseph’s IEP. From our scenario, and the way of my assumptions, what will follow the manifestation is to conduct a functional behavioral assessment and implement a modified BIP. According to the Notice of Procedural Safeguards document, Joseph can return to his current placement, or the ARD can agree to change it as part of his modified BIP (2009).

Assuming Joseph’s mother wishes to challenge the disciplinary action suggested for him, what recourse does she have? According to Texas law and school district policy, what due process

2009 Lamar University Page 5 of 10 EDLD 5344 School Law Peggy Hale - #8014 rights does Joseph have in this situation?

Joseph’s mother has the right to request an expedited due process hearing if she disagrees with any of the decisions from the ARD meeting. However, the hearing must occur within twenty days of the request. This is when a hearing officer will make the recommendation within ten days of the hearing. Joseph’s mother may feel that an impartial hearing officer’s determination is easier to accept than a decision given by the ARD committee, especially if it goes against what she wants and since she has developed distrust in the school system.

According to the state law of Texas, older students like Joseph, who have minimal disabilities; can be directly involved in their own case (Lombardi, & Ludlow, 2004). Joseph would be able to assist his mother with planning and conducting the hearing, under the direction of their attorney, if one is used. Joseph may be asked to testify, share his facts about the incident and to even make requests as to his preference of programs and services desired.

Based on your lectures, readings, and communication with educators at your school, you now have an opportunity to recommend ways in which special education evaluation, accommodation, and communication can be improved. Use this final section to outline ways in which you feel the process can be improved.

In our district, the success of our special education process varies from campus to campus.

According to one of our district’s diagnosticians, our primary schools have far better success and more involvement in the special education process than the secondary campuses.

Currently, our district is in the process of making improvements in our intermediate and middle schools. We have pinpointed our weakness, and now are trying to make the changes as needed. We have wonderful teams of teachers who have worked together for years and have created a great atmosphere for our inclusion teachers in the primary schools. This has not always been easy, but finding a dynamic duo between the general education teacher and the special education teacher is one of the most important pieces to making inclusion work in a

2009 Lamar University Page 6 of 10 EDLD 5344 School Law Peggy Hale - #8014 school. It is this team effort that makes modifications, innovative ideas, and ethical values easy to conduct and extend within the school’s culture.

Personally, our school district can improve in the training efforts that are given to the general education teachers. It is hard to impart the importance of following the laws of Special

Education when you have not been exposed to them. Creating online courses or interactive scenarios in the school’s professional development classes could be a fun way to get across some vital information. Most teachers are given scenarios in their comprehensive examinations for education; therefore, they are familiar with this format and could improve their knowledge of special education. In addition to the online training, offering mandatory workshops that teach various needs of special education students, accommodations and modifications for special education students, and how to keep expectations as high as teacher do for general education students would all be ideas to help improve our current process.

If school districts did not have such major budget constraints, having a special education teacher in each student’s classroom with a general education teacher would be the best scenario for the program to be more successful. The two teachers would have shared responsibilities and could manage the planning efforts together. Especially with the time constraints on teachers’ schedules, they would have more opportunities to make impromptu decisions as they teach and observe students.

Our district has seen a tremendous success with the Response to Intervention program and is using it as one of the requirements before for the eligibility process is put into action. This program has helped us in improving the identification of students and we continue to perfect it on each campus. Our Special Education director continues to evaluate the program on each campus and collects the best procedures to share with his team. Changes are made as necessary to create the best improvement according to the needs of each campus. We have recently added SchoolObjects: Aware in our district’s management system of Eduphoria. This

2009 Lamar University Page 7 of 10 EDLD 5344 School Law Peggy Hale - #8014 portion of the system allows a seamless data analysis package that helps with benchmarking, recording, and graphing progress with TAKs data. Incorporating special education into the system would help lessen the burden of paperwork and create ease in making decisions in ARD meetings at each campus, according to our special education director. It may be a year before all teachers are trained, but Eduphoria’s Aware feature is sure to improve all student achievement in our district for years.

Is the IEP development process in place at your school or district effective? If not, what suggestions do you have for how any of the components of this scenario can be improv ed?

The IEP development process follows the same pattern at each campus in our district. It is a more collaborative effort by the members of the Admission, Review and

Dismissal team. There have been occasions where the students’ Accelerated Reading intervention (ARI) teacher and the Accelerated Math Intervention (AMI) teacher attend such a meeting to help with this development process. They have been working closely with special education students and have followed their progress in several tiers of the

Response to Intervention process at schools. Their knowledge is helpful in knowing each student’s weaknesses and can clarify gaps to their learning. As the team works through the data, assessments, laws, and policies, the best IEP is developed. During this process, it has been revealed that the ARI and AMI teachers are knowledgeable about the students, yet have no vote in the final decision according to the laws and policies of the ARD process. This is frustrating to those teachers and keeps them from feeling productive in ARD meetings. Also revealed is the fact that working with special

2009 Lamar University Page 8 of 10 EDLD 5344 School Law Peggy Hale - #8014 education students is rewarding, but can be stressful and draining on the special education teachers. Many highly qualified, special education teachers leave the program because of the large amount of paperwork, time away from their families, and health reasons from stress. There should be some incentives that are in place to keep these talented teachers from leaving. Technology advances have been able to help somewhat by putting the data online, but districts are battling the security issues. We are looking for ways to help with the large amount of information these teachers must input into the system and help with the time constraints. If it means keeping a highly qualified teacher on staff, then more advancement through technology can be discovered to help them.

References

Texas Education Agency, Division of IDEA Coordination. (2009). Notice of

procedural safeguards Austin, Texas: Retrieved from http://ritter.tea.s -

tate.tx.us/special.ed/guidance/procsafe.html

Term contracts. (2005). Unpublished manuscript, Texas Association of School

Boards, Little Cypress Mauriceville CISD, Little Cypress, Texas. Re -

trieved from http://www.tasb.org/policy/pol/private/181908/pol.cfm?

Texas Education Agency, Special Education in Texas. (2010). A guide to the

admission, review and dismissal process (Austin, Texas). Retrieved

from http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/special.ed/guidance/ardguide.html

Lombardi, T.P., & Ludlow, B.L. (2004). A short guide to special education

due process. Phi delta kappa educational foundation . Retrieved Octo-

ber 31, 2010, from http://library.lamar.edu/

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