Discipline within CASD: Discipline for Students with Disabilities

Have you ever been to your child’s school and witnessed a student who is repetitively physical with other students and staff, and even principals don’t have the ability to deescalate the situation?  Have you ever noticed a student or two who frequently disrupt class, leaving students behind on their work and teachers left feeling unsupported by their administrators?  Has your child ever come home and told you that there is this one kid in their class who is constantly disrespectful but never gets in trouble?  Any of this sound familiar?  Coatesville Area School District is not the only district that deals with situations like this.


The stories from families and former teachers are eerily similar when it comes to the perception of discipline frequently hearing things like:

“Sorry, that student is in special ed, there's nothing that we can do.”  

“Our hands are tied, sorry.” 

“We aren’t allowed to suspend students who have IEP’s because it’s against the law.”  

What most people do not understand is that there are scattered truths in the middle of all those excuses. 

Four terms you should know:

• Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) is an educational right of children with disabilities in the United States that is guaranteed by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

• Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) - An IEP is a legal document that clearly defines how a school plans to meet a child’s unique educational needs that result from a disability. The IEP is the cornerstone of a child’s special education program. The goals of an IEP are twofold: to set reasonable, measurable goals for the child and to also specify the services the school will provide.

•  Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) is the requirement in federal law that students with disabilities receive their education, to the maximum extent appropriate, with non-disabled peers and that special education students are not removed from regular classes unless even with supplemental aids and services, education in regular classes cannot be achieved satisfactorily.

• The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensures that all children with disabilities are entitled to a free appropriate public education to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living.

What you need to understand is that discipline at times can and will look different for kids who have IEP’s.  However, let me make this perfectly CLEAR: there is nothing in IDEA that restricts schools from disciplining children with disabilities. Nowhere!

Like all students, those with disabilities can be suspended or expelled for violating the school’s code of conduct. However, IDEA provides some additional procedures that schools must follow when disciplining students with disabilities. These procedures are different depending on:

• The length and type of disciplinary action the school proposes to take.
• The nature of the conduct that led to the disciplinary action.
• Whether the conduct is found to be connected to the student’s disability.

These procedures were put into IDEA to prevent schools from suspending or expelling students without considering the effects of the child’s disability. 

If the perception is accurate and students are truly not being disciplined due to the fact that they possess an IEP, our district has sadly done a disservice to our students by grossly misunderstanding the procedural safeguards within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); shedding more light on why our community has the perception that it does.  We would also argue that by not addressing repetitive and unsafe behaviors, that student with that IEP is not receiving an "appropriate" education.

Like we said yesterday if the CASD was more transparent and ensured that staff was properly trained to explain the law the perception would look a lot different.  However, over the last five years, our district hasn’t always been truthful about the law.  We are optimistic that with the interim superintendent and the current school board, true transparency and training will happen. We do know that the bridge plan includes a commitment to the implementation of programs to fidelity. Within this, the commitment to understanding the need to appropriately teach all students boundaries and appropriate behaviors must be put into action as well. 

Would you like more information on your rights and special Ed law?  Would you attend information sessions if the CASD provided this type of information?