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Manifestation Determination
When a student with a special education disability violates school discipline policy that ordinarily would result in suspension or expulsion, manifestation determination is completed to ascertain whether the behavior that violated school discipline policy was a result of the student's disability. Manifestation determination also assesses the educational placement and program (called the Individualized Education Plan [IEP]) of the student to determine whether the program was adequately meeting his or her educational needs. If the misbehavior is deemed to be a result of the student's disability or if the district does not have positive behavior support interventions in place for the student, then the school's discipline policy may not be applied to the special education student.
Manifestation determination was mandated under the Individuals With Disabilities Act 1997 (IDEA 1997) to clarify procedures under which school personnel could suspend a special education student from school or apply the existing school discipline policy to the student's problem behavior. Schools are charged with developing prevention programs to reduce or eliminate future occurrences of behavior problems. In this vein, schools should develop clear expectations or rules for students’ behavior, and the consequences for misbehavior, and inform parents and students of these expectations and potential consequences.
General Procedures
Disciplinary actions taken by schools for any behavior problem may result in in-school disciplinary actions or out-of-school disciplinary actions. For students with disabilities, any in-school disciplinary action may be used as long as it does not violate the student's IEP. IDEA 1997 requires schools to treat special education students that are suspended or expelled from school differently than the rest of the student body. The removal of a student with a disability from school for disciplinary reasons constitutes a “change of placement” if the absence from school is more than 10 cumulative or consecutive days (during a school year), and the suspension(s) constitute a “pattern of removal.” Pattern of removal is vaguely defined but generally refers to the length of time a student is removed, the proximity of the removals to one another, or the length of each removal. The student's special education teacher is charged with determining if a change of placement has occurred by examining the pattern of removal. If a pattern of removal has occurred and after the 10th day of suspension, the parents must be notified that a placement change has occurred. If the parents or guardians disagree with the assessment results, findings, recommendations, or placements resulting from the manifestation determination process, they may invoke their right to a due-process hearing with an impartial hearing examiner.
Data Collection Procedures
After the parents have been notified, the IEP team has 10 business days to collect data for the manifestation determination. The IEP team decides on the types of information needed to determine if the behavior(s) in question is a manifestation of the student's disability. The types of information collected must include a current functional behavior assessment (FBA), a review of school records, any previous psychoeducational evaluation or diagnostic reports, the child's current IEP and placement, and, when possible, an observation of the child. Interviews will frequently be conducted with the child, the child's teacher, and the parents. Using the above-mentioned information, the IEP team must determine
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