What State
Departments of Education Need to Learn If Using PBIS to “Solve” This Problem
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for the full Blog message]
Dear
Colleagues,
Introduction
The number of
seclusions and restraints in our nation’s schools—whether involving general
education students or students with disabilities (who are disproportionately
represented in these events)—is a national tragedy and embarrassment. This problem must be solved.
But the resolution
must be multi-layered. While, top-down,
it may require federal and/or state legislation, it eventually must be,
bottom-up, functionally addressed in our schools as part of an effective
multi-tiered system of supports and interventions.
And if Congress or
state legislatures get involved, they must have accurately, differentiated,
and well-analyzed data. This is
because much of the current data have gaps, do not differentiate different
student groups in meaningful ways, and have not been analyzed to determine the
root causes of the behavioral situations that result in student seclusions and
restraints.
The need for accurate, differentiated, and
well-analyzed data is particularly important at the present time. Indeed, in mid-January (2019), the U.S.
Department of Education’s Offices for Civil Rights (OCR) and Special Education
and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) announced an initiative to “address the
inappropriate use of restraint and seclusion” on students with
disabilities. OCR and OSERS plans to
attend to three specific areas: (a) Increasing the number of compliance reviews
in districts across the country; (b) Disseminating more legal and intervention
resources focused on prevention and alternative responses; and (c) Improving
the integrity of incident reporting and data collection.
Then, on February
27, 2019, an education subcommittee of the House of Representatives conducted a
hearing where the number of seclusions and restraints across the country was
updated, possible alternative approaches were outlined, and the role of the
federal government in decreasing seclusions and restraints was discussed.
During this
hearing, the U.S. Department of Education once again promoted George Sugai’s
testimony. Sugai has been the
Co-Director of the National Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports
(PBIS) Technical Assistance (TA) Center since its inception in 1997. This, and others’ testimony during this
meeting, once again reinforced the point above—that comprehensive analyses of
the root causes of the seclusion and restraint dilemma in our schools are not
being presented to policymakers. In fact,
in some cases, Congress only hears what the U.S. Department of Education (and
other federal agencies) want it to hear.
Indeed, over the
years, he (or his Co-Director colleague) are present any time Congress has a
hearing on a significant social, emotional, behavioral, disciplinary, or
related school crisis hearing. This
allows the U.S. Department of Education (and specifically, its Office of
Special Education Programs—OSEP) to use its “bully pulpit” to singularly
advocate their PBIS framework—a framework that has not been successful,
and that has significant science-to-practice gaps.
This last
statement has been documented in numerous past Blogs:
October 7, 2017 Improving Student Outcomes When Your State
Department of Education Has Adopted the Failed National MTSS and PBIS
Frameworks: Effective and Defensible Multi-Tiered and Positive Behavioral
Support Approaches that State Departments of Education Will Approve and Fund
(Part I of II)
_ _ _ _ _
October 21, 2017 Improving Student Outcomes When Your State
Department of Education Has Adopted the Failed National MTSS and PBIS
Frameworks: Effective Research-to-Practice Multi-Tiered Approaches that
Facilitate All Students' Success (Part II of II)
_ _ _ _ _
February 16, 2019 Redesigning Multi-Tiered Services in
Schools: Redefining the Tiers and the
Difference between Services and Interventions
_ _ _ _ _
Following up on the
February education subcommittee hearing, it is expected that Congressional
Democrats will soon introduce legislation to ban the use of isolation and
seclusion in schools, and to put major restrictions on physical restraints.
This two-part Blog
series was written to try to get a more accurate picture of the current status
of why seclusions and restraints occur in schools, and to present a “roadmap”
of how to functionally and successfully begin to address the issues.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A Review of Part I
of this Two-Part Series
In Part I of this
Blog, the following areas were discussed:
- The definitions of seclusion and restraints
- The historical and current incident levels of these actions in schools
- The U.S. Department of Education’s formal attention to this issue since 2009
- The U.S. Department of Education’s faulty advocacy of the PBIS framework as a solution to this problem
[CLICK
HERE for Part I]
In the end, we
concluded Part I warning:
Districts and schools to be cautious—if not
wary—about the U.S. Department of Education’s (and, perhaps, your State
Department of Education’s) advocacy of the PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention
and Supports) Framework as a viable one to help you decrease seclusions and
restraints with your most behaviorally-challenging students.
_ _ _ _ _
In this Part II of the series, we will
discuss:
- My involvement, as an Expert Witness, in a number of federal court cases involving excessive numbers of seclusions and/or restraints of student with disabilities—especially those who demonstrate the most challenging behaviors. Here, we will discuss the common characteristics of these cases from a legal and student perspective.
- What state departments of education are providing (and not providing) relative to training professionals in their states in the interventions that will decrease or eliminate the need for student seclusions and restraints, and where the PBIS framework fits in
- What analyses and specific interventions state departments of education need to provide to close the PBIS framework’s gaps so that school personnel can be more successful with behaviorally challenging students
[CLICK HERE
for Part II]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _
When Departments of Education Use PBIS
to Decrease School Seclusions and Restraints
One of
my many professional “hats” involves my work as an Expert Witness across the
county in federal and state court, and due process hearings. Over the years, I have testified innumerable
times in court cases related to the educational and special education rights of
students; corporal punishment and effective interventions for students with
social, emotional, and behavioral challenges; and school seclusions and
restraints. While I often work to
advocate for students and their parents, I have accepted cases where I
am defending districts and even state departments of education.
Critically, I only take cases that I believe
in. . . cases where I hopefully can make both a personal impact (for my
clients), and a systemic impact at a broader level.
Over the years, I have been an Expert
Witness on a number of cases—in vastly different states—where students with
disabilities have been secluded, restrained, and corporally punished. Many of these cases involved students with
significantly complex disabilities and/or with significant behavioral
challenges that the schools were not addressing through intervention.
I recently completed another case in this
area which had direct implications to the training being provided at our state
departments of education (SDoEs). As I
have noted in the past, what SDoEs do in areas related to students with
behavioral challenges is always interesting to me as I worked for the Arkansas
Department of Education for 13 years helping to oversee the training exactly in
this area.
Given my past experiences and the recently
completed case, I have analyzed state-level seclusion and restraint data—some
over a period of five school years, so that I can confidently make the
recommendations in this Blog.
Specifically at issue are schools that are
secluding and/or restraining students with disabilities at an excessive level
(sometime, many times per week). Some of
these students are being put in isolation rooms. And many of these students are not receiving
the strategic and/or intensive interventions to address the root causes of the
students’ challenging behaviors, thereby resulting in the need to reactively
seclude or restraint these students.
Critically, if a school were to think
(inappropriately) that a seclusion or restraint is a strategic intervention—in
and of itself, then the intervention goal should be to change the student’s
behavior such that no future seclusions or restraints are needed.
At this point, one would have to ask,
“How many
seclusions or restraints provide enough data to tell the school that this
‘intervention’ is not working and should be stopped—triggering the need
for new analyses and (hopefully) different and more successful interventions.”
_ _ _ _ _
My purpose in this
Blog is not to re-defend past cases. Instead,
I want to make three points that are based on publicly available data—drawn
largely from the state department of education level.
- SDoEs are not fully analyzing their state’s seclusion and restraint data such that they understand the functional nature of the problem, and how and why the numbers are changing over time.
- SDoEs often focus predominantly on the incident numbers. They typically do not collect data that would help functionally identify the root causes of the student behaviors that are prompting the need for seclusions and restraints.
- Many SDoEs are doing a lot of PBIS framework-driven training. This training rarely (if at all) is aligned with the information and root cause analyses noted as needed in the two bullets above. Moreover, the training rarely (if at all) is coherent, comprehensive, or scientifically-based. The training misses many of the social, emotional, and behavioral interventions that, once again, can help prevent the need for crisis-oriented seclusions and restraints.
Ultimately, my recommendation to all states using the PBIS framework
to guide the professional development that they hope will help their districts
and schools to avoid the need for student seclusions and restraints is to:
Scrap the framework and rebuild the professional development with a
truly defensible science-to-practice model.
When SDoEs use the PBIS framework—from the National PBIS TA Center—they
are using a framework (as previously document) that has no science-to-practice
validity in this area.
The fact that I have been an Expert Witness in so many of these cases
nationwide, in states where the SDoEs are using the PBIS framework, suggests
(at the very least) that the framework has not successfully addressed the types
of serious student behaviors that districts then are responding to with
seclusions and restraints.
From my perspective, SDoEs who find themselves at this point should not
a “remodeling project” that “tinkers around the edges.” They need to level the entire system, and
re-build it from the ground up.
_ _ _ _ _
To prepare this Blog, we analyzed five years of seclusion and restraint
data from a sample state using publicly available information.
Section I: Fully Analyzing the State’s Seclusion and
Restraints Data
- Over the five school years reported in the Blog (from the 2012-13 school year through the 2016-17 school year), the total number of public school students educated in the state increased, and—with some variation—there was a net increase in the number of students with disabilities served.
- During the 2012-2013 school year, the first year that a state requirement to track seclusion and restraints was in place, there were 6,540 separate and recorded seclusions and restraints across the state for students with disabilities. These numbers decreased by 364 reported incidents to 6,176 by the 2014-15 school year, but the numbers increased during the next two years by 2,119 incidents to 8,295 by the end of the 2016-17 school year.
- When the state data for the number of students with disabilities were disaggregated by the thirteen disability areas identified in the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA, 2004), the number of students identified with Other Health Impairments (up 17.6%), Intellectual Disabilities (up 6.6%), Developmental Delays (up 19.1%), Emotional Disturbances (up 4.7%), and Autism (up 42.1%) increased over the five-year period studied. The remaining eight disability areas (e.g., Specific Learning Disabilities, Speech or Language Impairments) either decreased in the statewide number of students or remained constant.
- The four top student disability areas receiving seclusions and restraints in the state for the 2012-13 through 2016-17 school years were: Autism (with a five-year increase of 48.0%), Emotional Disturbance (up 12.5%), Other Health Impairments (up 31.8%), Developmental Delays (up 70.0%).
Our analysis
concluded that, clinically, it is not surprising that the four disability areas
that most involve students with significantly challenging behavior are
represented over the remaining nine disability areas, and that Autistic and
students with Emotional Disturbances received significantly more seclusions and
restraints than even the other two “top four” disability areas.
At the same time,
while the seclusion and restraint increases are troubling, the concern is
offset by the fact (see above) that the number of students in these disability
areas also increased during the same period of time. But even here, the seclusion and restraint
increases were higher than the disability population increases—especially for students
with Developmental Delays and Other Health Impairments.
One of our major
conclusions/recommendations: In order to change the incident levels of
seclusions and restraints with behaviorally challenging students, these data
suggest that professional development programs—at the SDoE and district levels—should
focus on the social, emotional, and behavioral issues that are common to students
with autism, emotional disturbances, developmental delays, and other health
impairments.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Section II: Analyzing the Root Causes of the Behaviors
Triggering Seclusions and Restraints
In a past life, I
was the PBIS lead and primary contact in the Arkansas Department of Education
for 13 years. Given this, I am fully
aware of the intricacies within the National PBIS TA Center’s blueprint for
Tier II, Tier III, and PBIS/School-based Mental Health intervention training.
And the intensive
training needed to address the social, emotional, and behavioral root causes
that result in schools needing to seclude and/or restrain students with autism,
emotional disturbances, developmental delays, and other health impairments is
wholly insufficient.
In short, most SDoEs
do not have, and are not enacting, a systematic strategic plan to specifically
and effectively address the assessment-to-intervention professional development
needs of its districts and schools relative to their most
behaviorally-challenging students.
Indeed, many SDoEs
have never conducted an analysis of the students with autism, developmental
delays, emotional disturbances, and other health impairments who are being
frequently secluded or restrained to determine:
- The underlying reasons for their many behavioral challenges;
- The interventions needed by these students, and the interventions that were actually being delivered;
- What schools were successfully doing, during significant behaviorally-challenging situations, to resolve the situations without the need for seclusions or restraints; and
- What schools were not doing, during similar challenging situations, that resulted in seclusions or restraints.
Only with this information could the SDoE truly and strategically plan
for the professional development and on-site technical assistance needs of
these schools and their students.
The remainder of this section of the Blog delineated a number of
critical root cause examples for students’ challenging behavior.
[CLICK HERE
for the complete Blog message.]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Section III: What Strategic or Intensive Interventions
Can Replace the Need for Seclusions and Restraints
In my experience,
SDoEs are doing a lot of PBIS training, but it often is occurring in the
absence of the analyses discussed immediately above.
But, critically,
most SDoEs’ PBIS training is missing the many strategic and intensive (“Tier II
and Tier III” in the PBIS world) social, emotional, and behavioral
interventions that, once again, could help prevent the need for
crisis-oriented or reactive seclusions and restraints. In addition, it is missing the training in
when and how to involve out-of-district community professionals who need to
provide medical, clinical, and therapy-related supports to the most-challenging
students.
The remainder of
this section of the Blog listed some of the interventions that all state
departments of education need to consider for future training as related to
preventing the need for seclusions and restraints. These were organized in three categories: (a)
Emotional Control and Coping Interventions/Therapies; (b) Student Motivation
Interventions; and (c) Social Skill (and other) Instruction Interventions.
[CLICK HERE
for the complete Blog message.]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
In all of my years
of interacting with OSEP, the National PBIS TA Center, state departments of
education, and districts/schools using the PBIS framework, very few of the
interventions identified in Section III have ever been systematically included
(if at all) in their PBIS training programs, materials, or protocols. These omissions can now be added to the other
significant issues that I have previously discussed relative to the PBIS
framework (see the Blog citations in the Introduction of this message), and
they reinforce the PBIS caution stated clearly in the first Blog in this
two-part series.
Relative to any
court case, there rarely are any real winners.
Court cases involving students with disabilities do not occur unless (a)
the students either are not receiving appropriate services, supports, and/or
interventions; or (b) parents and school personnel are having serious
disagreements and are at an impasse
Without being
naïve, we need to design the multi-tiered systems that “work” even for students
with the most significant social, emotional, and behavioral challenges. The national seclusion and restraint data are
telling us that we are falling short.
And the same data
are telling us that many SDoEs need to (re)look at their data, and (re)develop their
plans to address the professional development, consultation, and technical
assistance flaws in their current approaches to preventing and diminishing the
need for seclusions and restraints—especially with students with disabilities.
Finally, I am
hopeful that these re-conceptualizations will include a serious look at the
poor science-to-practice track record of the PBIS framework, and a complete move
away from this framework and its suggested practices.
_ _ _ _ _
As always, I appreciate your dedication in
reading and thinking deeply about these messages. As always, I am trying not just to critique
the current (and historical) state of our educational affairs across the
country, but to suggest field-tested and proven “other ways” to help us get the
student, staff, and school outcomes that we all want.
If any of you—with your school or district
team—would like to talk with me by phone, Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. about
any of these (or other school improvement, academics or student discipline, or
multi-tiered services) issues or practices, all you need to do is contact me
and get on my schedule. The first
conference call is totally free.
Meanwhile, some of you are on Spring Break.
. . and others have it coming up. I hope
that you enjoy your time off. . . it is well-deserve.
Until the next Blog, be successful and well
!!!
Best,
Howie
