How to Conduct a Manifestation Review
The Challenge: When a student with disabilities undergoes a change of
placement, your team must conduct a manifestation determination review. This
is a formal meeting in which your team determines whether the student’s
misconduct was caused by his disabilities. If you determine that it was, the
district can’t discipline the student. If you determine that the student’s
misconduct wasn’t caused by his disabilities, your district may discipline him as it
would other students. Your team needs to know how to conduct a thorough
manifestation determination review to avoid challenges from parents.
What the Law Says: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
requires IEP teams to conduct a manifestation review when a student’s removal
or disciplinary action results in a change of placement. At the hearing, the IEP
team, plus other “qualified personnel”, must conduct a review to determine
whether the student’s misconduct was caused by his disabilities. To help make
that determination, the team must answer the following questions:
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Was the student’s IEP or placement inappropriate?
Did the district fail to provide services consistent with the IEP?
Did the student’s disabilities impair his ability to understand the impact and
consequences of his behavior? And
Did the student’s disabilities impair his ability to control his behavior?
If the team answers yes to any of the above questions, it must determine that the
student’s misconduct was a manifestation of his disabilities and return the
student to his former placement.
10 Rules to Follow When Conducting a Manifestation Review
Rule #1: Conduct Manifestation Review when Misconduct Results in
Change of Placement
Your team must conduct a manifestation review when a student’s misconduct
results in a change of placement. A change in placement can occur in one of two
ways:
Removal for more than 10 consecutive school days. A removal of more than
10 consecutive school days is always a change of placement.
Pattern of removal. If a student is subjected to a series of removals that adds
up to more than 10 days throughout the school year, this may be a change of
placement if it’s a “pattern”. Your team must determine whether such a series is
a pattern based on the following factors:
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The length of each removal;
The total time the student has been removed; and
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The proximity of the removals to each other
IDEA says that on the same day the IEP team determines that a change of
placement has occurred, it must send the parents notice of the change of
placement and a procedural safeguards notice. It must then hold a manifestation
hearing, immediately if possible, but no later than 10 school days after it
determines that a change of placement has occurred.
Rule #2: Create Manifestation Determination Team
According to IDEA, the IEP team, along with other qualified personnel, should
conduct the manifestation review. Other personnel may include the student’s
teachers, a guidance counselor, a school psychologist, the administrator familiar
with the misconduct and who made the recommendation for discipline, and any
other qualified individuals. Other persons, such as police officers or witnesses to
the student’s misconduct, may also be present to testify at the review. The term
“your team” includes the entire manifestation review team, not just the IEP team.
Rule #3: Consider All Relevant Information About Student’s Behavior
Your team must conduct a complete review of the student’s behavior. Before
conducting this review, be sure the student’s files are complete and that your
team has the right information to work with. If your team doesn’t conduct a
thorough review, the student’s parents could challenge it. IDEA says that the
manifestation review team must consider the following:
Evaluation and diagnostic results. Look at all of the student’s evaluations,
including the results of any functional behavioral assessments, evaluations, and
IQ tests. IDEA notes specifically that the team must consider these results and
other relevant information supplied by the student’s parents. Keep in mind that
your team may need to conduct a new assessment or evaluation of a student,
particularly to determine whether the student has an unidentified disability.
Observations of the student. Consider both teachers’ and parents’
observations of the student.
Student’s IEP and placement. As noted below in Rule #4, your team will need
to determine whether the student’s IEP and placement were appropriate.
In conducting the manifestation hearing, your team should carefully consider all
of this information. What should this consideration entail? A careful review and
analysis should be sufficient.
Rule #4: Determine Whether Student’s IEP and Placement Were
Appropriate
The first determination your team must make at the review is whether the
student’s IEP and placement were appropriate. This means that your team must
take a careful look at the student’s IEP and placement to determine whether the
student was making progress and whether the district was providing a free
appropriate public education (FAPE).
Be sure to consider the student’s entire IEP, not just the academic portions.
If a history of misconduct had been documented prior to the misconduct that
prompted the hearing, check whether a BIP was incorporated into the student’s
IEP. If so, examine which aspects of the BIP were and weren’t effective.
If your team finds deficiencies in the student’s IEP or placement, you must take
immediate steps to correct them, according to IDEA.
Rule #5: Determine Whether Services Were Provided Consistent with IEP
IDEA says that even if you determine that the IEP was appropriate, you must still
determine whether the student’s “special education services, supplementary
aides and services and behavior intervention strategies were provided consistent
with the student’s IEP”.
Your team should examine whether the student received services in accordance
with the IEP. Make sure the teaching staff responsible for implementing the IEP
and BIP were involved in doing so and were trained to do so. Finally, make sure
the resources necessary to implement the IEP were available to the team.
Rule #6: Determine Whether Student’s Disabilities Impaired His Ability to
Understand the Impact and Consequences of his Behavior
Next, you must determine whether the student’s disabilities impaired his ability to
understand the impact and consequences of his behavior. If you determine
such, you must determine that the student’s misconduct was a manifestation of
his disabilities.
You should look at the student’s records to determine whether the student has
demonstrated the ability to follow classroom and school rules. Also, interview the
student and ask whether the student understood the impact and consequences
of his behavior. Based on the past observations of students and parents,
consider whether the student could have explained in his own words what would
have happened if he engaged in the misconduct. And consider whether the
student demonstrates that he understands that the misconduct was, and
continues to be, inappropriate and unacceptable.
Rule #7: Determine Whether Student’s Disabilities Impaired his Ability to
Control Behavior
You must then determine whether the student’s disabilities impaired his ability to
control the behavior. Your team should look at whether the student has
demonstrated the ability to control problem behavior in the past; whether the
student has demonstrated socially acceptable behavioral choices in
circumstances similar to those in which the incident occurred; and whether the
student, prior to the current misconduct, possessed functional communication
skills for appropriately expressing his needs in a socially acceptable manner. If a
student can’t express his needs, he’s more likely to have trouble controlling
aggression when frustrated. Your team must be confident that the student’s
disabilities didn’t significantly impair his ability to control his behavior.
Rule #8: Determine Whether Misconduct was Manifestation of Disabilities
Based on your findings in Rules #4-7, your team must determine whether the
student’s misconduct was a manifestation of his disabilities. If you find any of the
following to be true, you must find that the student’s misconduct was a
manifestation of his disabilities:
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The student’s IEP or placement was inappropriate;
The district failed to provide services consistent with the IEP;
The student’s disabilities impaired his ability to understand the impact and
consequences of his behavior; or
The student’s disabilities impaired his ability to control his behavior.
Be aware that your district must have sufficient documentation to prove that the
student’s misconduct wasn’t a manifestation of his disabilities.
Your team should make an effort to achieve a consensus. But sometimes team
members may not unanimously agree on the determination. At least the majority
of team members must agree to the findings in order to make the needed
determination.
Remember that if parents challenge your determination, you’ll have the burden of
showing that the student’s misconduct wasn’t a manifestation of his disabilities.
The team’s decision doesn’t have to be unanimous. But the team should attempt
to reach a consensus. Ultimately, as with other IEP issues, the district must
make the call. If only the parents object to the determination, the district should
note the objection, but may carry through with the determination of the other
team members.
Rule #9: Don’t Discipline or Remove Student if You Determine Misconduct
was Manifestation of Disabilities
If your team determines that the student’s misconduct was a manifestation of his
disabilities, your district shouldn’t impose the long-term suspension or expulsion.
But this doesn’t mean you should ignore the behavior or that the student won’t
face any consequences for the behavior. Your team must develop an
assessment plan to address the behavior and convene an IEP meeting to
develop appropriate intervention strategies to address the behavior. These
techniques will give you strategies to discourage the behavior.
Rule #10: Discipline Student if you Determine Misconduct Wasn’t
Manifestation of Disabilities
If your team determines that the student’s misconduct wasn’t a manifestation of
his disabilities, your district may discipline the students it would other students.
So the district may suspend the student for more than 10 days or expel him. But
remember that your team must still provide the student services that allow him to
receive a FAPE and make progress in the general curriculum.
For drugs and weapons discipline, the rules are different. The 45-day removals
for drugs, weapons, and dangerous behavior are exceptions to the general rule
that students with disabilities may not be disciplined through a change of
placement, according to the commentary in the IDEA regulations.
Source: IEP Team Trainer