The purpose of the current study was to determine the probability that a student with a disability not being served by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) would be expelled. Expulsion data were obtained from the Civil Rights Data Collection produced by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights. The latest data from all 50 states and the…

In contrast with professional norms and best practices, the legal requirements for functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIPs) are meager in scope and specificity (Collins & Zirkel, 2017). Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act makes no mention of FBAs or BIPs, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education…

Youth who are impacted by the justice system encounter myriad challenges as they move through and between education and juvenile justice systems. Policymakers play an important role in mitigating these challenges. Challenges include exclusionary discipline practices that increase the likelihood of involvement in the justice system, lack of…

This article summarizes Allen and Roberts's (2024) study on school psychologists' practices and perceptions regarding manifestation determination reviews (MDRs). It emphasizes the critical role of MDRs in protecting the rights of students with disabilities and highlights the challenges faced by school psychologists in this high-stakes process.

This brief summarizes data from the 2021-22 collection of the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC)--released in early 2025--for information on access and opportunities for students with disabilities. It marks the sixth time CLE has analyzed data from the CRDC, the primary benchmark of America's ongoing work to build an education system that serves…

Disparate impact is the dubious approach to civil rights enforcement that claims that an entirely neutral policy that does not discriminate on its face, is not intended to discriminate, and does not actually treat individuals differently based on their race still constitutes illegal racial discrimination if it has a "disproportionate"…

The literature base on Restorative Practice (RP) outcomes suggests that schools that adopt RP experience reductions in suspensions/expulsions and improved school climate. Yet data suggests disproportionality in exclusionary disciplinary practices persist. Less is known about whether there are differences among student populations in their…

Background/Context: The administration of student discipline is one of many responsibilities under the purview of teachers and educational leaders across the country. Maintaining a safe environment with minimal disruptions is not an easy task. From existing research on student discipline, we have learned that critical examination of data and…

School leaders face difficult situations regarding special education discipline that may ultimately lead to costly litigation. This quantitative study design explored secondary school leaders' knowledge of special education discipline law in the five IDEA provision areas of functional behavioral assessment, behavior intervention plan,…

School leaders face difficult situations regarding special education discipline that may ultimately lead to costly litigation. This quantitative study design explored secondary school leaders' knowledge of special education discipline law in the five IDEA provision areas of functional behavioral assessment, behavior intervention plan,…

There is a nationwide concern among students, parents, and educators regarding high school administrators' inequitable disciplinary practices and students with disabilities (SWD) policies in the U.S. The problem addressed in this study was that high school SWDs in a local Midwestern urban school district have higher rates of suspension from school…

Aversive procedures such as seclusion and restraint are generally viewed as emergency only procedures in school settings. However, they are still used too often to respond to student behaviors in schools. The purpose of this scoping review was to determine which types of documents have been published in peer-reviewed journals, the degree of…

Seclusion, used broadly to include time-out (Bon & Zirkel, 2014), and other aversives, such as restraint, continues to be an active area of legal activity, particularly for students with disabilities. The September 2016 issue of "Communiqué" provided an update of the case law specific to school district use of seclusion (Zirkel,…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ([IDEA] 2004; IDEA Amendments 1997) is a civil rights--based law designed to protect the rights of students with disabilities in U.S. schools. However, decades after the initial passage of IDEA, racial inequity in special education classifications, placements, and suspensions are evident. In this…

This research provides a unique seven-year trend analysis indicating that, while California has seen a decline in the use of suspensions in schools prior to the pandemic, the pace of the decline has slowed and large racial disparities in suspension rates remain. The research supports renewed advocacy efforts to eliminate schools' use of security…