A Manifestation Determination is a form of disciplinary action for special education students.
The purpose is to determine whether their behavior is related to their disability. These meetings are held when students have met or exceeded 10 suspension days in the school year. It’s not something I remembered being trained to do in graduate school. I had to learn on the job.
When I did a portion of my internship at the high school, I shadowed the school psych for a few days. I was able to sit in on a manifestation meeting for a student who had keyed teachers’ cars. I don’t remember why the student did this, but the school psych I was shadowing was a force. She took charge and determined that his actions weren’t related to his disability.
It wasn’t a discussion, it was a plan of action.
It was inspiring.
Most manifestation meetings don’t run like that.
When I worked at the middle school, I felt like I was doing a meeting every week for the same handful of kids. For a good portion of the school year, I felt like I was doing a good job at these meetings.
At some point, though, I got burnt out and felt like I was going through the motions.
The admin team kept suspending the same students over and over again.
The year before, our previous admin team didn’t know these meetings were mandatory. They suspended students for weeks on end.
I had a process for handling manifestations. Some things went well and other things I would change.
I’m going to be honest about my experience the last year when I was at the middle school. The middle school had a huge problem with a lack of follow through from our admin team. Our building, unfortunately, was very person dependent.
One person took charge of the special education department. Power like that shouldn’t be a dictatorship. For the first few years in the middle school, there was one person who had too much put on them. The system had no checks and balances. They call it an IEP team for a reason.
There’s a lot I can say about this, but what it boiled down to was a lack of systems and processes and a lack of follow through. I can only talk about the role I played, what worked and what didn’t.
- Have an automated method of being notified of suspensions.Most people are busy, so some people get left out of the loop. Don’t let yourself get out of the loop.
Someone should be tracking this data and responding accordingly. This would likely be something you and your sped team would be meeting about regularly.
Personally, I think case managers should be the ones keeping track of this data. They know their students and which ones seem to be getting in trouble regularly.Data tracking has gotten so much better these days. Running a report and identifying patterns is something that can be automated.
You can run a weekly report without spending a thousand years trying to enter the info in a spreadsheet. - When you’re notified of a suspension, look at the discipline records and get an idea of what happened.
What was the incident and what happened? What led up to the incident, what was the consequence(s) and is this a pattern of behavior? If it’s a pattern of behavior, what were the previous consequences and why weren’t they effective?
Does this student have a behavior intervention plan? If so, what supports do they have or are they supposed to have in place?
My director at the time didn’t want us “investigating the incident.” In hindsight, that advice feels misguided.
- Call the parent.
I was usually the one to call parents to set up meetings. I would discuss any situations that may be going on at home, any changes in medications, and school/home life. You’d be surprised how much information you get about a student’s home life that is impacting them at school.
I always have candid conversations with parents to get the full stories. Sometimes parents feel attacked by admin or embarrassed, so being empathetic is paramount. It’s not about right or wrong, but whether their child’s disability is impacting them.
I always try to stay on the side of the child and parent.
It’s not about what’s in the past, but what we’re going to do as a team to move forward.
- Talk to the child.
Your mileage may vary with this one. It depends on whether you have a strong rapport with the student already or not. Most of the time, they are already suspended so it’s not like you can call them to your office. If you do have that opportunity, you should take it.
Sometimes, it’s unavoidable to have the student in the meeting. If they are at the meeting, I always shift gears and have it be child-led.
I ask them to tell me what happened, why did they do it, and what can we do to support them to make better decisions. It can be helpful to get a student’s input. Sometimes they aren’t available or willing to talk, especially if they don’t already have a rapport with me. Sometimes I can get that information from the case managers.
My first year at the middle school, we had our special ed. Director in the meeting and the student. The meeting started off well until the director said the student was disabled. Then all heck broke loose. We spent the rest of our time deescalating the student.
We didn’t get anything accomplished.
- Review records.
Read previous IEPs, evaluations, and look up scientific articles about the students disability.
My manifestation reports at first were too detailed and long. Reports are shifting to being more readable and concise. Bullet points and lists are good ways to convey the information. Be objective and just state what happened. What was happening at the time the incident occurred? What was going on in the environment. What happened before, during, and after? What was the immediate consequence?
Writing your manifestations with ABC data starts the process for building an FBA. Taking your data this way will make your life easier.
5.Present the findings at the meeting with the team’s input.
Your manifestation meetings should be like a normal evaluation meeting.
I put so much pressure on myself trying to “elevate” these meetings beyond what they actually are. Manifestation determinations are just a form of evaluation meeting. You’re evaluating whether a student’s disability was being disciplined appropriately.
I always felt like I’m the one that has the final say, but it’s a team decision.
The “Yes and No” part of manifestations aren’t as important as answering the “What are we going to do about it?” piece.
This is a solid workflow for getting through manifestation determinations. Some of what I would do different is time intensive. Some of it is a systems issue that requires capacity-building. Once you get your workflow solid, you can layer in these things.
6. Review any video of the incident, if possible.
I know, this sounds like common sense, but this was up for debate in my district. Your mileage may vary with this one. If the video is easy for you to get access to, get it.
In my case…
My director told me that I wasn’t the one investigating the incident. She was all about staying in our lanes, so to her watching the video wasn’t necessary. It’s not “necessary”, but I would say video is more objective than discipline records. Adults have their opinions about what happened and let that color their perception.
People also have their own agendas for what they want to see happen with kids.
We had a case with a student that was being accused of some awful things if you just read what was in the student’s file. I wasn’t allowed to look at any video because people’s agendas and lawyers, but there was a disconnect.
What was described in the student’s file didn’t match the stories of what happened.
You’ll find that being the case more often than not.
Since we didn’t have a process around manifestations, I had to bumble along and do what I could. In hindsight, if there’s time, the school psych should be a part of the investigative committee. Or at least in the loop.
These meetings aren’t court cases, even if lawyers and such are involved.
I was just the one determining whether the incident was related to a student’s disability.
Not everyone documents incidents in neutral language.
But you can’t rely on one person’s perception of what happened.
1.Have a committee reviewing suspension data regularly.
There’s a variety of ways this could be incorporated into already existing meetings.
If your special education team runs Multi-Disciplinary Team/MTSS meetings regularly, you can:
- have everyone collect their own students disciplinary data.
- have a monthly meeting to discuss interventions.
When I worked at the middle school, we had 4 case managers with about 25-30 kids on their caseloads. They all had some idea of who their “high flyers” were. Reviewing data regularly helps the team be proactive but stay in compliance. We could schedule proactive meetings to keep kids from getting to their 10 days.
Make sure your admin team understands the purpose of a manifestation meeting.
I know this one also sounds like
2.Address systemic issues that keep the same students on our radar.
There was a big lack of follow through and consequences for students. Especially for those who were constantly getting suspended. This is one of those tough conversations that your admin may or may not be willing to have. When I have good admin, they are willing to do what it takes to get things back on the right track. We were planning on revamping our whole lunch detention system. When there are bad admin, you just do what you can do. You can sound the alarm, but ultimately you can only do so much.
That’s all I could do when I did have bad admin, is play my role, ask the relevant questions, and show up to the next meeting.
Navigating manifestation determination meetings can be tough. With the right systems and support, you can make a real impact for your students. It’s not just about meeting legal requirements. It’s about advocating for each child and ensuring they get the support they need. Having clear communication and processes is important for student success.