The school district wants to know what specific behavior led to the school's decision to write an intervention plan for a student who is misbehaving. For example, instead of writing on the disciplinary report that Whitney has been disrespectful, the principal should require the teacher write, "Whitney stuck her tongue out at me when I told her to sit down." This will improve the chances her parents will be supportive of the administration rather than angry because they suspect the administration has unfairly targeted her.
Require every teacher to write a behavior plan that outlines the escalation of consequences according to the number of repeat incidents on a given day or the severity of the offense. For example, a school district may have a system in place where a child pulls a green card at the first infraction and a yellow card at the second. A green card may mean a verbal warning, a yellow card will necessitate a call home to the parents and a red card will denote a trip to the office. It needs to be evident that the child knew and understood this system.
Before writing up a behavioral intervention plan, the district may seek documented information that the behavior in question represents a pattern of behavior. It would want to know if Whitney has been disrespectful in separate incidents over a period of time. According to the Functional Behavior checklist, the superintendent seeks information like data collected by the concerned adults, such as scatter plotting or bar graphing that indicated how many other instances she answered back to teachers or swore at them.
Prior to writing a behavior intervention plan, a district will want to see evidence that teachers, behavior specialists and/or principals have discussed alternative behavior techniques with the child. For instance, a question administrators will ask is if the staff suggested ways of interacting with the teacher respectfully and following her directions, even if she does not like what the instructor has asked her to do.
A written document that keeps track of the steps the school took that led up to the intervention plan should be on file. Have the involved adults fill it out based on every step as the administration takes them. Require them to complete all of the steps on the sheet and date them. This reduces the chance of a situation in which parents storm into the school, charging you with singling their child out for punishment.