What Actually Happens At A Manifestation Determination Review Meeting?

Are you nervous about what’s going to happen at your manifestation determination review meeting?

Part of that nervousness is coming from not knowing what to expect. We all have a natural fear of the unknown.

It will help calm your nerves if you know what these meetings are actually like. Knowing what to expect will reduce your fear of the unknown, and also help you prepare for the meeting.

So in this article I’ll tell you what these manifestation determination review meetings are really like. You’ll learn:

1. Who will be there
2. How these meetings are actually conducted
3. What issues will be discussed
4. How decisions are actually made at these meetings

This article assumes you already have a basic understanding of what a manifestation determination is. If you don’t, you might want to read – What Is A Manifestation Determination?

1) Who will be there?

The people attending a manifestation determination review (MDR) meeting fall into three categories:

• members of your IEP team
• administrators, and
• whoever you choose to bring

Most of the people attending your manifestation determination meeting (including you) will be from your IEP team. The school is supposed to include “relevant” members of your IEP team.

Who is relevant? The school will initially pick who to invite. But if you think they left someone important out you can request that they be added to the list. The list is to be made by mutual agreement between the school and the parent. So you do have some say in this.

The list will likely include your child’s special education teacher, regular education teacher, and a special education administrator.

Depending on the circumstances, a therapist or teacher consultant might be included too.

In many cases, the school psychologist and school social worker will be relevant and should be invited. Sometimes schools fail to include them. So check on that, and request their attendance if their expertise is relevant. If “executive function”, impulse control, emotional states, or lack of understanding are part of your child’s disability or misbehavior, then these people should definitely be invited.

General education administrators will be there too.

You can expect the principal and/or assistant principal to attend. Often someone at the superintendent level, such as the superintendent or an assistant superintendent, will attend as well. Generally speaking, the general education administrators attending will be those involved in your child’s student discipline case.

Finally, you can bring your own people to the manifestation determination meeting.

This can be anyone with knowledge of your child or someone to help you advocate for your child. That could include family members or close family friends. It could also include a private therapist, counselor or other expert, or a special education advocate or attorney.

You do have the right to be represented by an attorney or advocate at this meeting. But be advised, if you bring your attorney, they will likely bring their attorney. Whether that helps you or hurts you depends on the individual attorneys involved and the circumstances of your case.

Also be advised that if you are going to bring an advocate or attorney, you should let the school know ahead of time. The earlier the better. Don’t surprise them with this at the last minute.

It is typical for a parent to bring 1 or 2 people to the meeting, even if it’s just a family member. So don’t be shy about bringing someone for moral support, the school is probably used to that. It’s rare for a parent to bring a huge team of people. Rare, but perfectly allowable, as long as everyone you bring has some relevance or legitimate purpose for being there.

Whoever you are bringing, it is both common courtesy and sound strategy to let the school know ahead of time who will be coming with you.

2) How is the manifestation determination review actually conducted?

Generally speaking, an MDR meeting looks and feels very much like an IEP meeting. And it’s conducted pretty much the same way. So whatever you’re used to in your IEP meetings, it will probably be similar.

The setting for a manifestation determination review meeting is similar to that for an IEP meeting – look familiar?

As with an IEP meeting, a manifestation determination should be conducted like a committee meeting. As different issues are raised, everyone provides their input on each issue and the group tries to reach consensus on each issue. It’s supposed to be group discussion and group decision-making.

Although this procedure is sometimes called a manifestation determination “hearing”, it is not a hearing in any normal sense of the word. There is no judge, no evidence rules, no sworn witnesses, etc. It’s just a group of people sitting around a table talking about the issues. Like your IEP meetings.

And your rights are the same as in an IEP meeting. These include the right to speak and present information, the right to have your input considered, the right to bring others, etc. It also includes the same rights and rules about tape recording the meeting that would apply to an IEP meeting in your district.

But there are a few big differences between MDR meetings and IEP meetings.

First, the issues being discussed at an MDR meeting are very different from those discussed at an IEP meeting.

The person running the meeting will have a manifestation determination form to fill out. That form basically serves as the agenda for the meeting the same way an IEP form basically serves as the agenda for an IEP meeting. See the next section for a detailed description of the issues discussed at an MDR meeting.

Second, the group dynamic is a little different because the general education administrators are participating.

Those general education administrators are there for a reason. Student discipline is a general education function. It’s handled by the general education administrators. They are the ones proposing to kick your child out of school. In most cases, they WANT to kick your child out of school. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have initiated the student discipline process in the first place.

You don’t normally have someone trying to kick your child out of school at your IEP meeting. It can create some unusual tension.

And at your IEP meetings, most or all of the attendees have expertise in special education and working with disabled children. But the general education administrators at your MDR meeting may understand very little about special education or disabled children. That’s not their area of expertise. And they don’t work with your child like the people on your IEP team do, and may not know your child at all.

All they know is that your child did something bad and it’s their job to enforce the rules.

This all adds up to a group dynamic that tends to split along special education vs. general education lines.

The special education people come to the meeting with lots of knowledge about the child, and they usually prefer to see the child stay in school. The general education administrators come to the meeting with little or no knowledge about the child and a desire to kick them out of school. Under the surface, the school is often not quite the united front they try to appear to be.

Another difference in group dynamic comes into play if attorneys come to the meeting. Usually, if you bring an attorney the school will bring an attorney, and if you don’t bring one the school won’t either.

How the group dynamic changes with attorneys present depends on the individual attorneys’ styles. Some attorneys don’t really participate or say much of anything unless someone asks them a legal question. Others take over and try to run the meeting. Some are very professional and even pleasant to deal with. Others can be manipulative or even bullies. It all depends on the attorneys.

The good news is that if you are bringing a special education attorney to the meeting, there is a good chance they know the school’s attorney. If so, your attorney will know how to deal with them and can tell you what to expect.

3) What issues are discussed at a manifestation determination review meeting?

Here is a list of the main issues discussed at an MDR meeting. I’ll explain each of these issues in more detail below.

The main issues that are supposed to be discussed are:

• your child’s misbehavior and the circumstances surrounding the incident
• your child’s disability(s)
• whether there was a causal relationship between the misbehavior and the disability
• whether the IEP was being implemented properly, and if not, whether the school’s IEP violation caused the misbehavior
• whether the misbehavior was a “manifestation of a disability”

All of these issues are related. They are all part of one big analysis that leads to the answer of that final question “whether the misbehavior was a manifestation of a disability”. That is the ultimate question, and the rest of the issues are just part of the analysis in trying to answer it.

Your child’s misbehavior and the circumstances

This part of the discussion is about what happened. Your child is in trouble because of some behavioral incident. They misbehaved in a way that broke school rules. The group needs to discuss that incident in detail to get everybody on the same page about exactly what happened and why.

Schools sometimes make the mistake of glossing over this part. Sometimes they just assume everyone already knows what happened so there’s no need for detailed discussion. Or sometimes they think this part of the discussion is about which rule was broken, rather than what the child actually did. Such mistakes almost always work against your child, so don’t let this happen.

Your child’s actual behavior is what needs to be discussed, in detail. That includes discussing the circumstances surrounding the misbehavior. Those circumstances will help everyone understand why the misbehavior occurred.

To just say “Johnny assaulted another student” only tells us what rule was broken. It doesn’t actually identify what Johnny did.

Did Johnny hit the other student? With an open hand or a fist? More than once? Or did Johnny kick the other student? Where? Or did Johnny throw something at the other student? What did he throw? From how far away? What was going on just before this happened? What is Johnny’s relationship with the other student like?

Just saying that “Johnny assaulted someone” doesn’t answer ANY of these important questions. The detail about what actually happened will become very important later in the meeting when the group tries to assess the relationship between your child’s behavior and their disabilities. In order to assess that relationship accurately, the group needs to understand EXACTLY what the behavior was and the circumstances surrounding it.

Your child’s disability(s)

This is where the discussion focuses on what disabilities your child has. Most importantly, it should focus on how those disabilities affect your child and their behavior.

The impact of a disability on behavior can be indirect. For example, a student who can’t read might break a rule because they couldn’t read the sign telling them not to do it. A child with an impaired understanding of cause and effect may do something that hurts someone because they didn’t anticipate the result of their actions. You have to really think about all the ways your child’s disability affects them, not just the obvious.

This part of the discussion should include looking at your child’s IEP, evaluations, and other special education records. Those records should identify many of the ways your child’s disabilities impact them and affect their functioning. But those documents are sometimes not complete or even accurate. Your input, teacher observation, and any private evaluations should be included in the discussion too.

By the end of this discussion, you want the group to have a complete, accurate and well-rounded understanding of what disabilities your child has and how they affect your child.

Once again, schools sometimes want to gloss over this issue. They assume that the disability is just whatever disability is listed on the front page of the IEP, and that everybody knows what that disability means.

That’s wrong for several reasons. Most importantly, it’s wrong because every person is a unique individual, and any disability will affect different people in different ways. Also, many children have more than one disability, even if only one is listed on the front page of the IEP.

What’s important is not a label or stereotypes about that label. What’s important is how YOUR child’s disabilities actually affect YOUR child. Getting a clear picture of that requires some meaningful discussion. This is to be an individualized analysis. Don’t let the group gloss over this issue with labels and stereotypes.

Remember, the general education administrators don’t know much about this subject. Expect that you will need to educate them. Plan on explaining who your child is, what their disabilities are, and how those disabilities affect them.

And try to back-up what you’re saying with something in writing. Showing them information that’s in writing (from the IEP, evaluations, credible articles from the internet, etc.) adds to your credibility and makes it more likely they will accept what you are saying as true.

Was there a causal relationship between your child’s misbehavior and a disability?

This part of the discussion considers the misbehavior and the disabilities together, and looks at whether the disability caused or significantly contributed to the misbehavior.

Notice something important here. You can’t really answer this question intelligently unless you have a clear understanding of what your child actually did and why, and how your child’s disabilities affect their behavior. This is why it is so important to go into the details during the discussion of those earlier issues. Those details matter when it comes time to answer this question.

For the most part, the discussion of this issue is mostly just logic and common sense. Considering what happened and your child’s disabilities, does it make sense that a disability had something to do with the misbehavior? Another way to think about it is whether your child would have behaved like that if they weren’t disabled.

I should point out that the question here is not whether the disability was the ONLY cause of the misbehavior. The question is whether it was a significant contributing factor – did the disability play a role somewhere in the chain of events.

This is a very important issue. Because if the group concludes that a disability caused or significantly contributed to the misbehavior, then they are REQUIRED to conclude later that the misbehavior was a “manifestation of a disability”, meaning you win. More on that below.

Was the IEP being properly implemented?

Sometimes a misbehavior can occur because a child’s IEP was not properly implemented. It is important to figure out if that was the case. If an IEP violation caused the misbehavior, that is considered a “manifestation of a disability”, meaning you win. More on that below.

Note that for an IEP violation to be relevant here, it had to be a cause of the misbehavior. Not just any IEP violation will do. Only IEP violations that led to the misbehavior matter in this part of the discussion.

An example of this would be where a child is supposed to have an aid with him at recess to help him with socially appropriate behaviors. On the day of the incident, the aid was nowhere to be found and the child was on his own on the playground. He engaged in some socially inappropriate behaviors that got him into a fight. The IEP was violated by the lack of aid support, and that caused the problem. The fight would not have occurred if the aid had been there to intervene like she was supposed to be. Thus, the misbehavior occurred because the IEP was not being properly implemented.

Although this issue must be raised at the manifestation determination meeting, you can expect that the school will probably resist any attempt to have a serious discussion about it.

Schools do not like to admit that they violated an IEP. It is illegal and a professional embarrassment to violate an IEP. So discussion of this issue is usually treated as a formality, with a quick rubber stamp agreement that the IEP was being fully implemented.

That may actually be OK if you have already proven that the misbehavior was caused by a disability and everyone has already agreed on that. Because if that’s the case, then as a practical matter you have already won (more on that below) and you don’t need to get into a spitting contest over IEP violation issues.

But if that’s not the case, then you may have to force this discussion if the school won’t just agree that the misbehavior was caused by a disability.

Was the misbehavior a “manifestation of a disability”?

This issue is the ultimate question of the whole meeting. And yet the discussion of this issue is usually a mere formality. That’s because the question should have already been answered during the discussion of the previous issues.

If the group agreed earlier that the misbehavior was caused by a disability, then the group MUST agree that the misbehavior was a “manifestation of a disability”. It is legally required. There is no option to do otherwise.

Similarly, if the group agreed earlier that the misbehavior was caused by an IEP violation, then the group MUST agree that the misbehavior was a “manifestation of a disability”. Again, they are allowed no other option.

So the discussion of this issue is usually pretty short since the answer was already decided during the earlier discussions.

However, that will not be the case if no agreement was reached when discussing those previous issues. If there is still no agreement on those issues, then those issues are going to be revisited and discussed again until a consensus is reached.

4) How is the final decision made at the manifestation determination review meeting?

The final decision at the MDR meeting is whether your child’s misbehavior was “a manifestation of a disability”. That’s the ultimate question the group is trying to answer.

This question will be raised toward the end of the meeting after the other issues have been discussed. Like the decisions made at an IEP meeting, this decision is a team decision made by consensus (including your consensus).

If there is no consensus when the question is initially raised, then there should be some additional discussion to try to reach consensus. The objective is to bring everyone (including you) into agreement on what the right answer is. But that will only go on for so long.

If consensus can’t be reached, the senior-most special education administrator attending usually just decides what the right answer should be. She puts that answer on the MDR form, and that is the official decision from the meeting. There is no legal rule saying that’s what is supposed to happen in the absence of consensus, but in my experience that’s the way it usually ends if no consensus can be reached.

Regardless, if you disagree with the final MDR meeting decision, you can appeal it the same way you could appeal an IEP decision you disagree with – through a special education due process hearing.

Note that there may well be some additional discussion after that final decision is made. Depending on your circumstances, there may be additional planning and next steps to address.

For example, if you won, it means the school can’t proceed with student discipline action against your child for the misbehavior. But the misbehavior is still problematic. It doesn’t just get ignored.

In that situation, the misbehavior will be dealt with as a special education matter. The approach will focus on helping your child rather than punishing them. This might require making some changes to the IEP, such as adding more supports. Or it might mean making adjustments to a behavior plan to make it more effective.

These adjustments might be made immediately at the end of the manifestation determination meeting. Or a separate meeting for that purpose might be scheduled to occur in the near future.

Another issue might come up if your child’s case falls under the “special circumstances” rule. If so, an Interim Alternative Educational Setting (IAES) may need to be considered. This is rare, and whether it is relevant at all to your case will depend on your circumstances. I’ll be writing an article about IAESs soon and will post a link here when it’s published.

Conclusion

The manifestation determination review meeting is conducted very much like an IEP meeting. It looks and feels pretty much like an IEP meeting, and is run much like an IEP meeting. Most or all of your IEP team will be there, and probably a few extra people who don’t normally come to your IEP meetings such as general education administrators.

But the issues to be discussed are not the same as they are at an IEP meeting. The discussion at this meeting will be about your child’s behavioral incident, how your child’s disabilities affect their behavior, and any causal relationship between the two.

At an IEP meeting, the group is trying to create a comprehensive educational plan. At an MDR meeting, the group is ultimately trying to answer a yes or no question – was your child’s misbehavior a manifestation of their disability.

Your objective at the meeting is to try to convince the group to answer “yes” to that question.

If you’ve been to a few IEP meetings before, this meeting will feel familiar. So you don’t need to spend any more time wondering or worrying what it will be like. You can handle this.

Start focusing on getting prepared for the meeting.

Proper preparation is the key to success at a manifestation determination meeting. It will give you confidence, empower you to be more effective defending your child and increase your chances of keeping your child in school.

 

Related resources and references:

To find out more about how to prepare for a manifestation determination review meeting, read How To Prepare For Your Manifestation Determination Meeting.

For a discussion of what to do at the MDR meeting to win, read How To Win A Manifestation Determination Hearing.

Learn more about what the manifestation determination review process is really like by reading “Seth’s Very Bad Day”, a manifestation determination example and case study.

Below are several articles written by special education attorneys who represent schools, advising schools on how to properly conduct manifestation determinations. Specifically, these articles emphasize the requirement that the student’s misbehavior and disabilities MUST be discussed in detail. I encourage you to print these articles out, take them with you to the meeting, and present them to the school if you find that the school doesn’t want to discuss details at the meeting.

“Manifestation Determination – Detailed Analysis Required” by Christina Stephanos
www.sweetstevens.com/newsroom/manifestation-determination-detailed-analysis-required

“Federal Court Provides Scrutiny on Manifestation Determination Hearings” by Timothy Gilsbach
www.kingspry.com/manifestation-determination-hearings/