PAPPI stands for Parents And Profesionals for Positive Interventions

This page tracks the work of the PAPPI group to reduce the use of restraint and seclusion in schools and increase the use of positive behavioral supports.

We work via e-mail and hold a conference call once a month. Leave a note on the discussion page if you want to participate or e-mail gregsmithpm at gmail.com.

Goals

Faciliate the ability of parents to tell their story and be heard without retaliation.
Improve transparency about what is happening in schools and analyze data to demonstrate the use of restraint and seclusion.
Develop tools and information for school systems to help reduce the use of restraint and seclusion through positive behavioral support.
Increase the size of our group. Ensure that we have actionable tasks for new parents as they express a desire to be involved.
Improve the laws and regulations on restraint and seclusion.

Ways to volunteer

Join our e-mail list (contact gregsmithpm at gmail.com)
Particpate in monthly planning conference calls
Take a task from the to do list and do it! If it's not clear what to do, send an e-mail to the contact and ask for help. Once done, send an e-mail to the contact with closure.

New To Do List Ideas

These are ideas proposed by group members which need definition. The first step is to break the task down in to small parts which can be done in 30 minutes or less. Once that is done, people can pick these up, do them and send an e-mail saying what they did.

Campaign to Protect Rule 33 in Maine

The goal of this campaign is to generate 200 letters, e-mails and phone calls to Maine State Legislators to protect their new regulations on restraint known as Rule 33.

See latest news about people who want to roll back that rule here

Collect links describing Rule 33. Start here: http://www.maine.gov/education/rulechanges/chapter33/index.html
Write a short, focused explanation of why the new rule is important

Possible sources to make the argument: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-ellen-stevens/trauma-sensitive-schools_b_1625924.html and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-ellen-stevens/traumasensitive-schools-part-two_b_1632126.html

Find the link to contact your Maine legislator

http://www.maine.gov/legis/house/townlist.htm

Write an e-mail which can be shared to ask people to contact their legislator including a sample letter. Make sure to ask people to tell us if they did it for tracking purposes. Consider one version for residents of Maine and another for people outside Maine.

Sample Maine e-mail

Develop a list of e-mail lists and groups to send the above e-mail to

Possible starting point here: http://www.mainecgc.org/partners.html
Also, find these listservs: Maine Children’s Trust, Maine Roads to Quality, and Head Start. They are used by early childhood educators so some may be in favor and others not.

Choose an online petition or other tool to generate interest
Write a press release describing the impact of restraint on children in Maine and promoting the campaign to protect rule 33. Break this in to sub-tasks as needed (e.g. research impact, create protect rule 33 web page, etc).

Create Online Petition

Find online petition tools. Determine what the peition should say and who it should be directed to. Possibkly starting point is this article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/school-seclusion-restraint_n_2219091.html

Come up with a strategy to spread the word about the petition
Write the peition and submit it to the online site

Propose an update to MA laws

This recent ruling allows mechanical restraint with a doctor's note. Even if it is against the parents wishes.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/bsea/rulings/11-5444.pdf

Contact lawyers at Disability Law Center, Mass Advocates for Children or elsewhere. Ask them to help propose a change in the law to address thie BSEA ruling.
Create a brief talking points write up which asks State Reps and Senators to propose a change in the law.
Find a lead rep/senator to propose the legislation. Get as many consituents as possible to contact them.

Campaigns

From R-S to PBIS, One District at a Time

This is our first campaign. The goal is to look closely at one school system and see if we can help make a difference there. We start by gathering data. Then we reach out to people in the community. Then we offer resources and support to help them improve the policies and practice in their schools.

We picked Lewiston, Maine as our first target school system because we found data suggesting it's incidence of restraint is higher than the norm. We also have experience in Maine based on work to update the regulations there. After we learn from this first city, we should be able to apply a similar methodology to other school systems.

The campaign will be a success when:

The regulations in Lewiston are updated to conform to the new state wide regulations.
There is a group of parents and others in Lewiston who are empowered to continue tracking and working on this issue.
We have documented the process of the campaign and can replicate it in other school systems.

This campaign addresses groupwide goals 1,2,3 and 4.

Contacts

Contact Deb (add e-mail?) and Greg gregsmithpm at gmail dot com for help with tasks or more information.

To Do List

Less than 30 Minute Tasks

Collect data on Lewiston from Federal site: http://ocrdata.ed.gov/ and post it.

The task above is currently being worked on, please pick a different task or do this work on a different city or town. Gregorio 13:47, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Write overview of the data (e.g. what are the key points, how does it compare to statewide data)
Find and post links to Lewiston school system policies and special education programs.
Find e-mails and if possible names of parents in Lewiston who are involved in Special Education. Save them but don't post them online.
Collect contact names and e-mails addresses of people we want to influence (mostly school board members). Save them but don't post them online.
Research news and artciles on education in Lewiston.
Search for contacts in the provider community and at the state level who are motivated to help in Lewiston

30 - 60 minute Tasks

Think about the 30 minute tasks, add detail, add new ones and break them down in to smaller sub-tasks.
Update and edit the campaign objectives and purpose. Explain why Lewiston and why we, as outsiders, should be involved there.
Write the first draft table of contents for a packet of information we can share with parents and others in Lewiston. It should express concern for the issue, identify gaps in policies and offer resources and ways to make things better

Other open areas of work

When the message and people to deliver it are final, reach out to the school board and administration
Leave behind a group of empowered parents and others who can continue to work in the community. Get regular updates on how it's going and support them.
Once we run a campaign like this in one city or town, we document how to do and move on to the next one.

Meeting minutes

Next Meeting

Thursday January 17th, 8PM

Agenda:

20 minutes - intros and update on recent work
10 minutes - update on Maine chapter 33 work
20 minutes - discuss campaign options and action items. Make a To Do list and decide how we get work done
10 minutes - set agenda and time for next meeting

December 7th meeting notes

Update on recent work:

PAPPI (Parents And Professionals for Positive Interventions) is the name for now. Greg noted he is working with Newton, MA to get details on the design of the rooms in his district. Deb campaigning to protect the laws in Maine as there is some push back from legislators and unions. Deb will be very tied up with thiis work and the holidays for the next 4 weeks. Deb will think of things she can ask people to do to help. She will send that list to Greg who will try to find people to help.

Discuss communication strategy (facebook group, e-mail list etc.)
- We plan four levels of communication and engagement:

Private Facebook group. Deb will create a new private Facebook page after the holidays.
This list of people for regular e-mails and meeting info
The web site http://wiki.laptop.org/go/PAPPI (everyone should look at that page and make a small edit anywhere on it to show you can access it)
An e-mail list for people who want to be kept in the loop but will only particpate occassionally. tbd exactly how we set this up

Discuss status and to do list for first campaign

The To Do list for the first campaign is here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/PAPPI#To_Do_List We talked about focusing on a different city where know parents already. Greg is reaching out to help pick a new city. In the mean time we talked about how to do the first task (Collect data on Lewiston from Federal site: http://ocrdata.ed.gov/ and post it.). Cara will start working on that and ask Deb for advice as she gets in to it.

Set agenda for next meeting with a goal of sending recruiting e-mails in January

Agenda is: 10 minutes - Update on recent work and introductions
20 minutes - review of communication channels
20 minutes - Review of work on first campaign. Try to get a few more things on the To Do list done.
10 minutes - set agenda and time for next meeting

Anyone who has 30 minutes free to work on this, pick something from the To Do list. If it's not clear what to do, send me an e-mail and I will give some direction.

November 16 Meeting

Deb and Greg talked on 11/16

Next meeting Friday December 7th at 2PM.

Notes:

We discussed goals briefly. The only change was to add the words restraint and seclusion and positive behavioral supports to goals 2 and 3. - We brainstormed our first campaign to address goals 2,3,4, and 5

Possible title (I made this up after the call so comments welcome):
From restraint and seclusion to positive behavioral support, one school district at a time

Steps in the campaign:

Collect data from Federal site: http://ocrdata.ed.gov/ and other sources to identify school systems with higher than normal incidence (Deb already identified Lewiston, ME as the first one to work on).
Gather the data, post it on a web site and add context and explanation (e.g. what is the norm, how far out is this system and anything else which explains what it means and why it's important.
Research the policies (e.g. JKAA) and other info on that school system
Find wasy to influence the school board and administration to address the issue
1. Get the contact info for the school board
2. Find affected parents in the target community.
3. Find professionals near by or otherwise motivated to help
4. Identify elected representatives who can help
5. Identify state level administrators who can help
Create a packet of information and message for the school board (aka school committee in MA)
1. It should express concern for the issue, identify gaps in policies and offer resources and ways to make things better
When the message and people to deliver it are final reach out to the school board and administration
Leave behind a group of empowered parents and others who can continue to work in the community. Get regular updates on how it's going and support them.

Once we run a campaign like this in one city or town, we document how to do and move on to the next one.

Second campaign idea: Implementing laws and regulations in states that don't have them - Identify states that don't have any relevant laws or regulations - Collect examples of incidents and post that - Create a packet of information which shows how to create new laws or regulations based on the work done in Maine - Find groups in the target states and share the packet with them

This one needs more defintion but it addresses the goal 6 of improving laws and regulations.

Other subjects: - Deb mentioned that she has or may create a private facebook group to encourage discussion.

Action items:

Deb to suggest some new names for the group (bname should signify: open, grassroots, compassionate, motivated to make change)
Deb to write down the steps needed to take data off the OCR web site (aka step one in the campaign).
Once new name is agreed on, Greg to move wiki page to that place.
Greg to update web page
Greg to set agenda for next meeting (focused on how we recruit more people and what we will ask them to do once they express interest)

October 26 meeting

Introductions and brief review of recent work

Discussed our perspectives and goals. Greg talked about Mass initiative and work to create parents group. Deb talked about her work on the regulations in Maine. Bill talked about his experience and sense that this is a growing movement and he has heard from many people fromm all over the country. He thinks the next phase will be addressng issues of retaliation. We all noted that it's a systemic problem and will need a long term concerted effort to address it..

Adding people to the group

We agreed that anyone who wants to participate can send Greg an e-mail. If they want vto ohelpp advocate with ut, Greg will then add them to the cc and invite them to the next meeting.
Note, people who were not on the call, please confirm to me that you are OK with that

Goals discussion. we came up with these goals not in priority order:
- Faciliate the ability of parents to tell their story and be heard without retaliation
- Improve transparency about what is happening in schools and analyze data to demonstrate the use of restraint and seclusion.
- Develop tools and information for school systems to help reduce the use of restraint and seclusion through positive behavioral support.
- Increase the size of our group. Ensure that we have actionable tasks for new parents as they express a desire to be involved.
- Improve the laws and regulations on restraint.

Agenda for next meeting:
- 20 minutes - Introductions and review of recent work
- 5 minutes - A quick read through to approve the goals.
- 5 minutes - Discuss any logistical issues or ideas (e.g. should we move this to an e-mail list, is the wiki good, too many e-mails or just right?)
- 20 minutes - Brainstrom objectives and campaigns to work on. Each should contribute to one of the goals above.
- 10 minutes - Set agenda for next meeting.

News

Maine News

Rule 33 in Maine improves the regulations on restraint and seclusion. See: http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/rules/05/071/071c033.doc
See a side by side comparison of the new and old rules here: http://www.maine.gov/education/rulechanges/chapter33/comparison.pdf

Articles which motivated Maine to update regulations

Children held down: Families questions use of therapeutic restraints in Maine public schools
More parents report student restraints; Maine Dept. of Education downplays concerns
'I thought I was the only one': 3 kids, 3 years, nearly 100 school restraints
Scarborough School Board considers changes to restraint, privacy policies
Maine Dept. of Education warns schools about use of 'dangerous restraints'

Recent news from organizations asking for changes to Rule 33

Article describing push back from education administrators to the new rule:
http://www.kjonline.com/news/Maine-teachers-union-reports-dozens-of-student-on-teacher-assaults.html

Articles on the teachers union raising concerns about the new rule:
http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/26/education/mea-dozens-of-educators-assaulted-in-wake-of-changes-to-restraint-rules/
http://www.pressherald.com/news/Maine-teachers-union-reports-dozens-of-student-on-teacher-assaults.html?searchterm=restraint+%26+seclusion
http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/24859/Default.aspx

National News

ABC News Investigative Report:

Thousands of autistic and disabled schoolchildren have been injured and dozens have died after being restrained by poorly trained teachers and school aides who tried to subdue them using at times unduly harsh techniques, an ABC News investigation has found.

With no agreed upon national standards for how teachers can restrain an unruly child, school officials around the country have been employing a wide array of methods that range from sitting on children, to handcuffing them, even jolting them with an electric shock at one specialized school. Some have locked children in padded rooms for hours at a time.

One Kentucky teacher's aide is alleged to have stuffed 9-year-old Christopher Baker, who is autistic and was swinging a chair around him, into a draw-string duffle bag.

See: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/abc-news-investigation-moms-fight-back-against-harsh-methods-to-restrain-students-with-special-needs/

Links, documentation, ideas and comments

Training on positive behavior support http://www.pbis.org/common/pbisresources/publications/SWPBS_ImplementationBlueprint_vSep_23_2010.pdf

Recent ruling by BSEA in MA allowing Mechanical Restraint based on a school doctor seeing a short video:
http://www.doe.mass.edu/bsea/decisions/11-5444a.doc

Media coverage generated by Op Ed in New York Times:
http://terrifyingdiscipline.weebly.com/index.html

Motivational article http://www.copaa.org/public-policy/standing-in-our-own-shoes/

Federal resource document:
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/seclusion/restraints-and-seclusion-resources.pdf

Online training for influencing people:
http://www.partnersinpolicymaking.com/makingyourcase/

Documents collected in Maine initiative to update regulations:
http://www.maine.gov/education/rulechanges/chapter33/resources.html

Another concerning r/s article
http://www.sunjournal.com/news/franklin/2012/10/25/rsu-9-staff-facing-challenges-under-new-rule/1271392

Dissertation on how best to train teachers on reducing the use of restraint and seclusion.
http://wiki.laptop.org/images/f/f4/PREVENTION_AND_REDUCTION_OF_RESTRAINT_AND_SECLUSION_IN_PUBLIC_SCHOOLS-_A_COMPREHENSIVE_APPROACH_Nancy_I._Macias-Smith_Doctoral_Project_2012.pdf

A guide book for training teachers on how gto avoiod the use of restraint and seclusion.
http://wiki.laptop.org/images/2/28/FINAL_GUIDEBOOK_Nancy_I_Macias-Smith_04_11_2012_REV_SL_JL_BL_NMS_v2-1-.docx

Article about a positive approach http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2012/10/17/schools-gains-positive-behavior/16670/

SWPBIS success story http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2012/10/30/Positive-behavior-strategy-seeks-to-lessen-discipline-gap.html

Issues in Ohio that is similar to the push back in Maine: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/11/04/state-plan-a-burden-schoolssay.html

Positive interventions being used in Ohio: http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2012/10/30/Positive-behavior-strategy-seeks-to-lessen-discipline-gap.html