Effective Crisis Management Planning: Creating A Collaborative Framework.

Violence has permeated the fabric of public schools. Many teachers are fearful, unprepared, and ill equipped to deal with dangerous student behavior. One of the major impacts of the lack of active crisis planning and management has been unsafe classroom environments. Presently, many teachers of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) fail to develop crisis management plans. By facilitating the development of crisis planning and management documents, teachers can improve positive behavioral support practices, create safer learning environments, and deal effectively with serious verbally and physically aggressive student behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to describe collaborative processes E/BD teachers can employ to effectively plan for the management of student crisis episodes. Specific strategies to enhance their effective implementation are also provided. Legal requirements (i.e., IDEA 1997 Amendments) pertaining to positive behavioral support are described and individual and system responses regarding effective crisis planning and management are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]