Legally speaking, a student's Behavior Support Plan (BSP) is an extension of their IEP. It is a legal contract with the parents, and all procedural safeguards (including notice) also apply to the BSP. It is best practice to write BSPs using SpEd Forms- Behavior Support Plan template, but this has no effect on their legal status. For information regarding what a BSP accomplishes, when it might be needed, and other common questions, refer to the FAQs section at the bottom of this page. 

What does a BSP accomplish that an IEP alone cannot?

Many students with educational needs in the area of behavior can receive FAPE through an IEP alone. Prevention, reinforcement, and response strategies can be documented directly in the accommodations and modifications section of the IEP. A student's behavior-related goals and progress monitoring procedures are included in the IEP, and the teaching strategies needed to support those goals should be described to some extent in the PLAAFP and/or LRE pages of the IEP. 

You may be thinking, 'If IEPs include all of this information, then why do we need BSPs?' For starters, the BSP organizes the information into a meaningful context rather than these pieces of information being spread across the IEP, scattered amongst information about the student's non-behavior programming. This benefits intervention quality by making it easier to get all of the school staff who work with a student on the same page regarding the student's behavior programming. In a BSP, behavior-related accommodations and modifications are also meaningfully organized into the categories of prevention, reinforcement, and response strategies.

In addition, BSPs include other information that is key to understanding the student's behavior and intervening successfully. These include: descriptions of the target undesired behaviors that are most problematic for the student, the function(s) of the undesired behavior(s), identified replacement behavior(s), safety/crisis plans, and procedures for ensuring intervention integrity.

When does a student need a BSP?

While it's natural to desire a black-and-white threshold for when a BSP needs to be developed, unfortunately, due to the variety of undesired behaviors a student can exhibit and the complexity involved in weighing the frequency, duration, and intensity of each behavior, the idea of a clear-cut threshold is unrealistic. 

A student needs a BSP when the IEP team determines that a BSP is needed in order to provide the student with FAPE. Some degree of interpretation will always be involved in that determination because decisions about what is "appropriate" can never be completely objective and clear-cut. When making such a decision, the IEP team needs to consider the student's educational needs and the benefits of a BSP (explained above). If the team determines that a students behavior is impeding their ability to learn, access their peers or the general environment...it is likely that a behavior plan is appropriate. 

Do I need an FBA? 

Yes. An FBA or Functional Behavior Assessment, should always be completed prior to creating a BSP. This is an essential component to ensure that the function or reason for the behavior is identified. It is common for students to engage in a variety of behaviors for different reasons (escape/avoidance, access to tangibles, access to attention, and sensory stimulation). To treat behavior we must first understand or have a hypothesis as to why the behavior is occurring. It is not until we understand why or identify a function of the behavior, that we can determine what the learner should do instead. An FBA will also tell us: when the behavior is more likely to occur and how we should respond to the occurrence. Anyone who is trained on completing an FBA can complete the assessment. If your school has a behavior analyst, behavior specialist or school psychologist they should be included or leaned on to complete the assessment. 

It is far better to proactively develop a BSP than to be in the position of needing to reactively write and implement a BSP in response to urgent student needs. Generally speaking, if members of the IEP team are discussing a student's needs and asking each other if a BSP should be developed, the team should move forward with developing a BSP. In addition, there are certain circumstances that clearly indicate the need to develop a BSP:

• If the IEP team considers it a possibility, however remote, that at a some point a student's placement may need to change to a self-contained Setting III or a Setting IV program. Among other things, having a BSP in place prepares the IEP team to follow the steps the ELC Referral Process.

• If a student is consistently earning discipline referrals and/or has earned multiple suspensions, either from the classroom or from transportation. If a manifestation determination occurs and a BSP is not already in place, one must be developed. It is better to be proactive.

• If a restrictive procedure is likely to be needed at some point. If a restrictive procedure has already taken place and a BSP was not already in place, one should be developed immediately. Again, it is better to be proactive.

Do I need to obtain parent permission before we change the BSP?

If the change to the BSP is significant, yes. Because the BSP is considered an extension of the IEP, significant changes must follow due process requirements for prior written notice and the case manager should operate using the same procedure that is used when amendments are proposed for the IEP in SpEd Forms. This requirement was clarified by MDE during record review training.

Significant changes include: 

• Replacement behaviors

• Response strategies (those that impact setting)

• Location of strategy (GenEd vs. SpEd). For example, if processing with the student was happening within a GenEd classroom but will now be happening in a SpEd resource room.

• Behavior goals/progress monitoring/amount of service time

• Safety plan/use of restrictive procedures

In addition, if the target behavior(s) is different from what is identified in the most recent FBA, a new FBA must be completed (e.g., verbal aggression has escalated to physical aggression).

Minor changes include:

• Response strategies provided within current setting (e.g., format of corrective teaching or behavior processing)

• Reinforcement strategies (e.g., menu of preferred items)

Although written notice is not required in these cases, communication with parent(s) is encouraged.