BEHAVIOR/DISCIPLINE

Discipline and Behavior: Balancing Procedural Expectations with Positive Educational Practice
One of the greatest professional challenges facing educators today is to provide educational opportunities in a safe and welcoming environment while addressing student behavior. This workshop will focus on current issues of discipline and behavior, legal concerns and practical, functional options that school districts can use in the development and implementation of positive educational practice for all students.

“Just-In-Time” Behavioral Project (JITB)
The “Just-In-Time” Behavioral Project (JITB) is designed to help rethink discipline. Key ideas behind the program:
Prevention is the first response to challenging behavior and crisis.
Discipline is an opportunity to help students learn new skills and replacement behaviors.
Encouraging a sense of community responsibility and problem solving are more important than compliance and obedience.
Strategies and behavior intervention plans do not fulfill basic human needs—only relationships do.
There are no easy or quick fixes. Individual and systemic change takes time, commitment and introspection.

Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA)
Functional behavioral assessment, by definition, is a comprehensive and individualized approach to examining variables maintaining challenging behaviors. It is made up of two basic processes: descriptive analysis and functional analysis. Dr. Hartwig will explain and explore the legal and practical requirements for addressing behavior problems of students…if the consequences maintaining behavior and their associated stimulus controls are identified, then interventions can be developed based on this knowledge. How to conduct and document a seven-step functional behavior assessment with educational implications for programming will be shared.

Manifestation Determination
How and when do you document a manifestation determination? Contrary to popular belief, students with disabilities are not exempt from school discipline rules. The IEP Team must identify a causal or direct and substantial relationship between a student’s disability and misbehavior. Specific procedures for addressing the manifestation issue will be provided with key recommendations on how IEP Team members can respond to this often perplexing process.

To Be or Not to Be EBD: The Categorization and Treatment of Children Who Are Identified as Emotionally Disturbed
The issue of diagnostic evaluations is complex and far reaching. The significance of educational evaluations and the implications for categorization and programming have taken on new meaning during the last few years as a result of special education hearings and court decisions. The identification, categorization, and subsequently, the treatment of children who have emotional, behavioral difficulties is a major controversy in education today. The identification of childhood behavioral problems has been complicated by definitional problems, inconsistent application of criteria, and the lack of availability of technically adequate evaluation measures. This presentation will provide an outline clarifying appropriate identification procedures and addressing criteria for serious emotional disturbance. Most importantly, information will be provided for treatment and remedial planning for problems manifested by children in the school environment.

Shaping Emotional and Behavioral Competence: Creating the Perfect Behavior Plan
Trapped? Searching for a quick fix? Still muddling through the development of haphazard behavior plans? Effective behavioral improvements require systematic attention to details to avoid deadends without incurring undesirable side effects. This presentation will provide some practical, user-friendly techniques for capturing behavioral success. Find the way to the perfect 10-step behavior plan.

COMMUNICATION AND LEADERSHIP

Special Education Versus Regular Education: Whose Job Is It?
During the last thirty-five years, the impetus for providing appropriate educational programming for children with disabilities has been directed by a series of state and federal statutes and regulations. The entitlement for an appropriate educational program for children with disabilities has often given rise to communication difficulties between regular and special education staff who often seem to run on a separate and parallel path. This workshop will provide the basis for the development of enhanced communication skills between regular and special education staff.

Administrative Leadership: Betting on Engagement over Mandate
This workshop, while providing the basic theoretical approaches to leadership, will attempt to focus on contemporary, practical and functional issues of leadership and the impact on a school’s organizational performance and climate. Administrative leadership has been the focus of national attention because leaders have significant effect on behavior, attitude and performance of employees.

How to Deal With Difficult People or
Communication for Educators: The All-Important Skill
Most of us do fairly well in everyday communication. However, it is in the situations that matter most to us that we are likely to have trouble. It is often simply a matter of how to get your message across to a difficult person. What are some of the most effective ways to communicate? Dr. Hartwig emphasizes positive and principled negotiation to help staff members work more effectively and efficiently to create a mutually beneficial school climate. This workshop provides participants with remedies for dealing with difficult people.

Communication in Challenging Situations
Dr. Hartwig speaks about and provides helpful assistance on topics seldom, if ever, covered in the formal training.
Most of us feel fairly competent in everyday communication, but when the pressure is on, our feeling of competency can desert us. We may find ourselves saying or thinking, “I didn’t know how to respond to”, or “I didn’t know what to say”. Sometimes we just don’t know the best way to approach difficult people. In this workshop you learn effective ways to communicate with negative individuals, opinionated or resistant staff members; inflexible superiors; resistant or disinterested nonresponsive peers.

The Top 10 Parent Issues in Special Education
This presentation will provide parents a new perspective on special education and related issues. Dr. Hartwig, a noted and well-respected consultant, will provide the context on the top ten issues of special education to help parents and school practitioners to improve school/parent relationships while ensuring better services to children. There will be an opportunity for direct and informal interaction.

MOTIVATIONAL

Strange Days: Confessions of an Aging Rock Star
Option 1
This presentation will discuss the very serious subject of implementation of education-from a not-so-serious point of view. An aging rock star turned educational psychologist presents a rumbling, relentless review of where we've been and where we're going in the field. This review will touch on establishing and maintaining harmonious relationships, with a sense of humor and a bit of sanity through a new dimension, enlightenment, music and thoughts.
Option 2
It seems we have become frustrated by the growing demands and proportion of our work, often trying to do too much under inadequate circumstances. The dizzying array of additional responsibilities can be very frustrating to even the most experienced, but the conflict and discontent that often results can be the engine for change. That requires self-reflection and introspection. Need a lesson in how to reconnect to the reason you first became an educator? Dr. Hartwig, in a surprising rock star performance, presents a relentless review of where we’ve been and where we’re going in education.

Keeping Your Perspective
This presentation provides a synthesis of critical and emerging issues that effect organizational climate and individual performance. Although personal motivation is an individual matter, keeping a proper perspective helps to reconnect to the positive side of life. This light-hearted and insightful presentation will discuss the very serious subject of education from a not so serious point-of-view. Dr. Hartwig emphasizes positive and principled personal skills to help create a mutually beneficial school climate vital to the success of educating all children regardless of their needs or abilities. The importance of establishing and maintaining harmonious relationships with a sense of self-reflection, introspection, humor and a bit of sanity will be highlighted.

Summer of Love or Winter of Discontent?
Within the every-challenging spectrum of special education, there is a constant struggle to balance form and substance. Passion, an often-silent master of hope triumphing over experience, can get lost in the reality of accountability. This enlightening, thought-provoking and entertaining presentation is designed to capture and magnify the power of maintaining a positive perspective in the face of change.

One More Time: How Do You Motivate?
Motivation theorists have developed several view points on motivation with most theories are based on the principle of hedonism. The major theme of motivation, most recently, has changed from a philosophical to a more psychological, managerial approach. Overall, the concept of how to motivate continues to be an illusive matter. The old methods of simply expecting children to perform while providing external controls no longer works. This workshop will explore various theoretical concepts regarding motivation, and provide a practical approach to improving student performance.

Riding Out the Storm
We have become frustrated by growing demands, dizzyingly complex statutory and regulatory requirements, and breaking-point workloads. And on top of it all, we now have new requirements from IDEA ’04. The array of additional responsibilities can be confounding to even the most experienced professional, but the conflict and discontent you feel can often be the engine for change. Join Dr. Hartwig in a thought-provoking presentation that acknowledges our fallibility in the high-stakes arena of public education but offers the motivation and initiative to overcome it in our less-than-perfect work world. Hartwig will help you redefine your ability to adapt in the face of adversity by recognizing that people are not born resilient…they are made.

For additional presentation topics, contact Dr. Hartwig.

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