Polly Bath: Now, if I have a little kid in my classroom, and they’re underneath the table, and they won’t participate in circle time, do I need to send them someplace else?

No, I can teach around that. I might want to document that behavior over time, and have a referral form where I send that to get some documentation, because I can’t seem to get the child to come out from under the table, regardless of what I try.

But I’m not going to stop my class, and expect someone to come and get him, or send him out into the office to sit on the bench. I’m going to leave him under the table and I’m going to keep teaching.

The threshold is, I call it, when Tier 1 becomes a Tier 2. The threshold is as long as I can teach around it, it doesn’t shut down instruction, I’ll still document and deal with the behavior at another time, or I’ll access help from my child study team, or whatever support team I have at a Tier 2 intervention level, but I can still teach.

If you want to get out of my room, and that’s why you go under the table and refuse to come to circle, and I have someone escort you out, then you’re getting exactly what you want. So, you can sit under that table for a while.

I’m also showing the other kids that I’m giving them all the attention that they should be getting, because they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing. I’m not giving that away.

Make sense?