Teaching · Special Education

A calm space students choose, adults can see, and anyone can leave.

Work through the safeguards, the routine for asking, timing and coming back, the teaching and the kit. The checklist puts any safeguard still open at the top, because a calm space a student is sent to, or cannot leave, has stopped being one.

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$5one-time · every device you sign in on
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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Special Education toolkit, $99 for 100 items.

The calm space plan

One plan per room, or per student for a personal plan. Use a room code or a student code, never a name. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Special Education$5 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
For each room or student, a checklist of safeguards, routine and teaching, the kit, how use is tracked and a review date, with a summary of the steps ready and everything still open, safeguards first.
Who it is for
Special education and classroom teachers, school psychologists, behavior staff and counselors setting up a calm space for a class or for one student.
Format
Browser checklist. Several saved plans; printed with the summary or as a blank paper checklist; CSV with one row per plan; export and import a file.
Access
$5 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Special Education toolkit ($99) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Special Education space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
Drawn for this page. Open on one side, in sight of an adult, with a clear way back: a place to calm down, never a place to be put.

How to use it

  1. Start a record with a room code, or a student code for a personal plan.
  2. Say who it is for and where it is; for one student, note which plan it is written into.
  3. Mark each safeguard ready or not yet. Do not open the space until every safeguard is ready.
  4. Work through the routine and how you will teach it, and tick what goes in the kit.
  5. Choose how use is tracked and set a review date.

Start a plan

What the plan is for

A choice, never a consequence

A calm space works when a student goes there to settle and comes back on their own terms. Sending a student there as a punishment, or making it a place they cannot leave, turns it into timeout or seclusion. The U.S. Department of Education’s resource document on restraint and seclusion says seclusion should never be used as punishment or discipline and only when behavior poses imminent danger of serious physical harm. A calm space is not that.

Taught when calm

A routine learned during a meltdown is not learned. Teach how to ask, set the timer, use the calm card and come back while everyone is calm, practice it, and teach it again after long breaks.

Tracked and reviewed

A sign-out sheet with times shows who uses the space, when and for how long. A student who needs it every day in the same lesson is telling the team something about that lesson. Records use a room or student code, never a name, and stay in this browser.

Sources

  1. U.S. Department of Education (2012). Restraint and Seclusion: Resource Document, including its fifteen principles.
  2. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act regulations, 34 CFR 300.324(a)(2)(i) (considering positive behavioral interventions and supports for a child whose behavior impedes learning).
  3. Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (pbis.org), on teaching classroom routines and calming strategies.
  4. Greene, R. W. (2014). Lost at School (rev. ed.). New York: Scribner, on solving problems with students rather than punishing them.
  5. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 34 CFR Part 99.

The example classroom is made up. The plan describes a voluntary calm space; it is not a behavior intervention plan, does not authorize restraint or seclusion, and holds no state rules, some of which go further than the federal guidance. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.