"She just doesn't want to do the plan."
It is a sentence that comes up in team meetings all the time. And in most cases, it is the wrong diagnosis.
Teachers do not go into this work hoping to ignore a student who is struggling. When a plan is not being followed, something is getting in the way. The good news is that most of the time, you can find out what it is with five questions.
Start with what you can control
You cannot control whether a teacher is having a hard week. You can control whether the plan was taught well, practiced, explained, and built for a real day.
That is where to look first.
Five questions to ask before you blame anyone
1. Was the plan actually taught? Handing someone a document is not training. Did anyone walk through it, show what it looks like, and answer questions?
2. Did they get to practice with feedback? Nobody learns a new skill from reading. Did they try it with someone watching, and hear what went well?
3. Can they explain why it works? If the teacher cannot say why each step matters, the steps will be the first thing dropped on a busy day.
4. Do they believe in it? If a plan feels like it was written by someone who has never met the student, buy-in disappears. Ask what they think will work.
5. Can they do it in a normal day? Not a perfect day. A Tuesday with an assembly, a substitute, and a fire drill.
If any answer is "no," that is where the plan breaks. It is a support problem, not a willingness problem.
Let the team choose
Here is one of the most useful findings I know. When school staff helped choose the strategies, they were far more likely to follow through (roughly 70% implementation in the research I rely on) than when a plan was handed to them.
People follow plans they helped build.
Reinforce the adults, too
We are good at reinforcing students. We are not always good at reinforcing the adults who work with them.
If the only reinforcement an adult gets is a change in the child's behavior, we leave a lot to chance. Sometimes the wrong thing gets reinforced.
Picture a hard Monday. Putting the student in the corner with an iPad gets the teacher through it. That works, so she does it again. That is not a dig on the teacher. People repeat what works, and what is simplest.
So ask the questions we usually skip:
Does the teacher get timely, specific feedback from someone who gives it in a positive, problem-solving way?
Does administration understand the plan, support it, and know enough to step in if the teacher is out?
Is anyone acknowledging the effort, even when the student has not made big gains yet?
If the plan matters, the people running it need to hear that their effort matters.
Turn barriers into a team conversation
When something is not happening, ask the question out loud: "What makes this hard?"
You will hear things like:
"I don't have time to stop and write that down."
"I'm not sure when to use the break card."
"The other students notice and ask questions."
Every one of those is fixable. None of them is a character flaw.
Keep going after the crisis
Most teams are great when a student is in crisis. Everyone shows up, everyone helps.
The real work starts two weeks later, when it is quieter and attention moves on. That is when follow-through slips. Plan a check-in at one week and four weeks, and keep it short.
If you remember one thing: when a plan is not being followed, fix the support around it before you question the person.
Want help turning a stuck plan into one your team can actually run? Learn more about School-Based Consulting or try BIP Architect, a free tool for building plans that fit real classrooms. I offer a free 15-minute consultation if you want to talk it through.
Casey Gressmen, MBA, MEd, BCBA, LBA, is a licensed special education teacher and board certified behavior analyst and the founder of Phoenix Rising Behavior and Academic Consulting.
