Immediately, I thought of Diana (name changed, of course!) Diana was a sophomore during my first year as an administrator, although I had known her for several years before that when I was still the recruiter for my school. Her guidance counselor told me that Diana had ODD, but I had no idea what that meant. With it being my first year as an administrator, I didn't have the time to learn more about ODD and what it meant for Diana every day. What I did know was that she and I spent A LOT of time together as she was sent out of class to my office almost every single day for refusing to follow one classroom rule or another. By the end of the year, the administrative team was talking about encouraging her family to move her on to another school because she was simply refusing to follow our expectations. However, at the meeting that was intended for that conversation, Diana's grandmother explained a great deal about ODD and what they had learned as a family. She had not been diagnosed until high school which is very late, but once the diagnosis came, they worked proactively to understand it. Diana's grandmother begged for an opportunity to work more closely with the school to give it one more shot; she felt our school was Diana's best opportunity for success.
Over the next two years, I worked along with our counseling staff to be in constant communication with Diana's family about strategies and tips that would work best for managing her ODD and minimize her time out of the classroom. There were lots of "escape strategies" that gave her time out of the classroom and many conversations explaining to Diana exactly why a rule was a certain way. If we needed the family's help, either mom or grandmother were there within the hour. Many times, she had to have "venting" sessions with me or with counselors when she was frustrated that she felt she was treated differently than other students in the classroom. However, over time, her office referrals lessened by more than 50%. Unfortunately, she didn't quite make it to graduation from our school because of academic deficiencies, but she did make it until the last semester of her senior year. At the end of the summer after she was supposed to have graduated from our school, she graduated from her local public school after completing summer courses. She called me and invited me personally to her graduation to thank me for all I had done for her!
In many ways, I learned a great deal about ODD from Diana but it was mostly luck and good teamwork with the family. I see more and more students with the same behavioral tendencies each year and this project was an opportunity for me to really learn more about the disorder from a data-based perspective rather than just what my gut and experience was teaching me. I hope that some of my summary and tips related to the disorder might be of help for other educators and will help me to remember what to do on those days that I am struggling to assist a student who suffers from the disorder and just wants to be successful in whatever way he/she can.