Dear Early Childhood Educators and Administrators: Thank you for all you do to create learning spaces that are safe, stable, predictable, and nurturing. We know the work you do is hard!
This self-reflection tool was developed to support you in considering current practices which may unintentionally lead to a child to experience exclusion, suspension, or expulsion.
The statements in the tool below describe how you might feel about an identified child or a group of children in your classroom.
When a teacher has a higher result in any one area, the teacher may be at a greater risk of using exclusion strategies to respond when a child struggling with difficult behaviors. We know you want to be inclusive!
To learn more about the impacts of exclusionary practices and strategies that may help you, please visit this link:
To learn more about risks for exclusion and expulsion, see Teachers may be having a hard time and not know what to do. This can lead to unfair discipline.
We recognize that taking this survey may have led to difficult thoughts and emotions — supporting children who are struggling with difficult-to-manage behaviors is hard. You are not alone! This survey was developed to help educators become more aware of how they may feel when they are struggling to support a child or children who present with behaviors that are difficult to manage.
The Preschool Expulsion Risk Measure (PERM) helps people think about the reasons why a teacher or school leader might decide to remove a child from school. The four reasons are:
Please reflect on the statements that you selected strongly agree. You may find that your selections fall more under one of these reasons. For example, if you selected “strongly agree” for statements regarding the child’s behavior interfering with your teaching or with other student learning, then your result for classroom disruption would be high.
CITATION: Gilliam, W. S., & Reyes, C. R. (2018). Teacher Decision Factors That Lead to Preschool Expulsion: Scale Development and Preliminary Validation of the Preschool Expulsion Risk Measure. Infants & Young Children, 31, 93-108.
This project is funded by The Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council. The Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council is supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $3,025,222.00 with 100 percent funding by ACL/HHS. Council efforts are those of the grantee and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACL/HHS, or the U.S. Government.
Copyright © 2026 Temple University and the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council. Permission to reprint, copy and distribute this work is granted provided that it is reproduced as a whole, distributed at no more than actual cost, and displays this copyright notice. Any other reproduction is strictly prohibited.
