Good points all. An apology, an acknowledgement of what went wrong, and an atonement of some sort is what I look for from kids. Last year I had a tough kid in my class. Daily outbursts, swearing, tantrums, and destruction of school property and yes other kids' work (second grade). The first time he went ballistic in class I took him out in the hallway and he promptly ripped most of his classmates' work off the wall. Well, after we got him calmed down, I explained to him that he needed to apologize to his classmates but also atone for it by fixing what he'd destroyed in the hallway. I had each student come out, one at a time, and the student apologized to each one and hung their work back up. Amazing how forgiving young children are.

I wish I could say this solved the problem. It didn't. As the year went on, his behavior continued to escalate and he became abusive to staff and other students. And the building principals and counselors became less and less supportive of us. Let me ask you a serious question: have you ever given up on consequences for a student because nothing seems to be working and just signaled to teachers to let things go and turn a blind eye, so a kid's behavior doesn't escalate out of control (he's trashed the principal's office more than once)? And does it matter to you at all if the student has an IEP?