Trump official’s autism schools secluded and restrained students at high rates

May 20, 2025

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Arizona Autism Charter Schools, whose founder, Diana Diaz-Harrison, has been tapped to oversee the education of children with disabilities in President Donald Trump’s second administration, has used controversial, potentially dangerous disciplinary practices on its students at an unusually high rate. In the 2020-21 academic year, the latest for which federal data is available, school staff physically restrained 41% of its students and put 20% in seclusion, which is defined by the U.S. Department of Education as the involuntary confinement of a child, typically in a locked room. That’s 50% higher than the rate at which students are restrained and confined nationally. Many states — including Arizona — have outlawed or severely curtailed the circumstances under which the practices are allowed. At the time the data was collected, the charter network founded by Diaz-Harrison had two schools serving 283 students, 116 of whom were restrained and 57 secluded. Ninety-nine of the schools’ 146 K-5 students, or 68%, had been restrained.

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