Restraint & Seclusion
PA: 5 Central Bucks School District staff members in Doylestown, Pennsylvania fired after investigation into alleged abuse
ABC7 Chicago
A Pennsylvania school board voted Wednesday night to terminate five of its staff members after an investigation uncovered alleged abuse inside a special education classroom. In April, Central Bucks School District Superintendent Steven Yanni was placed on leave following a report from the nonprofit, Disability Rights Pennsylvania. It accused Yanni and several other administrators of misleading police and parents about the child abuse allegations. According to the report released, students were physically restrained, water intake was restricted, a student was found naked, and physical punishment was used inside an autism support classroom at Jamison Elementary. The alleged abuse happened from September to December of 2024. The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office has said it does not consider this a criminal matter. So far, no charges have been filed against anyone involved.
ME: ‘It broke him, and it broke me’: Maine parents, educators describe trauma from restraint and seclusion
Yahoo.com
Krystal Emerson never imagined her son would spend his days at school being forcibly moved against his will by school staff and shut in an empty room. But during the 2023-24 school year at Ellsworth Elementary-Middle School, that’s what happened — at least 18 times, according to Emerson and school district incident reports reviewed by the Maine Morning Star. Staff members put the 7-year-old boy in holds, forced him into empty rooms, and did not let him out until he calmed down or his parents picked him up. “It broke him, and it broke me,” Emerson said. The trauma became so severe that her son, now a third grader, no longer attends school in person, she said. What happened to Emerson’s son is not an isolated case. Across Maine, schools use restraint and seclusion on students more than 10,000 times each year, according to Maine Department of Education data. A 2021 state law limits restraint and seclusion to emergencies. But as Maine educators report more challenging student behavior in the years since pandemic school closures, there have been calls to allow school staff to restrain and seclude children more often. A newly proposed bill would broaden the circumstances under which school staff could restrain or seclude students, igniting debate among educators, parents and lawmakers about how to manage student behavior without inflicting harm.
ME: Schools report thousands of restraints and seclusions per year, but the real number is higher
Louisiana Illuminator
Maine students have been restrained and secluded more than 22,000 times a year in some years. But the real number of times educators put students in holds, move them against their will, and shut them alone in small rooms is likely much higher. Restraint and seclusion are widely condemned practices that create lasting trauma for students, their families, and the educators involved. That’s why every use is supposed to be documented and reported to the state. But over the past decade, only 24 out of more than 250 private schools and public districts in Maine have consistently reported their numbers. Maine law mandates annual reporting to the Maine Department of Education, however, the department did not say whether there was any penalty for failing to report.
Trump official’s autism schools secluded and restrained students at high rates
the 74
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.
The education bills that passed and failed in the 2025 Colorado legislative session
Chalkbeat
Before Colorado state lawmakers finished their yearly business this week, they took steps to ensure public schools would be better funded in the future. Colorado public schools will be required to screen students in kindergarten through third grade for dyslexia starting in the 2027-28 school year, per Senate Bill 200. The start date is a year later than advocates for children with dyslexia wanted, but represents a big win after a years-long battle for statewide screening. House Bill 1248 moves the existing laws about restraint and seclusion in public schools from the section of Colorado law that deals with youth detention facilities to the section that deals with education. It also shores up data reporting about the use of such practices in public schools and closes a loophole that has created a dearth of information about seclusion. A bill to ban seclusion was rejected by lawmakers for the second year in a row, however.
LA: New bill overhauls how La. schools treat special ed students
nola.com
Louisiana schools would have to install cameras in special-education classrooms and stop putting students who have outbursts in separate “seclusion” rooms under a proposed law that advocates say provides some of the strongest protections for students with disabilities in the country. The legislation comes a year after a state audit found that Louisiana schools seclude and restrain students without any oversight, despite warnings that the practices can potentially harm students and violate their rights. During a tearful testimony, the bill’s author, Rep. Shane Mack, R-Livingston, told the House Education Committee Wednesday that his proposal would “improve the educational experience in Louisiana” for children with disabilities. The committee voted unanimously in favor of the bill, which several disability rights advocates and education leaders also spoke in favor of.
Note: While the original bill proposed would have banned the use of seclusion, a substitute bill presented to the committee restored the use of seclusion. The substitute version was the version voted on by the committee. Roe’s comments to the Committee cited by the author were made in reference to the original version of the bill and not the substitute version. Also, the reporter incorrectly states that Chris Roe, COPAA director of state policy, is an attorney.
MN: Minnesota disabilities advocates push back on plan to restore school seclusion rooms
MPR News
Disability rights activists applauded Minnesota’s move two years ago to ban the use of school seclusion rooms to discipline children in kindergarten through third grade. On Thursday, they returned to the Capitol to fight a legislative effort to lift that ban. Seclusions are forced isolations, and in Minnesota, 100 percent of the children put into school seclusion rooms are students with disabilities, according to the Minnesota Department of Education. About 74 percent of all seclusions in Minnesota in 2023 involved children younger than 10. A measure in the state Senate would give districts the option of using seclusion in kindergarten through third grade with parental permission as a last resort disciplinary method. Disability rights and supporters of maintaining the ban argue that seclusions don’t help anyone. “We have to ask ourselves, do we really support people with disabilities and students with disabilities if we will not stand up for the basic human right to not be locked in a box … at 6,” Rep. Kim Hicks, DFL-Rochester, told reporters.
WA: Lawsuit accuses special ed school districts of neglect and abuse
Seattle Times
Two Tacoma-area families are suing the owner of a now-shuttered private special education school, alleging that school staff abused and neglected vulnerable students. The Northwest School of Innovative Learning was Washington’s largest publicly funded but privately run school for children with disabilities until it closed in early 2024. Its owner, Kirkland-based Fairfax Behavioral Health, shut down the school after a state investigation found an “unacceptably high” number of incidents in which staff restrained and secluded students. A 2022 investigation by The Seattle Times and ProPublica revealed that for years, the school, also known as Northwest SOIL, was accused of injuring students and isolating them in small rooms while failing to provide a basic education. The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in Pierce County Superior Court, also takes aim at Tacoma Public Schools and University Place School District, saying both districts were responsible for these students’ education and kept them at Northwest SOIL despite knowing about some of the problems.
WI: Dept. of Public Instruction: State superintendent calls for special education reimbursement increase, expanded mental health training amid rising incidents of seclusion and restraint
WisPolitics
State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly today called for increasing the special education rate and expanding mental health training programs available to Wisconsin schools as part of the 2025-27 biennial budget. The message comes as the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction published a report on the use of seclusion and physical restraint in schools during the 2023-24 school year, showing an increase in the practices. The data, reported to the DPI by school districts under 2019 Wisconsin Act 118, shows a 15.3 percent increase in incidents where seclusion was used on students, and an increase of 16.9 percent in incidents where physical restraint was used on students compared to the prior school year (2022-23).
MA: State education board addresses timeouts, seclusion in schools
WBUR News
The state education board advanced regulations Tuesday to further restrict controversial “timeout” and seclusion policies in schools, the next step in a years-long effort to reduce the use of the practices. There’s been growing national attention on so-called timeout rooms in recent years, as families of students with disabilities have raised alarms about inappropriate use of the secluded rooms to punish their children and keep them out of class for long periods. Emily LaMarca, the mother of a son with Down syndrome, told the Board of Education in January that her son’s teachers began putting him in a timeout room when he was 10 years old, resulting in trauma. “He was constantly afraid, afraid to go to school, afraid that his teachers would come to our house and harm him. He talked about angry eyes at school and the sounds that his friends made when they were taken to what he called ‘the naughty room’ in therapy. Cole acted out his trauma by locking himself in the therapy dog’s crate because, in his words, he was a ‘bad boy,’ ” LaMarca said.
MN: Minnesota Bills Would Roll Back Bans on Seclusion and Expulsion for K-3 Students
The 74
Two years ago, Minnesota outlawed most suspensions and all disciplinary seclusion of very young pupils in schools. An outgrowth of an effort to curb police abuses in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, it was a change that advocates for children with disabilities and students of color had long sought. But now, bills before the state legislature would roll back these reforms and again allow schools to dismiss children in kindergarten through third grade. Three measures under consideration would strip a prohibition on “disciplinary dismissals” — the removal of children from schools — in grades K-3, loosen the definition of student behavior meriting exclusion from the classroom, end a requirement that schools try non-exclusionary strategies before dismissing a child and let schools once again punish youngsters by denying or delaying their access to lunch and recess. A separate bill would overturn a ban on seclusion for K-3 students — the practice of confining a child in isolation. Some people believe seclusion should be an option when a child’s behavior is out of control. Others call it punitive and cruel, particularly when used on very young children. That split was evident in testimony at a recent state House of Representatives hearing on the legislation.
UT: Bill that would have banned seclusion in Utah schools now allows it again
FOX news 13
When Stephanie Merrill read the first substitute of a bill that would ban seclusion in Utah schools, she was “completely overjoyed.” “It took me totally by surprise,” added her husband, Craig Merrill, in a recent interview with FOX 13 News. “I thought, ‘Wow, finally somebody is speaking up and addressing an issue that needs to be addressed.’” But the couple’s initial excitement that lawmakers may move to end seclusion — a behavioral intervention used to isolate students from their peers, sometimes in a small, padded room — was quickly dampened when the bill, SB170, was amended again on the Senate floor. The current version of the bill now moving through the state Legislature allows seclusion. If approved, it would put into state law many of the same guardrails that are already in place under the Utah State Board of Education’s rules — including allowing the practice only when a child poses an imminent safety risk to themselves or others.
CT: Opinion: It’s Time To End Restraint And Seclusion In Schools
CT News Junkie
At the Center for Children’s Advocacy, we continue to hear from families concerned about children with disabilities who are injured or traumatized in school after being subjected to physical force and isolation. As the former state Child Advocate, I have seen evidence of seclusion spaces that consist of little more than a closet or even a padded cell. Most of the children subject to restraint and seclusion in our state are elementary school age, usually boys, often with developmental disabilities, and typically children of color. I have read numerous investigations into concerning incidents of restraint of children, including those leading to injury, where adults concluded that the staff response to the child’s “behavior” was understandable and that injury was unavoidable, and therefore no concerns need be addressed. These findings are typical, and they are usually wrong.
CO: U.S. Department of Justice investigates reported “seclusion and restraint” used against disabled Colorado students
CBS Colorado
A sweeping federal investigation into the Douglas County School District has unearthed hundreds of allegations of systemic discrimination and mistreatment, with families and advocates calling for urgent reform to protect students from racial harassment and harmful practices like “seclusion” and “restraint.” CBS News Colorado is learning more about the complaints that prompted a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the Douglas County School District. Investigators from the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department were in Colorado last week, looking into complaints against DCSD “regarding potential discrimination, harassment, or bullying on the basis of race, national origin, religion, or disability, and the district’s use of seclusion and restraint against students with disabilities,” the Justice Department said in an email to parents.
From Secretary Cardona
As education leaders, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that all children are educated in learning environments that are safe, supportive, and responsive to their needs. We must keep this responsibility in mind when considering the practices of restraint and seclusion in schools. The U.S. Department of Education (Department) remains concerned that children continue to be subjected to restraint and seclusion practices even though these practices are harmful to children and despite the lack of evidence that these practices are effective strategies to respond to a child’s behavior or that these practices reduce the occurrence of behaviors that interfere with learning. The use of restraint and seclusion practices is inconsistent with our shared goal to ensure every child is treated with dignity and free from abuse. The most recent publicly available data shows that more than 50,000 public school students were restrained or secluded in public schools during the 2020-2021 school year.i
Restraint and seclusion practices can have a lasting and negative impact on children. There is ample evidence of significant harms to students due to these practices, including serious physical injury, emotional trauma, and even death.ii Schools and early childhood programs should do everything possible to align their practices to ensure all children are educated in learning environments that are safe, supportive, and responsive to their unique needs.
Instead of relying on reactive restraint and seclusion practices, it is critical for educators to be given opportunities to learn about and implement positive, proactive practices in schools and early childhood programs and how to effectively support and respond to students’ behavioral needs. As described in previous guidance from the Department, this involves using practices that provide a behavioral framework to support the social, emotional, physical, and mental health needs of students,iii including through the use of multi-tier systems of supports with individualized, targeted, and effective interventions for high-need students. Schools and early childhood programs should implement evidence-based practicesiv to foster climates of inclusion, safety, and belonging as an alternative to exclusionary discipline and restraint and seclusion practices.v
I commend those states and districts that have prohibited the use of seclusion and limited the use of restraint in schools and early childhood programs, and those districts and programs that have committed to implementing evidence-based, responsive, and inclusive practices to support student behavior. The rejection of seclusion and the shift away from reliance on restraint in our Nation’s schools and early childhood programs is long overdue. We must equip educators and early childhood providers with the positive, proactive, and evidence-based tools and resources to meet the needs of all students. I encourage all States that have not yet done so to invest in providing educators with evidence-based, positive behavior support alternatives that support students and prevent the need to use restraint and seclusion practices, which can be harmful.
The Department has invested $1 billion through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act Stronger Connections Grant program for states to award subgrants to high-need local educational agencies to establish safer, healthier, and more inclusive learning environments. The Department also published a guide for schools on how to implement positive, proactive approaches for supporting children with disabilities as an alternative to seclusion and restraint practices and a guide to implement functional behavioral assessments for any student whose behavior interferes with learning. In addition, the Department continues to provide resources to ensure educators and early childhood providers are prepared to respond effectively to students’ behavior needs.vi School and early childhood program leaders can both keep their communities-including children and staff-safe while ensuring every child is included, supported, and treated fairly. Our children are depending on us, and the time to act is now.
Sincerely,
Miguel A. Cardona, Ed.D.
U.S. Secretary of Education