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.