Chalkbeat Mark Brostrom’s 11-year-old son was struggling in public school when his school district suggested what seemed like a better fit: a new specialized school near the family’s home. Brostrom remembers thinking that the Austin Centers for Exceptional Students in...
Restraint & Seclusion
TX: Cy-Fair ISD officer repeatedly used hogtie restraint on fifth grader
One Monday afternoon in October 2023, a Cy-Fair ISD police officer tracked down a fifth-grader who had run away from his school for students with behavioral challenges. The boy had left campus before. But this time when he wouldn’t get in the police car, the officer...
NY: State finds school district held 5 students in wooden boxes
MSN A public school district in northern New York broke state education regulations at least six times when it chose to confine students with disabilities in padded, wooden boxes in the classroom, an investigation by the New York State Education Department found. The...
NY orders broad reform of public school that held Native children with disabilities in wooden boxes
NPR Rumors spread on social media over the winter: School kids with disabilities in the Salmon River Central School District, including Akwesasne Mohawk children, were being confined by special education teachers in wooden boxes. Sarah Konwahahawi Herne was...
Schools are supposed to limit using restraint and seclusion to discipline kids – but parents I spoke with say the practice is wildly misused
The Conversation “Jessica,” the adoptive mother of a third-grade student, was shocked when she discovered that her daughter had spent over 100 hours locked in a room alone at her North Carolina public school. School staff locked the child in a room by herself after...
CT: Blue Room: Restraining and secluding the state’s most vulnerable students
Inside Investigator On May 20, 2024, teachers and administrators at Hazardville Memorial School in Enfield called the police on a five-year-old in kindergarten. The call to 911 was placed at 9:57 am. By that time, teachers and special education instructors had been...
NM: New Mexico lawmakers debate bills on special education, student restraint
Santa Fe New Mexican New Mexico lawmakers are taking another pass at two measures that have stalled in previous years but that, supporters say, are critical to protecting vulnerable children and fixing the state’s special education system. Senate Bill 64...
DOJ Tells St. Louis Special School District that Seclusion and Restraint Practices Violate Federal Law
This week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it has notified the Special School District of St. Louis, Missouri (District) that the District’s seclusion and restraint practices violate Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The District is...
NM: Bill refining allowable restraint and seclusion practices in schools advances out of House committee
Yahoo News Members of the House Education Committee on Monday advanced a bill that would refine definitions of allowable physical discipline practices in public schools, limit those practices, and require expanded training for K-12 school personnel. House Bill 120,...
