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.