USA Today

Amy Cupp was alarmed when her sixth-grade daughter came home from school with bruises in the shape of fingerprints. School staff had locked the girl in a room while trying to restrain her in November 2024, said Cupp, a social worker in rural Indiana. Her daughter has multiple severe disabilities, including autism and auditory processing disorder, that causes her to have tantrums and occasional bouts of physical aggression. Cupp was already concerned that staff had restrained or secluded her daughter 29 times for a total of more than 23 hours in just the few months since the school year began, compared to 10 times when she was in elementary school. Cupp complained to school officials and they agreed to implement new procedures for preventing and managing her daughter’s outbursts that would reduce the use of restraint and seclusion. But they failed to implement those changes to her liking, she said. So Cupp contacted the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in December 2024.