Tell the Senate to Get Off the Dime on H.R. 4247

In March of this year, H.R. 4247,  Keeping All Students Safe Act, passed in the House and was sent to the Senate where it was read once and referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. And there it has seemingly languished in committee while children continue to be put at risk of physical and emotional harm due to restraint and seclusion techniques.

Just today, a news story out of Iowa describes three school districts that violated state laws on restraint and seclusion. Was anyone criminally charged with abuse? Were they even disciplined?

H.R. 4247, while well intended, did not and does not go far enough in terms of monitoring for compliance and in terms of consequences for individuals and districts that abuse children through improper restraint and seclusion. Yet even in its watered-down form, it is just sitting in a Senate committee, which does nothing to protect children.

Contact your Senators and tell them you want action on this bill.   You can obtain contact information by plugging your zip code into the form on Congress.org or using the pull-down menu from the U.S. Senate site. The following is a list of members of the Senate committee. If your Senator is on the list, be sure to call and tell them you are a constituent who wants a strong bill now — not after more children suffer or die.

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