Seclusion rooms and restraints in Wisconsin schools
March 15, 2010 by Leslie E. Packer PhD
Filed under Advocacy
Shawn Doherty of The Capital Times has a fairly in-depth article on the use of restraint and seclusion in Wisconsin schools that is well-worth reading. Doherty provides some troubling examples, some statistics, and also the conflicting perspectives of various stakeholders. From her article:
Wisconsin legislators recently proposed a controversial bill that would regulate and monitor the use of these practices on public schoolchildren. Currently there are not laws or regulations that restrict their use in public schools the way there are for mental health facilities and prisons. The Department of Public Instruction has posted directives, but the state’s school districts are under no legal obligation to follow them, advocates say, and many don’t. Policies and practices vary wildly from district to district, from school to school and from teacher to teacher.
About 20 other states have adopted laws or regulations that limit the use of seclusion and restraint in public schools. The U.S. House of Representatives just passed similar legislation, prodded by a recent Government Accountability Office investigation that documented hundreds of cases of abusive uses of restraint and seclusion across the country. A similar report, “Out of Darkness … Into the Light,” by Wisconsin advocacy groups, listed more than two dozen instances in which schoolchildren here were abused by the use of restraints and seclusion. The vast majority of these cases occurred in public schools with special education, or special ed, kids. In some cases, “children were left in isolation rooms so long they defecated and urinated in them,” says Jeffrey Spitzer-Resnick, an attorney with Disability Rights Wisconsin. In one case, staff broke an autistic boy’s elbow.
Connecticut school accused of unnecessary restraint and abuses
March 7, 2010 by Leslie E. Packer PhD
Filed under Advocacy
Emily Groves of the Norwich Bulletin in Connecticut reports allegations about Shepard Hill Elementary School’s Clinical Day Treatment Program that, sadly, are the kind of allegations that are all-too-familiar to advocates. The story first came to light when a former paraprofessional in the program, Diane Smith-Sanders, blew the whistle on what she observed while employed there.
One of the allegations concerned children being denied lunch if they had not completed their assignments. According to Groves, Plainfield Superintendent of Schools Mary Conway confirms that one staff member had been withholding lunch from children, but states that the had district immediately investigated Ms. Smith-Sanders’ report and the practice had been stopped immediately after they discovered that one teacher was withholding lunch if the children were “not in control.”
As disturbing as the thought of withholding food from young children is, even more serious allegations concerned the use of time-out rooms.
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Abuse of time-out rooms?
March 2, 2010 by Leslie E. Packer PhD
Filed under Advocacy
Can you think of any circumstances under which it would be necessary, appropriate, or acceptable to keep a 7-year old child in a time-out room in a public elementary school for most of the day, every day for months?
Lance Hernandez reports on a case from Aurora, Colorado involving allegations that a school kept a 7-year old child with ADHD in the school’s time-out room since October:
The boy’s grandmother said she learned that that was the case last month.
“I got a call around 9 on Feb. 17,” Valorie Collins said. “They told me my grandson was on the school bus holding onto his seat and wouldn’t get off.”
Collins said that when she drove to Park Lane elementary school her grandson told her that he didn’t want to go into the room.
“I thought he was talking about his classroom,” she said. “I had another appointment, so I told him to go to class and I’d come and check up on him later.”
Collins said that when she went to visit later that day, she was surprised to find Debran’s teacher handing him flashcards through the door of the timeout room.
“I said, ‘What happened? What’s going on?’ She said, ‘Oh, this is where we keep him but we let him out to eat and to go to the bathroom,’” Collins said.“
I said, ‘excuse me?’ She never looked at me, she just kept sticking flashcards through the door,” Collins said. “I just burst out in tears. I told her that’s inhumane.”
When contacted for a comment on the allegations and whether lengthy time-out room use over days, weeks, and months is appropriate, not one person would come right out and say, “No, it is not appropriate.” I’ll say it: No. It is not appropriate.
