From the Wall Street Journal:

The growing presence of students with disabilities in mainstream school settings has attracted greater attention to educators’ use of restraint holds and isolation as methods for controlling students.

Now advocacy groups are pushing for a federal ban on such tactics, and a report by the Government Accountability Office has documented hundreds of allegations of school-related death and abuse since 1990. The majority of the allegations involved students with disabilities.

In testimony before Congress in May, Education Secretary Arne Duncan called such findings “disturbing” and said he is instructing chief school officers in all 50 states to detail their plans for keeping students safe. Several dozen advocacy groups subsequently discussed the issue in a meeting with White House staff.

Among the cases documented by the GAO were a 14-year-old Texas boy who refused to stay seated in class and died after a 230-pound teacher tried to restrain him by lying on top of him, and a Florida teacher’s aide who gagged and duct-taped children as young as six for misbehaving.

Educators say it is sometimes their duty to restrain students. “You can’t sit and call the cops and watch,” said Bruce Hunter, associate executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.

Although some situations have been the result of threatening behavior by such students in classrooms or hallways, researchers say many incidents don’t appear to have involved children who were aggressive.

Related posts here.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 6:41 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, advocacy, restraints and seclusion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post