From the Boston Globe:

A controversy is growing over the use of physical restraints in schools, triggered by a surge in the number of students of who have behavioral issues and a teacher population that is nervous about increasing school violence. Lack of teacher training and budget-driven staffing shortages have compounded the problem, critics say.

Advocates say students in special education are especially vulnerable to mistreatment. Congressional hearings are scheduled, and an investigation by the Government Accountability Office is in progress.

“This has become an increasing problem in schools, particularly as schools cut back on teachers,” said Richard Robison, executive director of the Federation for Children with Special Needs, an advocacy group based in Boston. “Teachers get frustrated and can’t deal with everything. What happens is teachers revert to using restraints illegally or inappropriately.”

Previous posts here.

Christina Samuels writes in Education Week that the use of seclusion and restraints has prompted local attention in some deadly cases, but that national action has been hampered because the federal government does not track the issue and state policies vary widely.

Advocacy groups seeking action have responded by releasing a report, “School is Not Supposed to Hurt,” which documents deaths and injuries among students. The Government Accountability Office plans to release its own report in the next several weeks.

Some observers suggest that the use of seclusion and restraints has come as students with disabilities have moved into the general education setting, but the report documents cases of injuries that occurred in separate schools for students with disabilities.

(more…)

Last-minute settlements were inexcusably weak, they say

From National Public Radio:

In the waning days of the Bush administration, the Justice Department announced settlements in six cases involving the civil rights and physical safety of people in mental hospitals, institutions and nursing homes.

Disability rights organizations are now challenging those settlements. They say the hurried agreements fail to protect the civil rights of people living in institutions, and don’t require states to assure that institutions meet even basic standards of care.

Their suspicion: that states hurried to reach agreements with the Bush administration because they feared more robust enforcement efforts by the Obama administration.

“They all involve situations where people are dying,” [says Ira Burnim, legal director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C.] “In the cases of a couple of nursing homes, people are being denied adequate food and hydration. There are problems with food and restraint. They’re all very serious issues. And in none of the settlements can you tell what is going to happen over the next month, the next six months, the next 12 months to improve the situation.”

From CBS5-TV in San Francisco:

Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, has asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office to conduct a nationwide investigation of the use of restraints and seclusion in public schools.

The news follows televised reports by CBS5-TV documenting incidents in which California schoolchildren were being restrained and locked up in closets for misbehaving.

Miller, a California Democrat, was among the authors of legislation that opened the schoolhouse doors to children with disabilities 35 years ago. He said he was “embarrassed” to learn that such practices were being used in his home state.

“What your investigation pointed out is that these practices continue,” he said. “It’s surprising, it’s also outrageous.”

Earlier post here.

From the [Nashville] Tennessean:

The recent handcuffing and arrest of a twelve-year-old boy with autism has fueled an ongoing debate in Tennessee about how school officials should handle behavioral outbursts by students with developmental disabilities.

Sumner County in Tennessee recently removed plywood “seclusion boxes” from its schools after advocates raised concerns about the safety of children  restrained in the 4-by-3½-foot enclosures. A state law enacted this year established stricter rules for the use of restraint or isolation as discipline methods in special education classrooms.

Twelve year-old Dylan Gaspard, who was enrolled in a Sumner County special education program, was recently handcuffed, arrested, and put in juvenile detention after being charged with two counts of assault for biting and scratching teachers.

“I disagree with court or jail as a placement for a mentally challenged child, when what he clearly needs is psychiatric treatment,” [Cindy] Gaspard said of her 12-year-old son. “For Dylan, sitting in jail meant nothing to him. Treatment and assistance at a hospital will help him attain the skills he needs.”

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has called for a statewide policy on the use of restraints like the one that contributed to the death of 17-year-old Faith Finley (left) at a center for troubled youth last month. Her death has been ruled a homicide.

The state’s Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities banned the dangerous face-down restraint last year, and sent a memo outlining the ban to agencies which it licenses. It is not clear whether the center in which Finley died had received the memo.

The residential center in Parma treats youngsters with developmental disabilities, behavioral issues and drug problems.

Ohio is among a number of states that have piecemeal regulation and tracking of the use of restraints.

Ohio has no central policy and leaves it up to individual agencies to set their own procedures … Agencies that deal with children and the disabled in at least 14 other states have severely curtailed or banned some restraints — most commonly face-down restraints.

(Photo from Cleveland Plain Dealer)

See also:

Faith Finley died after being restrained in controversial position — Cleveland Plain Dealer

Coroner: Girl at treatment facility suffocated — AP/MSNBC

Parmadale teen’s death ruled a homicide — Cleveland Plain Dealer

On Tampabay.com, an interview by Jeffrey S. Solochek of the St. Petersburg Times with Phyllis Musumeci, founder of Florida Families against Restraint and Seclusion. Musumeci, who lives in Palm Beach, says her son was restrained and placed in seclusion in school at least 89 times over a period of 14 months without her knowledge.

Musumeci, above with Sen. Chris Dodd, recently went to Washington for the release of a report by the National Disability Rights Network documenting the widespread use of restraints and seclusion in schools across the country. She is calling for a prohibition on the use of prone restraints in schools. An excerpt:

We have positive behavior programs that are supposed to be the way to go for our kids. It’s scientifically proved that positive behavior works as opposed to methods like restraint and seclusion. Restraint and seclusion is traumatizing our children. They must have seen what this was doing to my child, and yet they continued doing it to him. And I hear the same story from other parents.

Earlier post here.

(Photo from the Palm Beach Post)