Federal education officials are standing behind a North Carolina school’s right to confine students with disabilities in seclusion rooms.
In a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights earlier this year, a North Carolina family argued that their 5-year-old’s civil rights were violated when he was placed in a seclusion room at school.
The family — who wished to remain anonymous — said the rooms were only being used for special education students, making them “discriminatory.”
But in concluding their investigation in late August, the Education Department found that the school district acted in compliance with regulations.
Now, local school officials say they will proceed with their existing policies, which allow for seclusion in cases where a student “poses a threat of imminent physical harm to self or others,” reports the Wilmington (N.C.) StarNews. To read more click here.
It could be sloppy jounalism about existing policy in NC but aside from the fact that seclusion is no longer promoted as an ethical technique or a viable safety option by any credible behaviorist but a kid deemed to be “posing a threat of imminent physical harm to self…” is clearly a child that should not be left alone or placed in a locked room alone. Seclusion is a failed strategy that went the way of straitjackets and aversives in humane schools and service systems.
I don’t know anything about this case, but I remember sitting at a parent /teacher committee meeting and hearing the principal report that “child X is doing well – he only bit three people yesterday”. Sometimes removal is the only answer.
Seclusion and Restraint has been a large issue here in Wilmington.
It is next to impossible to remove seclusion and restraints from your child’s IEP. For more news from Wilmington look in the local paper:
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20120918/ARTICLES/120919658
http://disabilities.blogs.starnewsonline.com/12039/local-parent-advocates-for-disabled-son-through-testimony/
As parents we need to be heard.
I don’t know where Jeff Coy lives, but I only WISH that seclusion was no longer promoted and used. In Washington State it is used all the time, and in very negative ways. In some instances children are put in the seclusion room (usually a closet used for that purpose) and left in there for hours at a time. These rooms need to GO AWAY if they aren’t going to be used properly.
It will be instructive to read the decision. Anyone want to bet that, once again, the court relied on the testimony of hand-picked “professional” experts rather than think about the question in terms of THE LAW? -which, last I heard, would not take kindly to imprisonment absent due process… then again, children and the disabled aren’t citizens, are they?
Studies have shown that seclusion rooms are not an effective or therapeutic treatment of behavior problems and can often make behavior worse. There are PROVEN alternatives (positive behavior support, sensory, deescalation, etc.) that are effective in reducing stress and behaviors if only schools would invest the time and energy learning how to do it. In addition. There are schools who teach children with severe behaviors who do not use seclusion and restraint.
Simply saying that seclusion is okay because it is not against the law is a poor excuse for continuing this archaic and inhumane practice. The fact is that many states have no laws with regards to seclusion, restraints and aversives. And even in states that have laws that limit it to “as a last resort if a child is in danger or danger to himself”, all a teacher has to do is claim the child was was a danger. The reality is many times seclusion, aversives and restraints are used as punishment or for non-compliance despite what the law says.
Until we have cameras and videotaping in ALL classes and areas, we won’t have evidence as to what really happened. Clearly parents can’t trust schools to tell the truth. And many of our children are nonverbal or have difficulty communicating what really happened. Stories of abuse in schools flood the media week after week and schools continue to abuse seclusion and restraint…with children injured and in some cases, dying. It is a national disgrace.
What safe guards are in place to protect the child? How is the childs safety maintained? Is the staff person inside the room or outside the door holding the door shut?