The story behind the anti-restraint in schools legislation

From The Hill:

Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act (H.R. 4247 — Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.): a bill that would prevent and reduce the use of physical restraint and seclusion in schools.

Status: Referred to the House Education and Labor Committee’s Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education subcommittee, Jan. 4.

Curtis Decker, the executive director of the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), remembers when he first heard about children being secluded and restrained in schools. The parents of an American Indian girl with Down syndrome found out their daughter was being tied to her chair at school when they went to pick her up one day.

That was six or seven years ago, Decker recalled, and he and his staff discussed it in a meeting as an isolated case.

Then they started hearing other, similar stories. School employees sat on a girl in Wisconsin as a punishment for blowing bubbles in her milk. A child in Michigan had an epileptic seizure on the first day of school and died after school officials sat on him. A school in Tennessee had metal-door-enclosed seclusion rooms that looked like “prison cells from World War II,” NDRN senior staff attorney Jane Hudson said.

Hudson wrote a report on seclusion and restraint in schools, and a year ago, the organization took its findings to House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.).

“The types of abuse these kids are suffering are so disturbing, you’d think these were stories about torture tactics used at prison camps,” Miller said in an e-mail.

The chairman asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office to look into the issue. The GAO found similar incidents and also concluded that no federal laws restrict the use of seclusion and restraint in public and private schools and that state laws varied widely. It documented a range of cases alleging seclusion and restraint in schools, including a 7-year-old girl reportedly dying after school employees held her face-down for hours; a teacher tying 5-year-olds to chairs with bungee chords and duct tape, with the children suffering broken arms and bloody noses; and a 13-year-old boy allegedly hanging himself while in his school’s seclusion room.


These incidents also were disproportionately affecting students with disabilities. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said her son Cole, who has Down syndrome, provided her with the motivation to become the bill’s lead Republican co-sponsor.

“I know as a parent, when I send my son Cole to school, my husband Brian and I send him with the expectation that he is safe from danger,” she said through her spokesman. “We entrust him to teachers, principals and aides. And we know those school personnel have done an outstanding job to help him and keep him safe. Yet this has not been the case for other children.”

The bill doesn’t have universal support. Mary Kusler of the American Association of School Administrators listed several concerns her organization has with the legislation. She said there is a small segment of students who can put themselves or others in dangerous situations and for whom restraint might be appropriate. Another concern, she said, is there is nothing in the bill that allows school districts to remove the teachers who inflict inappropriate restraint or seclusion on a student.

Miller is moving forward with the bill. He introduced it in December, and the committee has scheduled a markup of the bill this week.

“It became very clear that federal action is needed to make our classrooms safer for the entire school community: students, teachers and other staff,” Miller said.