Solitary Confinement For Schools?

We continue to raise awareness concerning the war we have allowed the government to declare on our children.  It seems that most of us are unaware of the power and authority that public schools, public officials and our criminal justice system have over the care and discipline of our kids.  We must begin to look at and evaluate the systems that are responsible for the welfare, training, education and habilitation of our children.  The next stop?  PRISON.  Prison populations are becoming saturated with mentally ill, developmentally delayed and special needs young people.  We don’t seem to know what else to do with them!  Have we become so immune to violence that the torturous treatment of human beings does not shock us?

 I have a 25 year old autistic daughter.  When she was attending the public school system, there were few programs and very little knowledge concerning the treatment and education of an autistic child.  That was one challenge in itself.  The other challenge is that autistic children react quickly and with force when they are in situations where they are over stimulated and overwhelmed.  This was always a concern for me, as a parent, because first and foremost I did not want my daughter to be in situations that caused her such great distress.  Secondly, I did not want her to harm another person when she was out of control.  Because of a particular situation when she went to junior high school, we developed a Behavior Modification Program and I instructed all of the teachers, teachers aids and special education staff on deescalating and coaching my daughter on how to manage her circumstances.  This worked very well and was later used with many other children. 

Most parents don’t know that the school has jurisdiction over your child’s behavior, unless you otherwise outline your request.  Most parents don’t know that your child can be restrained, put in isolated confinement or strapped to a chair if the school feels it is necessary.  Most states in this nation do not even have clear policy and procedure concerning the necessary restraint of a child.  Children have died while being restrained or isolated.  This week a bill was voted on to require all states put in place policies governing the use of restraint in schools.  This article came from  http://solitarywatch.wordpress.com/   

The 7-year-old special needs girl who died of suffocation while in a “prone restraint”

On Wednesday, the United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 4247, the  Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act, by a vote of 242-153. In the final vote count, 238 Democrats and just 24 Republicans voted for the bill, while 8 Democrats and 145 Republicans voted against it. (Check out the full roll call here.) 

The stated purposes of H.R. 4247, which was introduced in December by Representative George Miller (D-CA), chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, include the following:

(1) prevent and reduce the use of physical restraint and seclusion in schools; 

(2) ensure the safety of all students and school personnel in schools and promote a positive school culture and climate; 

(3) protect students from— 

(A) physical or mental abuse; 

(B) aversive behavioral interventions that compromise health and safety; and 

(C) any physical restraint or seclusion imposed solely for purposes of discipline or convenience;

(4) ensure that physical restraint and seclusion are imposed in school only when a student’s behavior poses an imminent danger of physical injury to the student, school personnel, or others….

It’s hard to decide which is more shocking: the fact that that 153 members of the United States Congress would see fit to vote against such a bill, or the fact that it was needed in the first place, orit.

As to the latter–the bill’s findings state that “physical restraint and seclusion have resulted in physical injury, psychological trauma, and death to children in public and private schools.” The House Education and Labor Committee conducted hearings on the subject last spring, after the Government Accountability Office published a report that began with the following statement:

Although GAO could not determine whether allegations were widespread, GAO did find hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death related to the use of these methods on school children during the past two decades. Examples of these cases include a 7 year old purportedly dying after being held face down for hours by school staff, 5 year olds allegedly being tied to chairs with bungee cords and duct tape by their teacher and suffering broken arms and bloody noses, and a 13 year old reportedly hanging himself in a seclusion room after prolonged confinement.

Special education students were especially vulnerable to this kind of treatment, the report found:

For example, teachers restrained a 4 year old with cerebral palsy in a device that resembled a miniature electric chair because she was reportedly being “uncooperative.”….Teachers confined [a 9 year old with learning disabilities] to a small, dirty room 75 times over the course of 6 months for offenses such as whistling, slouching, and hand waving….In another case, a residential day school implemented a behavior plan, without parental consent, that included confining an 11-year-old autistic child to his room for extended periods of time, restricting his food, and using physical restraints. The child was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder as a result of this treatment.

A report published earlier last year by the National Disability Rights Network provided additional examples, including one in which a 7 year old Wisconsin girl, who was diagnosed with an emotional disturbance and ADHD, died of suffocation after several adult staff pinned her to the floor in a “prone restraint” because she was blowing bubbles in her milk.

A handful of earlier accounts had also exposed the widespread use in schools of “seclusion rooms” or “time-out rooms”–basically, solitary confinement cells for difficult-to-control children. One of these came from education researcher Mary Hallowell in her 2009 book Forgotten Rooms. According to an article the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Education researcher Mary Hollowell spent months chronicling an alternative high school in rural Georgia before she discovered the awful secret that continues to haunt her today. Walking with the principal down a hall, Hollowell heard a loud pounding. She followed the principal into a room and then through a connecting doorway that led to a solitary confinement cell double bolted from the outside.

“The cell was dark inside and had a small, square window,” she said. “It was the kind of set-up you saw in a mental institution, not a school.” Inside the cell was a boy Hollowell recognized; she had tutored him in reading and even had artwork from him. “I felt like I had been punched in the stomach when I realized what I was seeing,” she says. “The principal’s comment to me was that most people didn’t know this room was there.”

These are the sorts of abuses that H.R. 4247 seeks to address–and the GAO report made clear the pressing need for federal legislation on this subject. “GAO found no federal laws restricting the use of seclusion and restraints in public and private schools and widely divergent laws at the state level,” it said. And in fact, “GAO could not find a single Web site, federal agency, or other entity that collects information on the use of these methods or the extent of their alleged abuse.” 

Yet 153 members of Congress chose to vote against a law that would expose and limit what can in some cases be described as the torture of schoolchildren.

Perhaps not so shocking after all: In a country that condones torture not only in its military detention centers, but in its state and federal prisons, immigration jails, and juvenile detention centers, it was only a matter of time before it trickled down into our schools.

This entry was posted on 12. March 2010 at 20:25 and is filed under Legal News, Prison Reform Advocates, Juvenile Reform Advocates, Juvenile Offenders, From Families of Juvenile Offenders. 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.

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