Schools defend isolation rooms
The Autism News | English
Family’s attorney says school system broke state law
By CHRIS GRAHAM | The Daily Herald
School officials say state law was followed in isolating a 9-year-old in a closet-like space called a seclusion room at Columbia’s Joseph Brown Elementary.
The district said an investigation found no evidence to support allegations by an attorney that the boy was stripped to his underwear and locked in the room.
Michelle Parks, whose son suffers from Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, said she found the 9-year-old stripped down to his underwear and locked in the small space Brown School officials call a seclusion room.
Kevin Latta, Parks’ attorney, says seclusion rooms are legal, but the way school officials used the space violated parts of a law passed by the Tennessee General Assembly last year.
Pictures provided by Latta show the interior of a small cinderblock room with a concrete floor, no chairs and a door with a single window and no handle. Parks said when she picked up her son there was a cloth draped over the window from the outside.
In a written statement issued Tuesday by school spokeswoman Sharon Kinnard, she said “at no time are students locked in this room” and said “there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that any student has been asked to remove his/her clothing.”
State law outlines how these seclusion rooms should be used, but Sherry Wilds, an attorney for the Disability Law and Advocacy Center of Tennessee, said teachers are often ill-equipped to deal with unruly children and fail to follow the guidelines.
“You have to think about it this way: Is it OK to lock your own child in a closet?” she said.
There are numerous reports of children in school districts across the country being locked in closets for several hours. In a few cases, children were confined to these rooms without supervision for so long they urinated on themselves.
THE LAW
On Friday, an emergency injunction was issued by Maury County Judge Jim Hamilton temporarily banning the use of the seclusion room until a court proceeding is held in Chancery Court.
“We’re looking forward to the board’s cooperation in answering a myriad of questions concerning the use of the seclusion room at Joseph Brown Elementary School,” Latta said, “and efforts for compliance made toward the statutes that govern the use of such rooms.”
According to the Special Education Isolation and Restraint Modernization and Positive Behavioral Supports Act, which was made effective January 1, seclusion rooms are supposed to be used on an emergency basis. The law states the use of “isolation or physical holding restraint as a means of coercion, punishment, convenience or retaliation on any student receiving special education services … is prohibited.”
The law also states an isolation room should not be used for time-outs, but Latta says school officials did not adhere to these provisions.
Four notices sent home to Parks detail other times her son was sent to what school officials sometimes called a “time-out room.” In two instances reported on Jan. 9, the student had to be physically taken to the time-out room after “banging his head on his desk” and “kicking and yelling at the staff.” On that day, he spent a total of 78 minutes in the time-out room, 44 of which were after he was “physically taken to (the) time-out room.” One notice also states the boy had redness on his arm from being physically restrained.
Other stipulations in the law require the door to the room used for time-out not to be locked or that it not accomplish the intent of locking a student in a room. The law also states “school personnel remain in the physical presence of any restrained student.”
Parks said after initially finding her son, she went back to the school to inspect the room and closed the door behind her. She said she could not open it from the inside.
After talking to her son, Parks said he told her on one occasion he was in the room long enough to fall asleep.
The last note that was sent home to Parks on Sept. 15 stated her son was sent to the seclusion room multiple times after “continued verbal abuse of students and the teacher” and “kicking the teacher.” He was suspended from school for two days.
Parks said school officials told her that her son’s clothing was removed for his own protection, though they did not give specific reasons.
The mother said before seeing the room, school officials told her it was used to calm unruly students. But after being inside the room her son was left in many times, Parks said it had quite the opposite effect.
“I thought, ‘That’s not a calming atmosphere,’” she said.
Parks said her son saw a psychologist Tuesday to receive counseling.
“He’s just glad he doesn’t have to go back there right now,” she said.
Messages left Tuesday for Brown Elementary Principal Tina Weatherford and special education teacher Tasha Walker were not returned. Messages left Monday and Tuesday for Director of Schools Eddie Hickman were not returned.
Walker’s personnel file shows she received her master’s degree in the field of emotional disturbance and specific learning disabilities from Florida State University and has had several years of teaching experience.
ATTORNEY:
CHANGE NEEDED
Mandatory special education training was required of teachers in the first draft of the bill before it was changed by state legislators, said Wilds, the Disability Law Advocacy Center attorney.
“I think it had a lot to do with the fiscal note that would have been attached,” she said on why the requirement was left out.
Special needs children are given an Individualized Education Program and typically are assigned goals and objectives relating to their behavior, Wilds said. According to a 17-page plan given to Parks’ son, there is no mention of using a time-out or seclusion room to correct the boy’s conduct.
In many instances, Wilds said seclusion rooms have been used inappropriately. She said instead of using the rooms, schools need to hire more psychologists and counselors to help problem children.
“Schools should be a place where you go to learn. We’re not warehousing children in mental health institutions anymore — and that’s good — but we need to fill in the gap to have good support staff in the school setting,” she said.
WIDESPREAD USE
There have been several documented cases of seclusion rooms being used around the nation, some even resulting in death.
According to a report published by the National Disability Rights Network in January, a study of California schools using seclusion and restraint found the practices can leave children emotionally traumatized.
“Individuals who have been restrained and secluded describe these events as punitive and aversive, leaving lingering psychological scars,” the report reads. “… seclusion may evoke feelings of guilt, humiliation, embarrassment, hopelessness, powerlessness, fear and panic.”
The report also listed several cases of abuse associated with restraint and seclusion based on investigations:
* In 2004, 13-year-old Jonathan King hanged himself while a seclusion cell at a school in Murrayville, Ga; using a cord the teacher supplied him with to hold up his pants. The boy suffered from ADHD and depression.
* In Arkansas, a developmentally disabled 9-year-old girl was suspended from school after she refused to enter a small wooden box in the corner of the classroom.
* Children in Colorado were placed in time-out rooms and not allowed to use the restroom. Students unable to “hold” themselves were forced to sit in their own urine.
* In 2007, disability advocacy officials received a report teachers at Sumner Elementary School were putting students in plywood seclusion boxes.
Ultimately, 12 schools in the Sumner County School District were found to be using the boxes.
The National Disability Rights Network report recommended President Barack Obama ban the use of seclusion in schools.
Source: http://www.columbiadailyherald.com/articles/2009/09/23/top_stories/01seclusion.txt
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