Opinion | It’s Time To End Restraint And Seclusion In Schools

by Sarah Eagan, Center for Children’s Advocacy and Ilana Ofgang, Center for Children’s Advocacy

Imagine you are 10 years old and struggling with fear and frustration in school. You are being held down on the floor, with your arms and legs restrained by multiple people. A notebook is pressed into your face as you struggle to break free. You are yelling for help, and you don’t understand what is happening.

Now imagine this going on for over 10 minutes, and then having the same thing happen to you over and over again when you are upset. This is just one example of the traumatizing experiences that students, typically young children with disabilities, endure under current restraint & seclusion policies across the country, including in Connecticut.

A week ago, in one of his final acts as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, Miguel Cardona, formerly the Connecticut Commissioner of Education, issued a formal letter to states expressing deep concern about the continued use of restraint and seclusion of children in schools.

Cardona rightly asserted that seclusion and restraint “are harmful to children,” and there continues to be no evidence that the use of force and isolation of children are effective at addressing children’s behavior.

The use of restraint and seclusion is inconsistent with the goal of ensuring that “Every child is treated with dignity and [is] free from abuse.”

Cardona entreated states to implement positive, proactive practices in schools and early childhood programs and more effectively support student’s developmental and behavioral needs.

At the Center for Children’s Advocacy, we continue to hear from families concerned about children with disabilities who are injured or traumatized in school after being subjected to physical force and isolation.

As the former state Child Advocate, I have seen evidence of seclusion spaces that consist of little more than a closet or even a padded cell. Most of the children subject to restraint and seclusion in our state are elementary school age, usually boys, often with developmental disabilities, typically children of color. I have read numerous investigations into concerning incidents of restraint of children, including those leading to injury, where adults concluded that the staff response to the child’s “behavior” was understandable, and that injury was unavoidable, and therefore no concerns need be addressed.

These findings are typical, and they are usually wrong.

As mental health and developmental disability experts have long cautioned, restraint and seclusion are properly understood as the result of treatment failure. Failure to understand the unmet needs of the child (or adult), failure to communicate, and failure to support the child with appropriate programming and skill building to prevent behavioral crises.

Federal health care laws have for decades prohibited the planned use of seclusion as a behavioral intervention in federally funded health care facilities precisely due to the known harmful effects of physical isolation on vulnerable individuals. And yet, each year in Connecticut, thousands of children are subject to these harmful practices, while we continue to deprive our teachers and support staff of supports and resources to address the needs of children properly. The persistent reliance on force and isolation of children with disabilities as a result of resource and programming deficiencies is shocking, inexcusable, and discriminatory.

It must also be noted that in Connecticut, the highest numbers of restraint and seclusion incidents typically are found in publicly-funded private special education programs, schools where children are placed when the school district feels it lacks resources to program for the child locally.

Connecticut spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on the “outplacement” of children with disabilities into private programs, where students may spend years of their educational life. The quality of these schools varies, with some providing essential and excellent support, and others criticized by disability rights advocates and other stakeholders as short-changing students or even harming them.

Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate and Disability Rights Connecticut have jointly expressed grave concerns about the lack of adequate oversight of the private programs responsible for the education and well-being of our most vulnerable students.

Going forward, the state must:

1) meaningfully improve funding and resources for schools and educators and ensure adequate special education support and staffing;

2) strengthen professional development opportunities for educators working with highly vulnerable students in early childhood and K through 12 settings; 

3) lower student to teacher ratios in all elementary school and special education classrooms;

4) put cameras into classrooms that primarily educate children with special education needs;

5) require same day notification to parents of incidents of restraint or seclusion;

6) ensure that parents have the right to observe their child in schools;

7) improve regulatory oversight for programs that work with the highest need and most vulnerable students, including public school self-contained programs, public alternative schools, and private special education programs relied on by districts; and

8) ensure a framework for auditing and responding to concerning trends regarding the use of restraint and seclusion of students. Yearly reporting that documents the same discriminatory and harmful practices against students with disabilities is not enough and is not making change. As Secretary Cardona emphasized, “Our children are depending on us, and the time to act is now.”