Fw: Florida - Limiting restraint on disabled students

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Limiting restraint on disabled students

Lawmakers should protect disabled public-school kids from improper use of restraint and seclusion.

Orlando SentinelFebruary 22, 2010

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-school-restraints-022210-20100219,0,2675365.story

Florida - One child felt the snap of bone as her arm twisted behind her back during a tightening bear hug.Some were bound to chairs with bungee cords and duct tape. In the struggle to break their bonds, they often fractured their arms and bloodied their noses.Others, often controlled by strangleholds and tethered by ropes, suffered in darkness, soaked in urine.Scenes from a Turkish prison?No, these nightmarish snapshots are from America's schools, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. Such abuses in recent years have sparked a white-hot national debate over the use of restraints and seclusion to control schoolchildren.It's an issue that's gotten a hearing in Florida in recent years, because of a bill rightly being championed this year for the third time by state Rep. Dorothy Hukill, R- Port Orange. The measure, which focuses on disabled children, wisely would limit the use of restraints in public schools and end the humiliating use of seclusion. There's no good reason it shouldn't pass this time.Since 2000, more students with autism spectrum disorders, brain injuries, attention-deficit disorder and other impairments are increasingly being placed in mainstream classrooms. Problems often flare up when staffers who lack expertise managing behavior problems confront special-needs kids.Public and private schools commonly restrain students through drugs,

physical force, or harnesses and bindings. Texas, for instance, restrained more than 4,000 students nearly 19,000 times during in the 2007-08 school year. Florida compiles no such data.Such frequent use makes restraint ripe for abuse, say critics such as The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national advocate for disabled kids. The group last year issued a report detailing 180 cases where disabled kids were abused throughout the nation, including these:A 9-year-old autistic boy was held face-down for four hours in a school isolation room. Two adults pinned the 52-pound boy, straddling his torso and legs.A 15-year-old Down syndrome student was banished to a closet with an aide as an all-day in-school suspension.A 15-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, mental retardation and other impairments often was strapped to a chair to limit her mobility.Some children don't survive. The GAO report documented 20 cases

of children who died from serious injury while being restrained.Yet, because even critics of physical restraint say it can help protect staff and students when a child engages in self-injuring behaviors like head-banging, Ms. Hukill's bill doesn't ban physical restraint. Instead, it takes the reasonable approach of limiting its use to situations of imminent risk. It imposes other restrictions, such as banning face-down restraints and holds that are known to crush bones and suffocate kids.The bill would prohibit school personnel who are untrained and uncertified in district-approved technique from applying physical restraint, something that experts say is "imperative." Seclusion would be banned. Schools would need to document any use of restraint.In 2003, five first-graders at Coral Gables Elementary School were duct-taped to their chairs and to the blackboard for acting out by a volunteer teacher's aide.Certainly, such

cases are sickening outliers. Yet, they underscore the need for safeguards: If this can happen to children not living with special needs, imagine the risk that overzealous use of restraint and seclusion poses to students who can't speak for themselve