Restraint and Seclusion Bills in this session

[Guest guest]

In the Florida Legislative session that just started there are Bills in both the

Senate (S144) and the House (H1467) that would restrict the use of restraint and

ban seclusion of disabled students.

If you don't think this is a problem, consider that Statewide there were 10,604

incidents of restraint last school year, 459 in Broward County. 44% of all

restraints were for Pre-K through 3rd graders. Statewide over 200 restraints

were for more than an hour, many were for several hours. In Broward restraint

can mean prone restraint, that is where two or more adults take a student face

down to the floor and hold him or her immobile. Some Districts use a perfectly

legal straight jacket device to restrain students, see a video demonstration

here by the Orlando Sentinel:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/videobeta/6903ee18-7a19-4141-a86b-ee0cda354905

Seclusion often means a padded cell. There is no scientific evidence that

seclusion has any positive effect.

The Government Accountability Office did a study of this for the US House's

Education Committee where they investigated numerous deaths of students from

inappropriate restraint. See the report here:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09719t.pdf

You can find out more here:

http://floridafamiliesagainstrestraint.blogspot.com/

There are behavior methods that would seriously reduce the need for these

medieval practices, our children deserve better.

Please give some consideration to asking your Senator and Representative to

support the passage of these Bills

Steve Moyer