Fwd: GOOD NEWS! Progress in 2012 on School R/S

[Guest guest]

Regards,

Ven Sequenzia

President

Autism Society of America

State of Florida Chapter

GOOD NEWS! Progress in 2012 on School R/S

Dear all,

GOOD NEWS! Leader Gardiner has prepared an amendment to 1003.573 that is being offered tomorrow in Senate Budget Committee at 9:15.

This language directs FLDOE and districts to further standardize R/S reporting and directs districts to develop more detailed policies and procedures, thus increasing transparency at the local and state level. It requires that district policies must include a plan to achieve reduction in the use of R/S. We think these changes are vital and a crucial next step in the process of reforming policies, procedures, and most importantly practices.

The amendment is being offered by Sen. on Sen. Wise’s SB 1696. We just got the green light to let everyone know about it. And we know you all need GOOD NEWS! You all worked so hard last year and this year’s further progress is largely due to YOU always being there.

The Senator’s office has run this by the Superintendents and the language appears to be good to go for tomorrow. Tomorrow is SB 1696’s last committee stop and the Senator’s office worked really hard to make this happen.

amendmentdraft26617.pdf

The data reviewed thus far showed that:

The rate of use of R/S on children PK-3 is high

Many restraints exceed an hour in duration (as well as many long periods of seclusion).

Many students are being repeatedly restrained or secluded

The labels used to report restraints varied A LOT.

Parents still can’t tell for sure what was done and the data re: # of prone restraints cannot be reliably aggregated.

Some districts are reporting very high numbers.

Their policies and practices need more attention

Some districts are reporting very low numbers. Either that they are not reporting correctly OR they are running model programs designed to reduce reliance on restraint and seclusion.

If they are underreporting, that needs to be fixed

If they are running model programs, that needs to be replicated

Unfortunately, the data could not show:

Student ethnicity

Student age

How many restraints were in the prone position

How many restraints used mechanical devices and what types of devices were used

This amendment should help generate better data and most importantly, give parents clearer information in incident reports.

And it should give advocates better tools (such as the chance to impact another round of district policy and procedure revisions) to work more effectively on implementation issues such as local training and district monitoring.

Regards,

Sylvia W. , J.D.

Public Policy Coordinator

2728 Centerview Drive, Suite 102

Tallahassee, FL 32301

x 208

sylvias@...

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amendmentdraft26617.pdf