Ohio and Florida Public Schools Lock Mentally D... corrected

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Updated article - Corrected numbers of seclusion rooms used on children with disabilities in the Florida public school system.

Ohio and Florida Public Schools Lock Mentally Disabled Children in Closets08/11/2012

http://www.care2.com/causes/ohio-and-florida-public-schools-lock-mentally-disabled-children-in-closets.html

To discipline misbehaving students, public schools in Ohio and Florida regularly send children to “seclusion†— isolation in a locked cell-like room, old office, or closet, NPR’s State Impact reports. Many of these children are special needs students and their parents are not always told of this disciplinary practice.

Ohio schools — where seclusion is almost completely unregulated — sent students to seclusion rooms 4,236 times in the 2009-2010 school year. Sixty percent of these students had disabilities.

Florida schools secluded students 4,637 times in 2010-2011 and 4,193 in 2011-2012. 42 percent of seclusions were for pre-K through 3rd graders. In the 2011-2012 school year, 300 seclusions lasted more than an hour. The state has just three stipulations for using seclusion rooms: teachers may not choke or suffocate students, the room must be approved by a fire marshal, and the lights must be left on.

A joint report by StateImpact and Columbus Dispatch report found rampant abuse and lack of training of the punishment, which is meant as a last resort to deal with violent children:

But last school year, one Pickerington special-education teacher sent children to a seclusion room more than 60 times, district records show. In nearly all of those incidents, the children were not violent. Often, they were sent to the seclusion room for being “mouthy,†or whining about their school work.

Pickerington Special Education Director Bob Blackburn said the teacher in that classroom was new and that someone in the district has now taught her the right way to use the seclusion room.

Other Pickerington teachers misused the rooms, too, though. In another classroom, children were secluded more than 30 times last school year. Two-thirds of those instances involved misbehavior and not violence, district records show.

Far from benefiting violent or rowdy students, seclusion has been found to be deeply traumatizing, sometimes leading children to hurt or kill themselves. In one special education school in Georgia, a 13-year-old boy hung himself in a seclusion room in November 2004.

I don't deserve to be treated this way.

I'm not a criminal or a delinquent.

I'm a child with a disability and I need

help and understanding not restraint and seclusion.

I cannot talk, so it is very hard for me to make my needs and

wants known to you so sometimes I act out but that does

not mean I am trying to be bad or cause you trouble.

If you could walk in my shoes for just one day you would know how hard it is to be me.

I get so frustrated sometimes because people do not understand me.

How can I tell you that I don't feel well or that the noise in the room

is hurting my ears or the light is hurting my eyes or that

I don't understand what you want me to do, if I can't talk?

Please take the time to get to know and understand me so you can reach me.

Teach me how to cope with my environment that is not always easy for me to live in.

Teach me coping skills, teach me calming skills and teach me how to express my feelings.

Please give me a chance.

No more Seclusion!