Students are being restrained, secluded. Idaho may ban the practice as discipline
Idaho schools could soon be barred from using restraint and seclusion on students as a form of discipline under a bill introduced Monday.
The proposed legislation follows an Idaho Statesman investigation that revealed children across the state, often children with disabilities, experienced physical injuries and long-lasting trauma from the aversive techniques. The bill would require school districts to adopt policies that define restraint, a practice that reduces students’ ability to move, and seclusion, which involuntarily places them in isolation.
The district policies would include guidelines on when the practices can be used and ways to document instances of restraint and seclusion. The policies would apply to all students.
“The idea is to keep kids from being additionally traumatized,” Rep. Marco Erickson, R-Idaho Falls, who introduced the legislation, told the House Education Committee.
The bill would mandate that all staff members receive annual training on de-escalation techniques and managing classroom behavior. Staff members who serve students with “severe behaviors” would receive additional training on crisis management, “the correct use of restraints and seclusion when necessary” and the implementation of behavior intervention and crisis plans.
Guidance from the U.S. Department of Education says restraint and seclusion should be used only as a last resort, when “a child’s behavior poses imminent danger of serious physical harm to self or others.” The practices should be “avoided to the greatest extent possible without endangering the safety of students and staff,” the guidance said.
One mother told the Statesman her son slept on the floor next to her bed for more than a year after he was secluded. Others said their children came home from school with bruises on their bodies. Parents said they weren’t always informed after their child was restrained or secluded.
Last fall, following the Statesman investigation, the Department of Education sent out a survey to school districts and charter schools about their use of the techniques. The survey found more than one-third of districts didn’t have a policy in place on the use of restraint and seclusion in the classroom.
About one-fourth of them didn’t have a system for reporting instances of restraint and seclusion.
Restraint, seclusion used only for ‘imminent danger’
The bill introduced Monday updates code that said teachers have the “power to adopt any reasonable rule or regulation to control and maintain discipline.”
Corporal punishment, restraint and seclusion should be used only when a student’s conduct puts the student or others in “imminent danger of serious bodily harm,” the legislation reads. Educators who use restraint and seclusion should stop as soon as the student is no longer a danger to themselves or others, the bill said.
The bill also defines physical, mechanical and chemical restraint and seclusion and requires the State Department of Education to prepare resources, guidance and training modules for schools.
“(What) we didn’t want happening was a kid … tells a teacher off, then all of a sudden, she puts him in a closet, which is happening in Idaho,” Erickson told the Statesman. “It’s happening way more often than we would like.”
Erickson said the legislation will provide de-escalation tools for teachers to use instead of restraint and seclusion, and also make parents feel more comfortable sending their kids to school.
Parents whose children have been restrained and secluded in Idaho schools said they were excited to see legislation introduced and hopeful it would make an impact, though some thought it didn’t go far enough.
For Holly Giglio, the timing of the legislation was “cathartic.” It was introduced on the 11th anniversary of when her son, Jake, came home from school with bruises on his body. A police report showed that he had been restrained at school.
“People do not go into education so they can hurt children. However, the data shows that is exactly what is happening with restraint and seclusion,” she told the Statesman in a text. “I believe this bill is the start of some very important conversations and hopefully positive changes in education.”
The story has been updated 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 14 to include new statements from parents.
This story was originally published February 13, 2023 at 11:09 AM.
