Questions linger over school’s room

07:39 AM EDT on Monday, July 7, 2008
By Katie MulvaneyJournal Staff Writer

School officials created a room in the basement of the Block Island School as a last resort for a student with mental health and behavioral problems who needed a place to calm down, according to a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

The room was used four or five times with one or two school staff accompanying the student, two during more violent episodes, in which he was observed through a small window on the door,
Michael Healey said during a recent interview.

“Appearances notwithstanding, it seems to be a good-faith effort to try to deal with a young boy with special needs,” he said.

Working with the boy’s mother, the school created the room because options are limited on the island, he said.

“I don’t know if it was ever locked or not,” Healey said.

“We don’t see anything criminal about the conduct of anybody so far,” Healey said, adding it appeared staff never used the room to punish that child or any other.

The student occasionally asked to go to the room to “chill out;” another student liked to read there, he said.

Healey offered these preliminary observations when asked for the outcome of a visit to the school June 12 by state police detectives and Assistant Attorney General Susan Urso, chief of the juvenile division. They are working with the school district’s lawyer, Denise Myers, to get documents to corroborate the school’s official explanations about the room’s use and have interviewed staff and probably will speak with parents, he said.

The Journal first reported on the existence of the room, which until recently could be bolted shut from the outside, after receiving an anonymous letter raising questions about whether unruly students might have been sent there. In a DVD accompanying the letter, a camera slowly pans Room 20 showing door locks, pillows and blankets in a jumble on the floor, an open utility outlet, chipped paint, and fingerprints smudging the walls. Plywood covers one window. The doorknob is missing.

The state police were very concerned by the letter and the DVD, said Maj. Steven G. O’Donnell. “Our concerns are greatly diminished” upon visiting the school, he said late last week.
Still, fire, building and education officials find news of such a room troubling.

“There should be no lock on the outside that someone could accidentally lock,” said William Howe, chief of inspections for the state fire marshal’s office.

Seclusion rooms at Butler Hospital and the school at Bradley Hospital, he said, have fail-safe designs using magnetic locks that can only be latched from the outside when someone presses a button. Once the button is released, the door unlocks.

“I’ve never seen one where they lock the kid in,” said Howe, who had not heard of the room at the Block Island School. Fire-safety inspections are done locally, he said.

Block Island’s building official, Marc Tillson, said he does a cursory inspection of the island’s only school every year. He did not notice exterior locks on the basement room during his inspection last August, but could have missed them, he said.

“If and when somebody put locks on that exterior, I have no knowledge of it,” he said. But, he would consider pursuing criminal charges against the person who placed the locks on the door, he said, if he learned who it was.

“I hope whoever put the locks on the exterior of the door learned their lesson and never does it again,” he said.

The locks were removed June 10, the same day a Journal reporter inquired about the room’s existence, according to Police Chief Vincent Carlone. The Journal’s request to see the room that
day was refused.

In response to a question about the locks on the door, Myers, the district’s lawyer, said by e-mail last Thursday, “It is unknown when the doorknob was removed and it is unknown when the slides were installed.” It remains unclear how long the room has been in place. Jack Lyle, the school’s previous superintendent, has said there was no such room when he led the district from 2004 until Supt. Leslie Ryan, who doubles as the special-education director, took over in August 2006. “That wouldn’t have happened on my watch,” Lyle, now a practicing lawyer, said. “That would go against every fabric of my being.”

Davida Irving, principal of the two-story school since last July, has said she had been told the room was developed in consultation with Bradley Hospital as a space for a child “to chill out.”
Bradley has repeatedly denied any involvement.

Someone from Bradley consulted with the school in early 2007 about the educational and behavioral needs of a student, but “did not provide clinical recommendations on the design or development of a specific behavioral room” at the Block Island School, Jessica Grimes, spokeswoman at Bradley Hospital, reiterated late last week.

Asked for the name of the Bradley consultant who reportedly helped develop the room, Myers said: “At this time, the School Department will not comment further as to consultations regarding the room.”

Officials from the state Department of Education’s office for equality and access plan to visit the school, possibly in the fall, according to Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the department.

“From what we’ve heard, we’re very concerned,” Krieger said.

While locked time-out rooms are debated nationwide, they are not allowed in Rhode Island.

Schools may have designated areas to isolate violent or disturbed students, but cannot have rooms only for time-outs, he said.

State regulations do not allow unobserved time-out rooms or a student to be confined alone in a room without access to school staff.

Krieger said he was not aware of any similar rooms in the state.

The department is awaiting reports from Block Island about students being physically restrained at the school, Krieger said. All districts are supposed to detail any time a school uses restraints, he said, and the department has not received such reports from the district.

“We’ll take a very close look at that when we get it,” Krieger said. The absence of reports from the district, he said, “is another reason why the [office for equality and access] wants to talk to the superintendent.”

A district would not have to file a report if restraint was not used, he said.

When reached last week, Superintendent Ryan said the letter and DVD and subsequent news reports have caused a great deal of anxiety on the island and have been harmful to staff and teachers.

“We have never nor would we ever take any action that in any way would be harmful to students,” she said.

She hoped the person who sent the anonymous letter and DVD would be “brought to some type of justice.”

Meanwhile, the district’s School Committee met June 16 and voted to assess the overall safety at the Block Island School in light of the controversy about the basement room.

The School Committee has agreed to hire one or two consultants to ensure that the school meets all state fire-safety codes and regulations, Myers said.

“The priority is to make sure going forward it is safe,” Myers said. Their findings, which will be made public, will not address use of the room before the date of their review, she said.

School Committee Chairman William Padien did not return a phone call seeking comment.

http://www.projo.com/ri/newshoreham/content/ROOM_20_folo_07-07-08_7SANU7O_v30.403cda2.html

kmulvane@projo.com