Isolation room deemed to violate school, fire rules

09:22 AM EDT on Thursday, August 21, 2008

By Katie Mulvaney
Journal Staff Writer

Read the New Shoreham Facility Report: http://www.projo.com/news/2008/pdf/new_shoreham_school_facility_report.pdf

BLOCK ISLAND — An isolation room set up in the basement of the Block Island School for students who needed to “chill out” violated state education regulations and the state fire code, according to a report by independent consultants.

The room violated regulations because its door had two sliding bolts on the outside, and also because staff members were unable to observe a student at all times through the small window in the door, the consultants concluded.

If a time-out room is needed for students in crisis, it should be a smaller, padded room that can be clearly observed, and equipped with a lock that disengages immediately when the person monitoring from the outside takes his or her hand away, the consultants said. The district should also develop clear policies for dealing with students who need crisis intervention, and all staff in the 150-student school should be trained in “de-escalation strategies.”

The School Committee called for the consultants’ review in June after the existence of the room –– referred to by some students as the “freak-out room” –– became public.

The Journal began asking questions about Room 20 after receiving an anonymous letter wondering whether it was being used for “unruly students.” In a DVD accompanying the letter, a camera slowly pans the corridor leading to Room 20 and shows a door with two bolts and a hole where a doorknob should be. The video also shows pillows and blankets in a jumble on the floor, an open utility outlet, chipped paint, and fingerprints smudging the walls. One window is boarded up with plywood.

The locks were removed June 10, the same day the Journal first asked to see the room and was refused.

The consultants said a lever door handle was on the door to Room 20 the day they toured the school later the same month.

The School Committee was briefed on the consultants’ findings at a meeting Monday, after which Chairman William Padien said, “As you stated, Room 20 will now be used for something else.”

Referring to the report as “phase 1,” Padien said the board would continue its investigation into “the matters that led to us having to get this report.” He could not be reached yesterday to elaborate.

Supt. Leslie A. Ryan, who doubles as the special-education director, did not comment on the findings at the meeting.

According to the report, Room 20 was initially set up as a brightly painted space where teachers could work with students individually. It also served periodically as a place for students to go voluntarily to “chill out,” or de-escalate, in a controlled, low-sensory environment, sometimes with staff interacting with them. At some point, its use became “more restrictive” to handle an overly aggressive boy.

“[T]heir intent was to reduce the impact of the student’s behavior on other students and at the same time, prevent other students from watching him when he was having a difficult time,” the report reads. It also said the boy was placed in the room a few times when he became so aggressive that he couldn’t be safely held and staff members were being hurt.

Ryan told the consultants that she called the student’s mother on each occasion that “the room was used in a restrictive manner.”

Another parent told the consultants that her daughter was also sent to the room as a consequence of an “undesired behavior.”

The consultants were Susan Stevenson, director of autism spectrum disorder services with Gateway Healthcare, and Christopher Suchmann, maintenance director at The Groden Center. Their work included conversations with staff and the parents of two children.

The report states that the parents were concerned about the use of restrictive procedures and expressed a desire to be involved in decision making and informed about interventions. State regulations require parental consent before these approaches are used.

Other districts use time-out rooms, but not ones that can be bolted from the outside, Stevenson said yesterday. “You don’t expect, because of fire-safety regulations, to see locks on doors.”

The report says that state regulations differentiate between “seclusion restraint” and “time-out procedures.” Seclusion restraint is confining a student alone in a room without access to school staff. This is prohibited in Rhode Island’s public schools. Time-out is allowable because a staff member remains “accessible to the student.”

The consultants did not indicate whether the use of Room 20 was ever considered “seclusion restraint.”

After The Journal’s story, the state Department of Education asked Block Island officials to report on any student who had been physically restrained. All districts are supposed to detail any time a school uses restraints, and the department had not received such reports from the district.

The district filed a restraint report with the state Aug. 4 in which Ryan detailed one incident that occurred last Nov. 30. In a letter accompanying that report, school lawyer Denise Myers referred to the event as one that “required temporary use of a latch” because a student was “attacking staff and trying to punch through a glass door” and continued to push and kick to get out of the room.

Myers said in the letter that “we are not acknowledging that a physical restraint occurred, as defined by the regulations.”

Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said the state did not agree with or dispute Myers’ representations. State education officials plan to visit the school for an on-site investigation this fall, he said.

In addition, state police detectives and Assistant Attorney General Susan Urso, chief of the juvenile division, are conducting their own investigation into the room after visiting the school in June in response to the DVD.

The attorney general’s office is still waiting for the district’s lawyer to get documents to corroborate the school’s official explanations about the room’s use, said Michael J. Healey, spokesman for the attorney general.

“The only thing we’re waiting for is documents to confirm what we heard out there,” Healey said.

Myers did not return two phone calls yesterday afternoon or respond to several questions posed by e-mail.

Healey and state police Maj. Steven G. O’Donnell said they did not think anything criminal had occurred.

kmulvane@projo.com
http://www.projo.com/education/content/ROOM_20_08-21-08_34B9VAH_v23.3e83332.html