State legislators take a something-is-better-than-nothing approach to protecting special education students from seclusion and restraint
by Elizabeth Ulrich
May 1, 2008
Disability advocates who have spent more than a year trying to convince Tennessee legislators about the troubling fact that special education students are being physically restrained, strapped to chairs and locked in janitor closets hit a small landmark last week as the state Senate passed a bill to address a growing problem in classrooms across the state.
Designed to limit the unchecked use of physical restraint and isolation, the bill offers only a few modest regulations. But disability advocates see the mere acknowledgment of the problem as “gargantuan,” considering their struggle to get lawmakers even to accept that teachers are using such methods on the most vulnerable of students.
Nearly 40 families across the state recently weighed in with horrific tales of the use of restraint and isolation in public schools in a survey commissioned by the state Disability Coalition on Education (DCE). Perhaps the most heart-wrenching tale was that of an 11-year-old autistic boy whose Williamson County teacher locked him in a dark janitor’s closet for up to three hours at a time on several occasions. The teacher even held him down in restraints for behavior she described as not “as much autistic as...ornery” (“Physical Education,” Jan. 24).
Teachers never told the boy’s family about the incidents. Once the otherwise happy boy began to dread school, and as his behavior escalated into unusual fits of screaming and acting out, the family knew something was up. Unlike many of his counterparts, the boy was eventually able to articulate what had transpired. Holly Lu Conant Rees, the director of DCE, says such stories, coupled with the well-publicized death of Omega Leach, made the danger of the ungoverned use of restraint impossible to ignore. A Philadelphia boy undergoing treatment at Chad Youth Enhancement Center, a Clarksville facility for troubled kids, Leach mysteriously died on the floor of his dorm room, away from the watchful eye of the facility’s surveillance cams. The state medical examiner ruled his death a homicide by strangulation after Chad counselors restrained and roughed him up.
Interestingly, the new Senate bill passed April 24 does little to protect kids such as Leach, perhaps because lawmakers see the children in these facilities as criminals. The bill, however, does establish guidelines for the use of restraint and isolation with special education students so long as they don’t have a rap sheet. Specifically, it prohibits schools from using chemical restraint via shots of sedatives to control violent behavior, noxious substances such as pepper spray, locked seclusion and prone restraint, a controversial hold method that can lead to asphyxia—none of which has been expressly outlawed by the state for disabled youth in private treatment facilities. It also requires schools, for the first time ever, to keep records of these incidents. But at this point, the bill gets a little hazy.
Though Sen. Diane Black, who sponsored the bill, says she and other members of the Senate Select Committee on Children and Youth were moved by testimony from special education parents, the original fiscal note for the bill, which Conant Rees put at a staggering $50 million, was too large to be viable. So training teachers on the proper use of restraint went out the window—along with many other provisions advocates had hoped for—in the quest to get the fiscal note down to $50,000, where it now remains.
But Black says the bill is a good starting point. “This at least brings consistency and does bring something that everybody is going to be using across the state, and that’s really important,” she says.
But is it enough to protect students? Conant Rees says the legislation does not completely ban the use of mechanical restraint. This is troublesome to the activist, who has seen students strapped to chairs with lap and shoulder belts or placed in stationary chairs as a means of classroom crowd control. Some of these contraptions look like a hybrid between a high-end toddler car seat and an electric chair, and at least one Tennessee family has told Conant Rees that their elementary-age child has spent hours on end in one of these chairs because teachers deemed the student “a runner.”
Showing posts with label Tennessee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tennessee. Show all posts
Friday, May 2, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Teen Says Teacher Threw Him to the Floor
March 8, 2008
By NATALIA MIELCZAREK
Staff Writer
The Tennessean.com
The parents of a 14-year-old boy say he sustained face injuries, including carpet burns and swelling, after his teacher threw him to the floor Wednesday morning.
Donovan Marshall has attended Genesis Academy in Nashville since July, said his mother, Angelique Harris. The 24-year-old private school works with students who have emotional, mental and behavioral issues.
The school's executive direc tor, Terry Adams, declined to comment on the particulars of the case, citing privacy laws. He said the school investigates all incidents.
"I don't think anything was done deliberately, and I certainly think that the employee in this position feels incredible remorse (and) is very dedicated to kids," Adams said. "We're taking very strict disciplinary actions. We don't take it lightly whenever there's a parent complaint."
Adams declined to elaborate on what disciplinary actions have been taken toward the teacher, known only as "Mr. Bolton" because of privacy laws. Harris did not know the teacher's first name.
Adams confirmed Bolton is still employed at the school, and said school officials will meet with the family Monday.
Police report filed
Donovan has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder, his mother said. Bolton told the boy Wednesday morning to go to seclusion because he paced, which is a way for him to relieve stress, Harris said. Bolton allegedly threw him to the floor when he wouldn't go.
"I don't know if Donovan pulled away from him, but he didn't put up a fight," Harris said. "Donovan doesn't lie; if he did something wrong he would have said it. … I want that teacher to not be able to work with kids."
Harris filed a police report after her son got home. Metro police's youth services division is investigating the case, said Kristin Mumford, police spokeswoman. Investigators will interview Bolton at the school. He hasn't been charged with any crime, she said.
By NATALIA MIELCZAREK
Staff Writer
The Tennessean.com
The parents of a 14-year-old boy say he sustained face injuries, including carpet burns and swelling, after his teacher threw him to the floor Wednesday morning.
Donovan Marshall has attended Genesis Academy in Nashville since July, said his mother, Angelique Harris. The 24-year-old private school works with students who have emotional, mental and behavioral issues.
The school's executive direc tor, Terry Adams, declined to comment on the particulars of the case, citing privacy laws. He said the school investigates all incidents.
"I don't think anything was done deliberately, and I certainly think that the employee in this position feels incredible remorse (and) is very dedicated to kids," Adams said. "We're taking very strict disciplinary actions. We don't take it lightly whenever there's a parent complaint."
Adams declined to elaborate on what disciplinary actions have been taken toward the teacher, known only as "Mr. Bolton" because of privacy laws. Harris did not know the teacher's first name.
Adams confirmed Bolton is still employed at the school, and said school officials will meet with the family Monday.
Police report filed
Donovan has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder, his mother said. Bolton told the boy Wednesday morning to go to seclusion because he paced, which is a way for him to relieve stress, Harris said. Bolton allegedly threw him to the floor when he wouldn't go.
"I don't know if Donovan pulled away from him, but he didn't put up a fight," Harris said. "Donovan doesn't lie; if he did something wrong he would have said it. … I want that teacher to not be able to work with kids."
Harris filed a police report after her son got home. Metro police's youth services division is investigating the case, said Kristin Mumford, police spokeswoman. Investigators will interview Bolton at the school. He hasn't been charged with any crime, she said.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Physical Education
When special-ed teachers seclude and restrain students, the state says no one needs to know
by Elizabeth Ulrich
Nashville Scene.com
January 24, 2008
Rob Zimmerman’s son Jack is the kind of smart, happy child who loved school. But two years ago, Jack’s dad says, that suddenly changed. When the now 11-year-old moved to another special-ed classroom at his Williamson County school, Zimmerman says Jack’s new teacher did not believe he was “as much autistic as he was ornery.”
The teacher told the family that Jack was “trying to trick her.” Jack’s behavior changed, as he began to dread school and act out—screaming and spiraling out of control.
Zimmerman and his wife were shocked to learn why: Jack’s teachers had taken him down the hall to a janitor’s closet, placed him inside and shut the door, leaving the boy to sit alone in the dark for up to three hours at a time on more than one occasion. “They said he liked it better when it was dark,” an animated Zimmerman told a group of state lawmakers Tuesday. “We’re talking about human life—my son’s life,” Zimmerman said.
And it wasn’t long before Jack told his parents that his teachers were also “umphing him,” describing the groaning sound his teachers made as they held him down for “ornery” behavior. In his own way, Jack alerted his parents to a growing problem in special-ed classrooms all over the state: the unreported, undocumented use of seclusion and restraint.
Jack’s case is rare in the sense that he was able to tell his parents he had been restrained and stuffed into a closet that his father says school employees called a “calming room.” Many autistic children are not as verbally developed as Jack and are therefore incapable of reporting abuse.
Often, these are children who, as Zimmerman puts it, are “set up for abuse.”
After reports like Zimmerman’s began to trickle in, the Disability Coalition on Education (DCE), a statewide organization of educators, advocacy groups and families, reviewed state law and found that there are no guidelines to regulate how—or if—schools should report such incidents or document how often they occur.
To push state lawmakers to draft legislation to require such oversight, representatives from several advocacy organizations for the disabled and mentally ill met Tuesday with a House-Senate study committee. They discussed the methods of restraint and seclusion now used with Tennessee special-ed students.
The committee also heard a tearful Gary Hassell talk about his son, a special-education student with autism at Oakmont Elementary in Dickson County, who had been physically restrained, face-down, on the classroom floor. School employees held his son down for an hour in what is called the “prone” position, a controversial hold that some experts say can result in asphyxia in as few as six minutes.
Similar methods of seclusion and restraint have led to the deaths of two teens at Chad Youth Enhancement Center, a residential treatment facility for troubled youth just outside of Clarksville (“Handle With Care,” Nov. 8) and have been key components in claims of abuse and neglect at Hermitage Hall, a Nashville private residential facility that treats male sex offenders (“Bad Medicine,” Dec. 13).
State records for Chad and Hermitage Hall, both of which are licensed by the state’s Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (DMHDD), describe hundreds of cases where young residents are physically restrained, often violently, by facility staff. Neither DMHDD nor the Department of Children’s Services finds anything out of the ordinary or troubling about these incidences, according to interviews with officials there, and Gov. Phil Bredesen’s office also has been unswayed by reports of abuses at these juvenile facilities, directing questions back to the departments.
But Tennessee public schools are not required to report incidents of seclusion and restraint to the state—or even to parents such as Zimmerman. Carol Westlake, the executive director of the Tennessee Disability Coalition, told the study committee that, while state law requires in-patient facilities and residential juvenile programs to report how often such incidents occur, public schools remain one of the only places in the state without that mandate.
And, while facilities such as Chad and Hermitage Hall purport to have stringent requirements for teaching workers how to properly administer restraint holds, schools are not legally required to train employees.
DCE Chair Holly Lu Conant Rees says her organization has repeatedly requested a copy of the Metro schools’ policy on seclusion and restraint but has received nothing.
Conant Rees tells the Scene that her organization has started to collect data from parents across the state to push state lawmakers to draft legislation.
Thirty families, several of whom have students in Metro public schools, completed a DCE survey saying that their children have experienced multiple incidents of restraint and seclusion in the classroom. DCE describes the findings as “uniformly disturbing.”
Of those families reporting incidents to DCE, 40 percent said school staffers injured their children, who showed signs of bruising, contusions, abrasions and nail and grip marks. And 60 percent of families reported that their children experienced significant psychological and behavioral setbacks after being restrained or secluded. The children had acted out with violent tantrums and experienced anxiety, night terrors and psychosis.
It’s a familiar story to parents like Zimmerman, who says it only takes one encounter with a “bad apple” in the special-education classroom to change a child’s life forever. “If you don’t have documentation, you don’t have accountability.”
by Elizabeth Ulrich
Nashville Scene.com
January 24, 2008
Rob Zimmerman’s son Jack is the kind of smart, happy child who loved school. But two years ago, Jack’s dad says, that suddenly changed. When the now 11-year-old moved to another special-ed classroom at his Williamson County school, Zimmerman says Jack’s new teacher did not believe he was “as much autistic as he was ornery.”
The teacher told the family that Jack was “trying to trick her.” Jack’s behavior changed, as he began to dread school and act out—screaming and spiraling out of control.
Zimmerman and his wife were shocked to learn why: Jack’s teachers had taken him down the hall to a janitor’s closet, placed him inside and shut the door, leaving the boy to sit alone in the dark for up to three hours at a time on more than one occasion. “They said he liked it better when it was dark,” an animated Zimmerman told a group of state lawmakers Tuesday. “We’re talking about human life—my son’s life,” Zimmerman said.
And it wasn’t long before Jack told his parents that his teachers were also “umphing him,” describing the groaning sound his teachers made as they held him down for “ornery” behavior. In his own way, Jack alerted his parents to a growing problem in special-ed classrooms all over the state: the unreported, undocumented use of seclusion and restraint.
Jack’s case is rare in the sense that he was able to tell his parents he had been restrained and stuffed into a closet that his father says school employees called a “calming room.” Many autistic children are not as verbally developed as Jack and are therefore incapable of reporting abuse.
Often, these are children who, as Zimmerman puts it, are “set up for abuse.”
After reports like Zimmerman’s began to trickle in, the Disability Coalition on Education (DCE), a statewide organization of educators, advocacy groups and families, reviewed state law and found that there are no guidelines to regulate how—or if—schools should report such incidents or document how often they occur.
To push state lawmakers to draft legislation to require such oversight, representatives from several advocacy organizations for the disabled and mentally ill met Tuesday with a House-Senate study committee. They discussed the methods of restraint and seclusion now used with Tennessee special-ed students.
The committee also heard a tearful Gary Hassell talk about his son, a special-education student with autism at Oakmont Elementary in Dickson County, who had been physically restrained, face-down, on the classroom floor. School employees held his son down for an hour in what is called the “prone” position, a controversial hold that some experts say can result in asphyxia in as few as six minutes.
Similar methods of seclusion and restraint have led to the deaths of two teens at Chad Youth Enhancement Center, a residential treatment facility for troubled youth just outside of Clarksville (“Handle With Care,” Nov. 8) and have been key components in claims of abuse and neglect at Hermitage Hall, a Nashville private residential facility that treats male sex offenders (“Bad Medicine,” Dec. 13).
State records for Chad and Hermitage Hall, both of which are licensed by the state’s Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (DMHDD), describe hundreds of cases where young residents are physically restrained, often violently, by facility staff. Neither DMHDD nor the Department of Children’s Services finds anything out of the ordinary or troubling about these incidences, according to interviews with officials there, and Gov. Phil Bredesen’s office also has been unswayed by reports of abuses at these juvenile facilities, directing questions back to the departments.
But Tennessee public schools are not required to report incidents of seclusion and restraint to the state—or even to parents such as Zimmerman. Carol Westlake, the executive director of the Tennessee Disability Coalition, told the study committee that, while state law requires in-patient facilities and residential juvenile programs to report how often such incidents occur, public schools remain one of the only places in the state without that mandate.
And, while facilities such as Chad and Hermitage Hall purport to have stringent requirements for teaching workers how to properly administer restraint holds, schools are not legally required to train employees.
DCE Chair Holly Lu Conant Rees says her organization has repeatedly requested a copy of the Metro schools’ policy on seclusion and restraint but has received nothing.
Conant Rees tells the Scene that her organization has started to collect data from parents across the state to push state lawmakers to draft legislation.
Thirty families, several of whom have students in Metro public schools, completed a DCE survey saying that their children have experienced multiple incidents of restraint and seclusion in the classroom. DCE describes the findings as “uniformly disturbing.”
Of those families reporting incidents to DCE, 40 percent said school staffers injured their children, who showed signs of bruising, contusions, abrasions and nail and grip marks. And 60 percent of families reported that their children experienced significant psychological and behavioral setbacks after being restrained or secluded. The children had acted out with violent tantrums and experienced anxiety, night terrors and psychosis.
It’s a familiar story to parents like Zimmerman, who says it only takes one encounter with a “bad apple” in the special-education classroom to change a child’s life forever. “If you don’t have documentation, you don’t have accountability.”
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