When a classroom becomes a prison

No child should ever feel caged in a school.

Cages are not always literal. For many special needs students, any response to impulsive behavior can feel constrictive. But let’s not pretend literal cages do not exist in some schools. Some are as bad as you might imagine. Bare, windowless rooms used to contain fitful 6year-olds. Transporting them to such rooms can involve physical restraint.

Such responses can feed terror instead of nurturing peace in the minds of any student, let alone those who are at risk.

Educators following the most barbaric practices do not intend to traumatize troubled students; they are merely following outdated rulebooks.

A lack of mirror policies at public schools can pose an added layer of anxiety for special needs students, who become even more disorientated if they switch districts.

Changes in state policies are serving as harsh reminders that cages still exist in some schools. The reconsideration of past practices is welcome. A new law better defines “seclusion” as a student’s confinement in a space they are not allowed to leave, but now includes mandates such as windows. This is a distinction from an “exclusionary timeout,” which offers them the opportunity to calm down away from classroom peers.

It would be naïve to pretend there are easy remedies to such scenarios. A child in a vortex of misbehavior can be unsettling for staff as well as peers. The maxim that telling a person to “calm down” has never worked speaks truth.

The law would limit training of seclusion and restraint techniques to defined crisis teams, though we encourage school leaders to share information about coping with episodes as broadly as possible.

Newtown Public Schools Director of Pupil Services Deborah Mailloux-Petersen acknowledged that methods to transfer students to secluded areas could be viewed as physical restraint, deeming it “a little bit of a gray area.”

Gray areas need to be erased. This is not easy work for educators, and they deserve clarity on expectations. Aside from vague policies, many are coping with schools built during generations that didn’t imagine carving out safe spaces for challenged students.

The state changes dovetail with a proposed Congressional bill, HR 7124, that recognizes the disparity in practices across the 50 states.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut has joined other Democrats who want physical restraint to be used only in emergencies.

“It’s barbaric for schools to confine students alone in locked rooms or to use abusive methods to restrain little children,” Murphy said in a statement.

The “Keeping All Students Safe Act,” would make seclusion illegal for any school that receives taxpayer funding. It calls for restraint to be replaced by “appropriate behavioral support.”

It’s taken too long for such measures to be taken. A 2009 Government Accountability Office study documented hundreds of incidents of abuse resulted from outdated practices, most of which involved minority and disabled students.

These are all appropriate measures, but much more needs to be done to unlock these cages.

“It’s barbaric for schools to confine students alone in locked rooms or to use abusive methods to restrain little children.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.