Some Conn. schools look to limit restraint, seclusion

One by one this summer, nine padded seclusion rooms in Waterbury public schools will be converted into something gentler — and potentially far more effective in managing students in crisis, local officials say.

The new “sensory rooms,” Waterbury School Superintendent Verna Ruffin says, will have calming stimuli, meant to settle students whose behavior has escalated. Though Ruffin couldn't say what exactly the rooms would look like come this fall, in other places they tend to feature soft lighting, soothing music and therapeutic furniture, such as hammocks and beanbag chairs.

The changes, Ruffin said, are part of a districtwide effort to entirely end the use of seclusion in Waterbury schools.

“Just secluding a student isn't going to render us the expected outcome,” Ruffin said. “Best practices tell us that we really need to examine other options besides the seclusion room for the safety and well being of our students.”

Waterbury is one of several Connecticut school districts taking steps to reduce restraint and seclusion in schools, at a time when the issue is attracting increasing attention statewide. This spring, the state legislature considered — but ultimately decided against — banning seclusion statewide and tightening rules surrounding physical restraint of youth, a proposal that followed Hearst Newspapers' nationwide investigation into the subject.

Other towns, however, told CT Insider they have no intention of changing their restraint and seclusion policies, or are waiting for a change in state law to compel them to do so.

Seclusion refers to the practice of locking students in rooms where they can't leave, while restraint refers to physically holding back students' limbs to limit their movement. According to state data, Connecticut schools restrained or secluded more than 3,000 special education students a total of nearly 40,000 times during the 2021-22 academic year, resulting in 241 injuries.

Advocates and parents often criticize restraint and seclusion for harming or even traumatizing special education students. Some have urged school districts to move away from the practices and instead pursue gentler alternatives.

Sarah Eagan, the state's child advocate, says reducing restraint and seclusion require not only policy change, but also a careful look at the “root causes” of student behavior.

“It's not an edict that you can issue,” Eagan said this week, referring to the process of implementing district-level change. “It's a goal and commitment that leadership should have.”

Changes in some places

Earlier this year, Eagan met with Waterbury Mayor Neil O'Leary to discuss ways to reduce seclusion in the school district. She emphasized that while sensory rooms are a strong start, truly ending seclusion throughout an entire school district is more complicated than that.

Real change, she said, requires a commitment from district leadership, a framework for monitoring progress, rigorous data analysis and input from parents and teachers.

“The goal is to build skills in the child that prevent those kinds of behaviors,” Eagan said. “And when children need to regroup, make sure that their staff and supports environment (are) there to do that.”

Ruffin says Waterbury is committed to a new approach district-wide. This summer, she said, administrators will meet to plan what the new sensory rooms will look like and how staff can respond to student behavior in a way that makes seclusion unnecessary. Employees will then receive training on the new policy.

“It's not going to be just a memo,” Ruffin said. “It's going to have to be, how do we make certain that we understand what we can and cannot do, and what does that look like for the practitioner?”

Waterbury's use of restraint and seclusion drew attention from the federal Department of Justice last year as part of a broader investigation into disciplinary practices there. According to documents obtained by CT Insider, the federal government has requested records related to restraint and seclusion incidents in the city, as well as student discipline, school arrests and more.

Andrew Feinstein, a lawyer with the nonprofit group Special Education Equity for Kids, said that while he couldn't yet judge Waterbury's efforts, he considers sensory rooms to be far more productive than seclusion in managing children in crisis.

"The idea is to deal with what the child's needs are, and sensory issues are so often a part of it," Feinstein said. "The practice of throwing a kid all alone in a room without an adult is dehumanizing and frightening and traumatizing, and presumably, if you've got a sensory room you've got an adult involved who can actually deal with the child's needs.”

Waterbury isn't alone in taking steps to reduce restraint and seclusion. In Milford, officials updated the school district's policy last year, creating specifications for which rooms can be used to seclude students and adding new language regarding when restraint is permissible.

New Haven and New Canaan school leaders say they've already banned seclusion district-wide, and state data shows they reported few or no incidents during the 2021-22 school year.

In May, the school district in Brookfield adopted a new policy that will clarify for staff when restraint and seclusion are and aren't legally permissible and ensure proper training for staff, including identified crisis intervention teams that respond to students with escalated behavior.

Brookfield Superintendent John Barile said Friday that the new policy is a chance for everyone in the district, which reported 132 restraint and seclusion incidents in 2021-22, to think critically about the interventions.

“It's more organized now and clearer for everybody to look through,” Barile said. “Anytime you update a policy or procedure or regulation or protocol, it gives you the opportunity to train and retrain and refresh the focus on a particular topic.”

Other districts standing pat

Still, many other districts have shown no indication of a new approach to emergency interventions.

In recent months, CT Insider reporters reached out to nearly two dozen towns asking if they had considered changes to their policies around restraint and seclusion. While some expressed a desire to limit restraint and seclusion and touted existing policies, most said they were not currently weighing any changes.

“We are not changing policy, but we are ensuring that our faculty and staff are properly trained,” Newtown Superintendent Chris Melillo said.

In Greenwich, where the local school reported only 11 restraint and seclusion incidents during the 2021-22 school year, Superintendent Toni Jones said the district's policy is working as intended and doesn't need an update.

“While we train staff as required by law, our goal is not to utilize restraint and seclusion tactics and is focused on de-escalation and other response options,” Jones said. “Our policy is very thorough and explicit in regards to when it would be appropriate.”

Officials in Stamford, Shelton, Darien, Westport, Wilton, Weston, West Hartford and Bloomfield also said they had no plans to change their restraint and seclusion practices, with some adding that they were monitoring state law and would change their policies if doing so became necessary.

Though local school districts report thousands of restraint and seclusion incidents annually, the practices are particularly common in regional districts and private special education programs, which often defend their use of restraint and seclusion as necessary to manage large numbers of high-need students.

Several local school district officials said their policies emerge from collaboration with the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. CABE Executive Director Patrice McCarthy said Friday that the organization encourages districts to go beyond what is legally required of them and look to proactively reduce restraint and seclusion.

“There's much more of a focus now on preventive strategies and identifying behaviors that lead to the kinds of situations where students and staff are being put at risk,” McCarthy said.

Stalled legislation

In March, the legislature's Education Committee introduced a bill that would ban seclusion across Connecticut and limit the circumstances under which students can be restrained. At a public hearing, advocates spoke out against the practices, while parents shared tearful stories about the long-term trauma their children had experienced after being restrained or secluded.

The committee advanced a weakened version of the bill — one that would have permitted seclusion under the supervision of a mental health professional — but the proposal never came up for a vote in either house of the broader legislature.

Instead, lawmakers passed a measure assigning a special education task force to examine the feasibility of banning seclusion and replacing it with other interventions.

Meanwhile, federal lawmakers led by Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy has proposed legislation that would ban seclusion and reduce the use of restraint nationwide. The proposal is not expected to pass anytime soon, though Murphy says he would continue to lobby for it.

With state and federal action unlikely, municipalities are left for now to take action themselves.