Disabled Students Restrained in Public Schools
AUSTIN – Texas educators forcibly pinned down students with disabilities more than 18,000 times in the last school year, sometimes injuring them in the process.
A Texas Tribune review of state data shows public school educators used so-called “physical restraints” – a tool to control or discipline students with disabilities – roughly 100 times a day during the 2007-08 school year.
That year, school staff restrained four of every 100 special education students, with some students being restrained dozens of times. More than 40 percent of restrained youth suffered from emotional problems like post-traumatic stress disorder; nearly 20 percent were autistic.
Educators ...
Comments (7)
eamartinez
Excellent report, Emily! Schools need experts in child development to meet the needs of ALL their students. There are reasons why children may appear "emotionally disturbed" when they are are simply learning to live in and deal with their environment. That such extreme measures are resorted to in Texas school districts says more about the failure of our public school system than the condition of the child.
leverage
This story would give readers a better picture of the problem if it had some context. Educators pinned down kids 18,000 times in the last school year, compared with how many the previous year? The previous five? Has it increased or decreased? How does Texas compare with other reporting states? What are other states' policies on restraining kids? Deeper into the story, you point out that it's tough to sift out the numbers - but you led with a big one, so there must be some way of getting the data.
Emily Ramshaw
Leverage, visit us again tomorrow and Thursday for more!
Hugh Lester
This has been and will continue to be a big problem. Many of the students labelled Emotionally Disturbed (ED) are likely on the autism spectrum, so the federal graph may be somewhat misleading. Parents of special education students that have a history or are considered at risk might consider the inclusion of a "Physical Restraint Documentation Checklist" in the child's Individual Education Plan (IEP) along with a requirement that the form be filled out and placed in the permanent file any time "hands are laid on the child." After taking this step, restraints of our child were dramatically reduced, and staff training was stepped up. One example checklist can be found at: http://www.medwayschools.org/schoolcomm/restraint_policy/incidentreport_checklist.pdf
TexEd
Wow--I had high hopes that this site/paper would be a beacon of REAL journalism rather than sensationalism. But, your very first education story leads with something very sensationalistic. May as well led with a story about a teacher having sex with a students so you could be EXACTLY like every other news outlet in Texas.
So much for high hopes that this place would be different.
Anna20
Emily thank you for doing this story & speaking up for so many disabled children. This abuse must stop, now! Restraint & seclusion is an epidemic across the United States of America. America is finally hearing about it. Our children need protection from the very people we entrusted them to. Restraint should be used only as last resort & in imminent danger. That is not what is happening.... our children are being restrained for noncompliance & manifestations of their disability. Animals have more laws to protect them then our children. Where is the outrage? Wake up America!
Restraint & Seclusion Awareness Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RlcIRkBkw
To TexEd, sensationalism? How about you tell that to the parents of children who have been physically & emotionally abused, even killed in the name of education. My child was 7 years old & weighed 52lbs when they started putting their hands on him. He now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Dont you dare spew your ignorance, if you dont know then find out! Google restraint & seclusion & see how it is damaging the most vulnerable of children. Read how the practice is NOT evidence based, It is barbaric & inhumane and must stop, now!
If you are from Florida, support HB 81!!! School is not suppose to hurt!
ladyjane
Overview
There are currently over 130,000 schools serving 50 million students in this country. In real numbers, no one really knows the extent of the threat in terms of school violence. In 2006 an audit of 17 high schools was conducted by former NYS Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi found that at least one third of violent incidents documented in school records were not reported. The Hevesi Report cited approximately 7,357 violent and disruptive incidents at 17 NY high schools in one year.
This means the American public is being significantly mislead as it is estimated that between one and four out of five school crimes go unreported.
See, Attacking our Educators, Stopping School Violence http://www.stoppingschoolviolence.com.
NATIONAL SCHOOL STATISTICS
Between 1997 and 2001, there were approximately 1.3 million reports where teachers were victims to nonfatal crimes at school. This includes 473,000 violent crimes that were reported. On average, in each year from 1997-2001, about 21 out of every 1,000 teachers were victims of violent crime at school, and 3 out of every 1,000 were victims of serious violent crime (i.e., rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault. (These numbers are estimated to be under-reported 20-80%)
• Students between the ages of 12 and 18 were victims of about 764,000 violent crimes annually (These numbers are estimated to be under-reported 20-80%)
• 13% of 9th graders reported that they were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property.
• Street gangs were reported present on school premises by 29% of students living in urban areas, 18% of students living in suburban areas, and 13% of students living in rural areas.
• 6.1% of students nationwide have carried a weapon (e.g., a gun, knife, or club) on school property one or more times during the 30 days prior to the survey. During the 12 months preceding the survey, 9.2% of the students had been threatened or injured with such a weapon on school property one or more times.
• Each day, approximately 160,000 K-12 students don’t attend school because they are afraid.
• 46% of students said they were hit, kicked, shoved, or tripped at least once in the previous month, and 18 percent had experienced this five or more times.
• One in fourteen students carries a weapon to school one or more days each month.
• 10% of traditional (non-special education) teachers reported being threatened with injury during a 12 month period.
• Nearly one in 10 high school students reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property during the preceding 12 months.
• Over 88% of victimizations that occurred at school against 12-18 year olds were not reported to the police.
• Of the 3,657 expulsions from bringing a firearm to school almost half were students in high school, 28 % were middle school and 24% were elementary school.
Special Education
The data that exists puts the number of special education students around 14% of the total student population. This segment of students is the most rapidly growing segment and it is projected that special education students will soon represent 25% of the student population.
With respect to special education students and school violence, data shows that special education students committed threats at a significantly higher annual rate (33/1000 students) than regular education students (6.9/1000 students) and made more substantive threats (39.8%) than students in regular education (20%). Students classified as Emotionally Disturbed (ED) made the highest threat rates and the most serious threats. Students in special education who made threats also committed significantly more infractions involving violent acts. Research is showing that while special education students represent approximately 14% of the school population, they are the source of 38-43% of the violent incidents.
It is only by putting the use of seclusion and restraint into context that the scope of the overall issue including the amount of school violence and the need for school safety can be measured.
It is unrealistic to expect that ALL incidents can be managed with positive behavior intervention. See CMS restraint regulations public comment section, HHS rulings, state and Federal Court rulings etc. at the precise moment that a student is placing himself or herself at a real and substantial risk of injury to self or others.
For instance, if your child was about to cross a street into oncoming traffic, or place their hand on a hot stove, you would stop them. If your child was hurting themselves by scratching or head banging, you would stop them from continuing to hurt themselves.
- If you have your own child in an educational setting and another child physically attacks your child, regardless of motive, what would you think about a teacher or aide who decides to offer ‘positive behavior support’ instead of saving your child from getting beaten?
-In fact it is precisely because schools and other facilities are taking away the spectrum of tools that teachers and staff can use to therapeutically intervene, that more, not less, security and intervention is being called for. Administrators and teachers need to be given the spectrum of tools necessary to do their jobs in order to maintain a safe environment.
Some Resources:
Recently there was an incident involving a student going to school with homemade bombs and a chain saw. The teachers restrained the student on the floor face down and were called heroes. Under NDRN’s solution, the teachers would have had to simply hope that they would be able to manage the student before blew up the school, murdered someone or activated the chain saw.
So how many lives were saved by the use of restraint in the above instance?
See, http://blog.taragana.com/n/prosecutors-charge-former-student-with-attempted-murder-in-california-school-bomb-attack-150524/
SAN MATEO, Calif. — A 17-year-old boy accused of detonating two pipe bombs at a Northern California high school while armed with a chain saw, sword and explosives was charged Wednesday with attempting to murder two faculty members.
How about Schoolboy beaten to death as teachers look on
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/2009/08/schoolboy-beaten-to-death-as-teachers.html
See also Attacking Our Educators http://www.stoppingschoolviolence.com/bookstore_ssv.html
The few states that have gone to an unduly restrictive and inflexible policy have experienced a vast increase in the use of law enforcement and law enforcement tactics to manage situations that in the past were handled by teachers. Groups that were instrumental in effecting this change are now complaining that law enforcement is being used too frequently and students as young as 5 are being placed in handcuffs and students as young as 10 being subject to tasers. (See ACLU report http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/aclu-white-paper-says-guidelines-needed-police-schools) However if you unduly limit the interventions teachers can use, handcuffs, law enforcement, increased prescriptions and use of psychotropic (we note that some of the advocacy groups have conflict of interests regarding funding obtained from these drug companies) and other medications (see http://www.ssristor ies.com/index. php )are what you are left with.