RI: Update 2008 - Block Island classroom is no more

Note: This school is now claiming they have dismantled their "chill out room" and that no new room has been created to "take its place"; instead, the room serves as an office for an occupational therapist.  The school initially denied the "chill out room" existed until video footage surfaced to refute the claim.  The Dept of Ed has not yet physically investigated to determine whether this "claim" has merit, but says that it will. However, they don't feel there's any rush as the DOE is taking the district (proven liars) at its word.  Further, the district claims an "error in judgment" that has been  corrected through hiring a Director of Special Education - a position the school (district?) apparantly hadn't had before. They've updated their training, and plan "restraint trainings" after the first of the year...Some director they've hired....

December 28, 2008

http://www.projo.com/education/content/UPDATE_2008_ISOLATION_12-28-08_9TCNPB1_v15.2c2d0fa.html

NEW SHOREHAM — Officials at the Block Island School are trying to put the infamous past of Room 20 behind them.

The small, bare room in the basement of the school came to prominence this summer when an anonymous letter and DVD arrived at The Providence Journal, three television stations and the attorney general’s office, showing the door had no knobs and double bolts. The letter asked whether unruly children were sent there.

Today, the room shows little evidence of its former life as a “chill out” room for students including some with special needs. The locks were removed this summer. A desk, chair and other office furniture sit where a thin gym pad and blankets used to be. Even the room number has been removed.

“I’m happy to show it to anybody who’d like to see it,” said principal Davida Irving. “I’m not hiding anything. It’s come up at meetings and people wanted to know what it was about. I look at it as an error in judgment that has been corrected.”

The room now serves as an office for an occupational therapist, Irving said. No new isolation room has been created to take its place, she said.

Behavioral plans for students are now handled by Special Education Director William Anderson, who was hired by the district last month. The principal used to handle special-education matters. Staff members have received training on de-escalation techniques and will be taught restraint techniques next year, Anderson said.

The state Department of Education has not visited the school to check on the status of the room, said spokesman Elliot Krieger, but the visit will happen. “[The state] has been assured from communication with the district that the room is not being used as a seclusion room,” he said. “So we don’t feel any urgency, but we do want to go out and look. That just hasn’t happened yet.”

Neither the state, nor the local School Department has probed any further into the incident. An attorney general review of the incident is still pending, according to spokesman Michael J. Healey. The school department has not faced any lawsuits stemming from the prior use of the room, according to school’s lawyer, Denise Myers.

The incident has served as a springboard for the Rhode Island Disability Law Center to look at improper isolation as a systemic problem, said Anne Mulready, supervising attorney for the agency.The center is working with the state Department of Education to access records documenting instances of isolation and, if necessary, helping to develop a system of oversight to monitor district’s use of the behavioral method.

— Journal Staff Writer Talia Buford