TN: State issues restraint rules for special ed students

Law aims to keep disabled children safe
By Christina E. Sanchez • THE TENNESSEAN • January 18, 2009
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Felicia Burk has homeschooled her 11-year-old son with autism since he had an outburst at school in September and ended up handcuffed and in the back of a police car.

His Murfreesboro school had called police to try to get him under control.

Burk said restraint only escalates and prolongs Heith's wild behavior. Also, it went against his individual education plan — drawn up for all special education students to spell out how to help them succeed in school.

Debates about restraint or even isolation to control behavioral explosions of special education students are not new in Tennessee, which had no laws or rules governing the use of restraint or isolation of special education students.

A new state law effective this month attempts to change that. The aim of the Special Education Isolation and Restraint Modernization and Behavioral Supports Act is to keep students safe from unreasonable, unsafe or unwarranted discipline.

And a national advocacy group is focusing attention on the issue, releasing a report last week that highlights a notorious Nashville-area case from 2007.

In Sumner County, children were being isolated in 4-by-3½-foot plywood boxes that were placed in 12 schools. A parent notified the state's Disability Law and Advocacy Center, which worked with the district to create what are known as calming areas to use when children get unruly. The boxes then were dismantled.

Advocates from the Disability Coalition on Education and the Arc of Tennessee have pushed for years to prohibit discipline methods that include sitting on students as restraint or putting them in a locked room.

The new rules allow districts to restrain or isolate under certain conditions. Among steps they prohibit are tie-down straps, use of locked or barricaded rooms, or any restraint that restricts air.

The State Board of Education will have a first reading of the proposed rules at its Jan. 30 meeting in Nashville.

Still, many advocates and parents would like to see even stronger state and federal rules. Burk wants restraint outlawed.

"Restraint is not changing the behavior, but is just interrupting a behavior at that time," said Burk, who also works in special education and is a behavioral analyst. "I understand restraint may be necessary in an emergency situation, but we need to call in every available resources to make sure it does not happen again."

Children in locked closet
The Disability Law and Advocacy Center, the state's protection and advocacy group, averages five or more calls a month from parents with complaints about special education programs inappropriately restraining or isolating their children.

"We've had cases where children were put in locked closets — either the door was locked or objects were used to block the door," said Sherry Wilds, attorney for the Disability Law and Advocacy Center. "We've run into situations where restraint and seclusion were used inappropriately and sometimes to a dangerous level."

It was a call from a parent that got the Advocacy Center involved in the 2007 Sumner County case.

Discovery of the plywood "seclusion boxes" created a firestorm. The district removed the boxes from the 12 schools and worked with the Advocacy Center to find acceptable alternatives.

"They changed to calming rooms with bean bag chairs and blankets," said Martha Lafferty, a managing attorney for the Advocacy Center.

Norma Dam, social education coordinator for Sumner, said special education teachers are trained three times every year on how to deal with restraint and isolation. They no longer use isolation rooms but sometimes remove the child to a quiet, divided area of the room.

"You try to remove them from whatever it is that is agitating them at the moment and given them time to cool down so they can re-enter the class," Dam said.

In another case from 2007, a teen died of strangulation after being restrained by a staff member at Chad Youth Enhancement Center near Clarksville.

School shouldn't hurt
The report that highlighted the Sumner case, titled "School is Not Supposed to Hurt," was released last week by a group called the National Disability Rights Network.

Across the nation, the report said, 32 states have rules or laws of some sort that spell out use of restraint and isolation. But advocates say policies are either unclear or inadequate.

Jean Hudson, an attorney of abuse and neglect for the Rights Network, said even the states that have laws sometimes allow dangerous practices such as restraint that forces the child to the ground, face down.

"This really is a national issue," Hudson said. "We need federal laws in place with at least bottom-line standards."

In Tennessee, advocates want the law to require that schools notify parents about any use of restraint. Currently, the law says parents have to be notified only if it is included in the student's education plan, said Holly Lu Conant Rees, chairman of the Disability Coalition on Education.

Conant Rees urges parents and advocates to attend the Board of Education meeting to voice their concerns about the issue and the proposed rules.

"We have to put a face with this issue and convey the urgency of getting it right because kids have died due to restraint," Conant Rees said.

Burk, the Murfreesboro parent, said she would like to see nonphysical behavioral intervention used to deal with special education students. She wants her son to return to school but worries how restraint will be used.

Attempts to reach representatives of Murfreesboro City Schools last week were unsuccessful.

"We have to teach children it is OK to be mad, OK to be angry, but it is not OK to hit, run away or destroy property," Burk said. "But we have to search for alternatives to restraint and isolation."

Contact Christina E. Sanchez at 615-726-5961 or cesanchez@tennessean.com.