Ohio and Florida Public Schools lock Mentally Disabled Children in Closets

[AnCap Dave]

Source

To discipline misbehaving students, public schools in Ohio and Florida regularly send children to "seclusion" — isolation in a locked cell-like room, old office, or closet, NPR's State Impact reports. Many of these children are special needs students and their parents are not always told of this disciplinary practice.

Ohio schools — where seclusion is almost completely unregulated — sent students to seclusion rooms 4,236 times in the 2009-2010 school year. Sixty percent of these students had disabilities. Florida schools have fewer cases, with 969 instances of seclusion from 2010 to 2011. The state has just three stipulations for using seclusion rooms: teachers may not choke or suffocate students, the room must be approved by a fire marshal, and the lights must be left on.

A joint report by StateImpact and Columbus Dispatch report found rampant abuse and lack of training of the punishment, which is meant as a last resort to deal with violent children:

But last school year, one Pickerington special-education teacher sent children to a seclusion room more than 60 times, district records show. In nearly all of those incidents, the children were not violent. Often, they were sent to the seclusion room for being "mouthy," or whining about their school work.

Pickerington Special Education Director Bob Blackburn said the teacher in that classroom was new and that someone in the district has now taught her the right way to use the seclusion room.

Other Pickerington teachers misused the rooms, too, though. In another classroom, children were secluded more than 30 times last school year. Two-thirds of those instances involved misbehavior and not violence, district records show.

Far from benefiting violent or rowdy students, seclusion has been found to be deeply traumatizing, sometimes leading children to hurt or kill themselves. In one special education school in Georgia, a 13-year-old boy hung himself in a seclusion room in November 2004.

Fun fact: THIS WOULD NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN IN A PRIVATE SCHOOL

[MrBogosity]

Source

Far from benefiting violent or rowdy students, seclusion has been found to be deeply traumatizing, sometimes leading children to hurt or kill themselves. In one special education school in Georgia, a 13-year-old boy hung himself in a seclusion room in November 2004.

Fun fact: THIS WOULD NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN IN A PRIVATE SCHOOL

And if it did, the school would be promptly shut down and those involved arrested and charged with negligent homicide.

[BogosityForumUser]

The sad part is that seclusion rooms can actually be very effective when dealing with violent children (and people in general), when used properly.  That is why they caught on outside of psychiatric treatment.  People in charge saw that there are studies that show their benefit in an at-risk school environment and then tried to implement them in a half-assed manner.  I mean, seclusion rooms are supposed to be empty or only have non-dangerous items inside (usually only out of reach lighting) and you aren't actually supposed to leave them unattended, but rather monitor the person for when they finally stop being violent.  As soon as that happens, you are supposed to use other interventions and move them to another location for those interventions; otherwise, the room gets associated with punishment or can sometimes turn into a perverse sort of reward, rather than seen as a last ditch effort to contain the violent outburst.  Also, when used improperly (or alone, without subsequent intervention), they usually make the violence worse because of those associations or just generally because they are in a dangerous environment.

And I've read and heard the results of proper usage.  Kids going from completely uncontrollable to normal interaction in a matter of months.  The sad thing is that instead schools do it halfway, which causes more problems than solutions, as the article mentioned.  In fact, I'm sort of upset that it the quoted passages routinely referred to it as a punishment when any idiot should be able to tell that isn't even in the ballpark of what they are for.

Just a note: I'm not a licensed educator or mental health professional, I'm just basing the above on what I have read from educational journals and books and it could be totally wrong, so don't actually rely on it for anything.  I also apologize for swearing in the first paragraph but I couldn't think of any other word to convey both my ideas and feelings on the practice, but this just pushed my buttons.