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projo.com
Block Island officials defend room
in school basement
June 14, 2008
By Katie Mulvaney
NEW SHOREHAM — Room 20 in the
basement of the Block Island School is small and bare. Its concrete
floor is painted green, its ceiling sky blue with white clouds, its
main window covered with plywood. And, until earlier this week, its
knob-less door had double bolts on the outside.
An anonymous letter raising
questions about the room and a DVD showing it arrived at The
Providence Journal, three television stations, and the attorney
general’s office last week. In the brief video, a camera silently
pans the room, showing the locks. It also shows pillows and blankets
in a jumble on the floor, an open utility outlet, chipped paint and
fingerprints smudging the walls. The letter makes no allegations,
but raises questions about whether unruly children might have been
sent there.
On Tuesday, Davida Irving,
principal of the two-story school since last July, acknowledged that
there might be such a room, but didn’t know its location. She said
she had been told it was developed in consultation with Bradley
Hospital as a space for a child “to chill out.” Asked if there were
external locks, she went to look, returning perplexed. “I’ve never
seen a student locked in there since I’ve been here,” she said.
During the interview, she placed a
call to Supt. Leslie A. Ryan, who was off island. Ryan told her not
to let a reporter see the room.
When the superintendent, who
doubles as special-education director, returned on the 3 p.m. ferry,
she said the school lawyer would issue a statement the next day as
she stormed to her car.
Calls that evening to all five
School Committee members were not returned. Teachers reached for
comment said they knew nothing of the room, or were reluctant to
talk. One said it was a special-education issue and she didn’t have
the authority to discuss it.
Jack Lyle, the school’s previous
superintendent, said there was no such room when he led the district
from 2004 until Ryan took over in 2006. “That wouldn’t have happened
on my watch,” Lyle, now a practicing lawyer, said. “That would go
against every fabric of my being.”
An official at Bradley Hospital
denied any involvement. “There is not a chance. Nobody would have
worked on a room like that,” said Dr. Dale Radka, director of
Bradley School who oversees all consultation with school districts.
“Bradley doesn’t consult anybody about these kinds of locked
facilities.”
It is common, he said, to have
focus rooms in which students can quietly calm down, but a locked
seclusion room would only be used as a last resort to prevent a very
disturbed child from endangering him or herself or others. But, he
added, there should be stringent policies and a highly trained staff
in place first.
He speculated that more districts
would turn to such approaches as budget cutbacks sway them to
integrate high-needs children into public schools.
The Journal returned to the Block
Island school Wednesday morning, and Ryan again rebuffed attempts to
view the room, saying she had to protect students. She handed out a
statement that read:
“The Block Island School excels in
providing support and appropriate education to all of its students.
We have never taken punitive action involving locked doors or any
other archaic practice. Specifics of behavior plans designed for
special-needs students are confidential and, on this island, can
prompt immediate identification of the student. We have a team of
qualified and caring teachers and therapists who advocate every
single day for every single child.”
Ryan refused to answer questions.
“I’ve given you a statement and that’s the end.”
She referred the reporter to
Vincent Carlone, the island’s chief of police.
In his office looking out on Old
Harbor, where the ferries come in, Carlone said that he investigated
the room Tuesday after a television reporter asked about it. He
concluded there were no safety concerns, adding that the two outside
locks had already been removed.
The district created the room, he
said, as a way to keep a specific child with violent tendencies on
the island, instead of being sent to a residential facility away
from family. A difficulty of living on an island is having limited
access to services readily available on the mainland, he said.
Asked why a police chief was
talking about an education matter, he said school officials were
restricted by “confidentiality laws.”
The superintendent told him, he
said, that one or two aides always accompanied the child. The room
was used “infrequently” and had not been used “recently,” he said.
He was unable to be more specific. He said he had heard nothing
about any other children being placed in the room.
“I don’t know if they locked that
lock,” he said. But, he said, the child enjoys the room.
“No one’s in danger,” the chief
said. School officials “go out of their way to help the kids.”
He emphasized that the
superintendent told him the room had been set up in consultation
with Bradley, an East Providence hospital specializing in children
facing emotional, mental and behavioral challenges.
Told that Bradley denied any
involvement with the room, the chief said, “They [school officials]
wouldn’t lie to me.”
Repeated efforts to get the name of
the Bradley contact were denied. School lawyer Denise Myers said,
through the chief, that such disclosure would violate a federal law
that protects the privacy of personal health information.
After getting clearance from Myers,
Carlone took The Journal to see the room. A Journal photographer,
however, was barred from taking pictures.
A thin floor mat lay in one corner
with a pile of fabric resembling a blanket on top. The plywood on
the window is there to prevent a student from striking the glass,
Carlone said. The door has a small rectangular window and holes
where the locks had been removed.
“If they made a mistake, they made
a mistake with the locks,” the chief said. “But they certainly
didn’t do it to hurt anyone.”
The wife of a School Committee
member reprimanded the reporter, saying it was a private matter.
The state police and a prosecutor
from the attorney general’s office visited the school Thursday. They
will discuss their evaluation with state education officials, Maj.
Steven G. O’Donnell said later.
The investigation is expected to
conclude in the next few weeks, according to Michael J. Healey,
spokesman for the attorney general.
“It looks like the room was used as
some sort of time-out space,” Healey said. “I really doubt we’re
talking about anything of a criminal nature.”
After The Journal inquired about
regulations involving locked isolation rooms, Marvin Abney, the
assistant to the education commissioner for equality and access,
called school officials Thursday. He was assured that the locks had
been taken off the room, Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the
Department of Education, said.
Rhode Island regulations do not
allow unobserved time-out rooms or rooms used solely for time-outs.
They also do not allow a student to be confined alone in a room
without access to school staff.
“Any kid in a locked room would
concern the state — period,” Krieger said. “That seems to be a
safety problem.”
Yesterday afternoon, the School
Committee met in closed session to discuss the issue. Chairman Bill
Padien could not be reached for comment.
The individual behind the DVD and
the letter sought anonymity yesterday, saying he feared there would
be retribution against his family for blowing the whistle on the
locked room in the basement.
kmulvane@projo.com
Original article with a look inside
room 20.
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