State education board considers restraints for special
ed students
By
Gena Terlizzi (Contact)
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Right now in Kansas,
there are no statewide guidelines for how teachers and
their helpers should handle unruly special education
students.
On Tuesday, members of
the Disability Rights Center attended the Kansas State
Board of Education meeting to hear proposed guidelines
for schools to follow when special education students
get out of control.
Advocates for the
disabled said the mandates are necessary to prevent
mistreatment of the students.
Rocky Nichols, executive
director of the Disability Rights Center, said during
the 2005 legislative session he heard many parents speak
about the mistreatment of their children.
“Hundreds and hundreds of
parents from around the state came forward, testified
and talked about how their kids were secluded and
restrained inappropriately,” Nichols said. “We have kids
who have been sat on by gym teachers. Their arms have
been duct-taped together as a form of restraint. They’ve
been rolled up in gym mats. They’ve been placed in
little boxes.”
Those are the extreme
cases, but members of the Disability Rights Center said
they hoped a few guidelines would spell out what is
appropriate when it comes to handling special education
students with behavior problems.
More about special
education
If a child gets out of
control and must be separated from other students, they
can be placed in what’s called a seclusion room. The
proposal recommends the room be at least 36 square feet.
But board member Carol
Rupe expressed concern about the small size. “Thirty-six
square feet — that’s about 5-by-7. It’s euphemistic to
call it a room. We used to call them time-out boxes,”
Rupe said.
Rodney Bieker, who
presented the proposal on behalf of the Department of
Education, said the committees working on the proposal
had to take several factors into account when
determining the optimum size for the room.
“If you get a room too
big, the child might get a pretty good run in and hurt
himself. You get a room too small, and you got a poor
little child that’s claustrophobic and can’t even
breathe in there,” Bieker said.
Nichols said the proposal
was the result of compromise among several groups.
“We’ve had many, many
meetings on these with school officials and others. It’s
not everything we want. It’s not everything the
disability community wants. It’s not everything the
public safety community wants. It’s a good compromise,
though,” he said.
The proposal also places
restrictions on when and how a child can be restrained.
Restraint could only be used by trained staff if the
child’s actions were putting the child or others in
danger.
Supporters of the new
guidelines said they hoped the state education board
would be prepared to adopt the new policy when it meets
in August.
