Children Forced Into Seclusion Rooms

Children forced into cell-like school seclusion rooms - CNN -


>EDMOND, Okla. -- The Edmond School District is showing Eyewitness News 5 camera crews the seclusion rooms in schools that have become the center of a lawsuit.

The parents of Noah Ashford, 11, and their attorney said Noah was locked in one of the rooms and abused"This room is a small closet basically that they've turned into a form of punishment," said attorney Angela Smith.

The family said that Noah, a special-needs student, attended Centennial and Orvis Risner elementary schools in Edmond and was locked inside seclusion rooms in both.

(This is just a regular classroom," said Randy Decker of the Edmond School District. "Students with different needs would be in here.")

He said that special-needs students require special care. He said that's why special-needs classrooms have two areas where children can calm down.

"(One) is just kind of a seclusion or isolation area. It's not in a different room," Decker said. "As you can tell, it's blocked off a little bit. They can go in and sit down and do their work there."

(Ashford's family said Noah was mistreated and locked in one of the seclusion rooms for an extended period of time.)

(Decker said the room is automatically unlocked and a student could push the door open from the inside. He said that if a child seems violent or continues to act out, a teacher can push a red button that will keep the door locked as long as the teacher's hand is there.)

He said that the district sees the rooms as a good way to maintain a safe classroom environment for all the students and the rooms are allowed under the law. Decker said every time a student is placed in one of the rooms, the teacher has to fill out a form to document it.

Decker was not able to answer whether parents of special-needs students find out about the rooms when their child enrolls.
www.publicbroadcasting.net/.../State.School.Board.Bans.Seclusion.Rooms - You Can View The U-Tube At http://www.koco.com/r/24102603/detail.html
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Wisconsin.
By Chelsea Lawliss
Monday, April 12, 2010
In 2006, a 7-year-old girl was fatally injured at Rice Lake Day Treatment Clinic in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. A staff member held her in a prone position for an extended period of time after being put into a “cool down” room for refusing to stop blowing bubbles in her milk. A person several times her size held her facedown on the floor as a consequence for blowing bubbles. A medical examiner determined that she died from “complications due to chest compression asphyxiation.”

This is an extreme case of the misuse of seclusion rooms and restraints, but it is one that is not uncommon. This horrific story is only one of many that I came across when doing research about the debate about the use of seclusion rooms and restraints in an education setting. Each story was more awful than the one before it. Many children, especially those with disabilities, are being subjected to physically and emotionally damaging treatments because some teachers are not equipped with the necessary training and tools in which to establish the best learning environment for all of their students.

After reading Hannah Shtein’s March 12 column, “Address growing special ed needs” and Geoff Jara-Almonte’s March 16 column, “Student seclusion sometimes necessary,” I felt compelled to offer another viewpoint — that of a professional.

Professor Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, Interim Associate Dean for Undergraduate and Teacher Education and a distinguished scholar of special education, made her opinions clear at the onset of our interview: seclusion rooms, in the way they are currently being used, are wrong. This is not a statement based on biased opinions, but rather founded on her research and education on the causes and effects of punishment.

Nowhere in The Cap Times’ March 11 article, “Should schools use seclusion rooms, restraints?” was there mention of what the proper use of a seclusion room is. The focus, instead, was placed on “educators using these methods only as a last resort to keep children and staff safe.” According to professor Hanley-Maxwell, this focus is misdirected.

While the use of seclusion rooms is intended to keep students and others safe, the focus of this form of punishment should be more centered on how to modify a certain behavior and then reinforce subsequent positive behavior.

An important concept to understand is the relationship between punishment and reinforcement. According to LDonLine, the world’s leading website on learning disabilities and ADHD, “punishments are consequences that weaken behavior and reinforcers are consequences that strengthen behavior.” For behavior to be managed with consequences, there is a specific process that needs to be followed every time.

The problem must be defined in a way that is understood by the child. There needs to be a strategy designed to change the behavior and then an effective reinforcer needs to be identified and applied consistently to change the behavior.

*The reports of the misuse of seclusion rooms across the country are blatant proof of the lack of understanding of this process. To be clear, punishment that is used in an aggressive, cruel manner or overused will most likely provoke unexpected behavior that can be seen as emotional, destructive or just “another problem” to be dealt with.

Hanley-Maxwell said, “Without a positive incentive and environment to come back to, time spent in a seclusion room will be more detrimental than positive to a child’s emotional and physical well-being.”

http://badgerherald.com/oped/2010/04/12/seclusion_rooms_over.php
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NOTE>Mar 11, 2010 ... About two-thirds of Madison's public schools now use seclusion rooms; most also have teams of staff trained to use physical force to hustle ...

host.madison.com/.../article_1b3c4886-2bc8-11df-bd32-001cc4c03286.html -
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