PADDED CELL?

PADDED CELL?
National Disability Rights Network Report- School Is Not Supposed to Hurt

SECLUSION ROOM OR QUIET ROOM?

SECLUSION ROOM OR QUIET ROOM?
EAST GOSHEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA

TO BE PRONE OR NOT TO BE PRONE? THAT IS THE QUESTION.

TO BE PRONE OR NOT TO BE PRONE? THAT IS THE QUESTION.
Abbie was Restrained 14 times in one day for noncompliance issues

POSITIVE BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION COST TOO MUCH! RESTRAIN HIM IN THE RIFTON CHAIR INSTEAD.

POSITIVE BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION COST TOO MUCH! RESTRAIN HIM IN THE RIFTON CHAIR INSTEAD.
CCIU/EAST BRADFORD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, WEST CHESTER, PA.

QUIET ROOM OR CELL?

QUIET ROOM OR CELL?
NAA: The Restraint and Prevention Symposium

ABUSE IS ABUSE, REGARDLESS OF WHO IT IS

ABUSE IS ABUSE, REGARDLESS OF WHO IT IS
Man Arrested For Abusing His Autistic Son

WELCOME TO RHODE ISLAND FAMILIES AGAINST RESTRAINT AND SECLUSION

The abuse of children at the hands of school personnel has risen over the last two decades and the nation is outraged. The children most likely to be abused are children with disabilities. Children who are poor and homeless are not excluded from the abuse.

The abuse presents itself in various forms -restraints, seclusion, suffocation, and sometimes even death. Last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation found hundreds of allegations that children have been abused and some have died as a result of the misuses of restraints and seclusion in public and private schools, often by untrained staff. United States representatives George Miller and Cathy McMorris Rodgers introduced the "Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in School Act" (HR 4247) and senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut introduced it's sister bill, (S. 2860). This legislation is the first national effort to address the problem and ensure the safety of students and school staff.

The abuse of a child in school can easily escalate into retaliation against the parent(s), caretaker(s), or advocate. Retaliation can include the denial educational services, the denial of a child to attend school, an illegal eviction from your residence, neglect and abuse charges filed against you by the school, a loss of employment, removal of the child from the caretaker by child protective services, false charges against the parent, caregiver, or advocate that can lead to an arrest, etc.

We must stop asking, "What are they (everyone else) going to do about the abuse of our nation's children?" While the rest of America sits blind, not necessarily their fault, they are under the assumption that their tax dollars are paying for an education without abuse, restraints, seclusion, or retaliation. American citizens believe that when they send their children to school, they will be safe, not abused or killed by school personnel.

It is our belief that all children are entitled to a free, appropriate, and SAFE education in the public and private school system, as specified under IDEA. We need your support in effecting change within the system.

Thank you!

Monday, July 19, 2010

URGENT ACTION ALERT!!!

Call Senate: No Restraint/Seclusion in IEP; Protect IDEA Rights!

From the COPAA Discussion list:

This week, as the Senate drafts its final version of the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act, S. 2860, a very dangerous provision is creeping in. The Senate would let school staff put restraint/seclusion in a child’s IEP or 504 plan. Call your Senators now and ask them to reject this proposal. See Instructions Below on How To Contact Congress.

Senators: Please Do Not Allow Restraint/Seclusion to be Added to the IEP in S.2860.

Currently, in both House and Senate bills, Sec. 5(a)(4) forbids including restraint/seclusion in an IEP as a planned intervention. The Senate should not change it. Evidence shows that when student plans contain restraint/seclusion, staff use them as a first resort, not last resort. Restraint/Seclusion provide no educational benefit; instead, they kill, injure, and traumatize. They do not belong in IEPs.

Senators: S. 2860 should require that all students receive IEPs which treat them with dignity, with positive interventions, and appropriate services. These are the techniques that prevent dangerous behavior. They help deescalate hot situations and prevent them from arising. Those in Congress who say they don’t work are wrong. 70% of the parents surveyed in Unsafe in the Schoolhouse (J. Butler, COPAA, 2009) reported that their children received only restraint and seclusion--not positive interventions. The planned Senate bill, while supporting school-wide positive interventions, wouldn’t require positive interventions in individual student plans, but it would permit restraint/seclusion instead.

Senators: The Proposed Amendment to S. 2860 Will Take Away IDEA Rights. Unlike IDEA, 504, and ADA, the Restraint/Seclusion bill has been written to prevent parents from seeking to enforce it in with lawsuits. It is like NCLB and FERPA. By adding a provision permitting restraint/seclusion in IEPs, the bill may be used to prevent parents from challenging those IEPs under the IDEA. This appears to be inadvertent, but it would have a major impact on exercising IDEA rights! The new law (S2860) would take precedence over the old law (IDEA).

Parents might be unable to invoke stay put to stop the new IEP; to demand that it not be implemented without their consent; to seek an IEE to challenge elements of it; and to go to mediation and due process to fight it. This will occur unless the Senate puts in language to protect those IDEA IEP rights.

The Senate bill would not require fully informed consent from parents before IEPs include restraint/seclusion. The amendment wouldn't require giving out a notice of procedural safeguards. The Senate bill has no requirement that the IEP team consider medical and psychological contraindications to r/s (e.g., no pressure to a child with brittle bones or chronic pain; sensory issues for children with autism; avoiding physical restraint for an abuse victim).

Putting R/S in an IEP Is NOT necessary to plan for crises. Some Senators claim that restraint/seclusion should be in an IEPs when a person is in danger of injury and the student has a history of injuring others. They may tell you this when you call them. But the current bills always allow restraint/seclusion to be used when someone is in danger of injury (Sec 5(a)(2). Adding it to the IEP isn't needed to make this effective. Nor is it needed to plan for violent students, a claim made by the amendments supporters. Students who continue to be aggressive need strong positive interventions and solid de-escalation techniques.

The bills already allow schools to undertake school-wide and other safety plans that aren't specific to an individual child (Sec. 4). These will take care of crisis planning needs (e.g. “If a teacher cannot safely move a large child into the seclusion room, Mr. X should be called.”) And certainly nothing in the bill stops staff from talking about what they would do in an emergency. Nor is the IEP IEP provision needed to simply add protections for children to IEPs (e.g., permit a nonverbal child access to assistive technology). The current bill only forbids adding restraint/seclusion as a “planned intervention.” It doesn’t prevent anyone from adding protections to an IEP.

Senators: Schools have the upper-hand in IEP negotiations; parents rarely are equals. Some Senators think that IEP meetings are even-sided negotiations and parents who oppose restraint/seclusion could simply say no. They need to hear from you about how one-sided IEP meetings are. Every person reading this has stories about how unequal IEP meetings are; the Senate needs to hear those. Even if the Senate requires informed consent, parental consent is often coerced and parents are not aware of their rights, or fully informed of the dangers.

PLEASE CALL THE SENATE NOW. If you want to impact the amendments being written, now is the time to be heard! The Senate is drafting the amendments now. The professional lobbyists for school districts are making themselves heard. Why not you?

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CALLING YOUR SENATORS:

-- Always use the bill number, S. 2860, Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act. Please call; Senators pay more attention to calls. Email may get lost. Use Email only if you must.

-- Dial 202-224-3121 (TTY 202-225-1904) or go to www.senate.gov, click on Senators for contact information (including local numbers). You will have 2 Senators. When you call, ask for their Education or Disability Aide. Leave a detailed voicemail message if they are not available. Be sure to identify the bill by name, Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act and use the number, S. 2860.

Please call your Senators--but especially if you live in these states on the Senate HELP Committee: AK, AZ, CO, CT, GA, IA, KS , MD, MN, NC, NH, NM, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, TN, UT, VT, WA, WY. If you are in these states, check the HELP Committee website so you call the Senator on the Committee, http://help.senate.gov/. If you have friends or family in the Committee states, please get them to call. And even if you are not in a Committee state, please call. Senators from all over the country are impacting this bill.

-- Call Senator Tom Harkin and ask for his disability counsel (phone 202-224-3254, fax 202-224-9369). Senator Harkn chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, http://help.senate.gov/ and has much power over this bill. He needs to hear from parents and advocates from around the country; he certainly is hearing from the other side.

Please feel free to distribute and share this alert as long as you include my signature block below in full.

Thanks,
Jess Butler

As the mother of a child with autism, Jess is currently Congressional Affairs Coordinator for the Autism National Committee (www.autcom.org) which has worked to promote civil rights for people with autism for two decades. She previously was Chair of the Board of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, and cochaired its Congressional Affairs efforts from 2004-09, authoring Unsafe in the Schoolhouse, Abuse of Children with Disabilities(COPAA 2009). This alert is a personal statement by Jess and reflects her views.
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