In the photos, a 9-year-old boy with autism appears barricaded between cubbies and furniture stacked near the walls of a North Carolina classroom.
His mother, Erin McGrail, said her son was physically restrained at least 14 times while in third grade at Morrisville Elementary School. She said she learned details of his seclusion only after filing a due process complaint.
“I was furious the first time I saw them,” McGrail said of the photos. Her family reached a settlement last year with the Wake County Public School System. “They never told us how this was done. We had no idea.”
No federal law prohibits schools from restraining and secluding children. So a patchwork regulatory system operates across states, with little accountability and oversight, according to parents, lawmakers and advocates for people with disabilities.
Federal data obtained by KFF Health News show that each year, thousands of children — disproportionately those with disabilities and students of color — are secluded at school, often in windowless rooms or makeshift enclosures, as happened to McGrail’s son. In some cases they are physically prevented from moving by school employees, or put in handcuffs or other mechanical restraints.
And the numbers are almost certainly an undercount. While federal law requires school districts to tell the Education Department every time they restrain or seclude a student, Wake County Public Schools reported no instances of the practices for nearly a decade, according to civil rights data the department published. The district said it reported revis …
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In the photos, a 9-year-old boy with autism appears barricaded between cubbies and furniture stacked near the walls of a North Carolina classroom.
His mother, Erin McGrail, said her son was physically restrained at least 14 times while in third grade at Morrisville Elementary School. She said she learned details of his seclusion only after filing a due process complaint.
“I was furious the first time I saw them,” McGrail said of the photos. Her family reached a settlement last year with the Wake County Public School System. “They never told us how this was done. We had no idea.”
No federal law prohibits schools from restraining and secluding children. So a patchwork regulatory system operates across states, with little accountability and oversight, according to parents, lawmakers and advocates for people with disabilities.
Federal data obtained by KFF Health News show that each year, thousands of children — disproportionately those with disabilities and students of color — are secluded at school, often in windowless rooms or makeshift enclosures, as happened to McGrail’s son. In some cases they are physically prevented from moving by school employees, or put in handcuffs or other mechanical restraints.
And the numbers are almost certainly an undercount. While federal law requires school districts to tell the Education Department every time they restrain or seclude a student, Wake County Public Schools reported no instances of the practices for nearly a decade, according to civil rights data the department published. The district said it reported revis …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]