Majority of students restrained in Kentucky schools are in 3rd grade or younger
Restraint and seclusion of students in Kentucky schools is often unnecessary, and students with disabilities and students of color were the most likely to be restrained and secluded in 2014-15, a report released this week by the Children’s Law Center Inc. said .
Statewide, in 2014-15, students with disabilities accounted for 58 percent of those restrained in Kentucky schools and were involved in 89.3 percent of the incidents of seclusion during the 2014-15 school year, the report said. Students of color were significantly overrepresented for both restraint and seclusion incidents during the 2014-15 school year and involved in reported incidents of restraints at nearly five times the rate of their white peers.
The report from the center, which has offices in Lexington and Covington, cites Kentucky Department of Education numbers that show students were restrained 5,985 times during the 2014-15 school year, up from 4,885 restraints reported for the 2013-14 school year. For the 2015-16 school year, the number continued to rise to 6,489.
“We were particularly shocked to see that 60 percent of school restraints in Kentucky are students in the third grade and below,” said Amanda Mullins Bear, managing attorney of the Lexington office of the Children’s Law Center, who presented the findings to the Kentucky Juvenile Justice Oversight Council in Frankfort.
Kentucky’s regulation regarding restraint and seclusion became effective on Feb. 1, 2013. It specifies how and when educators can restrain or isolate unruly students.
The regulation allows students to be physically restrained — preventing students from moving torso, arms, legs or head — or placed in a secluded area away from classmates to protect them from hurting themselves or others. It also bans the use of physical restraint or seclusion as student punishment.
But Bear said the regulations need to be enhanced to mandate better monitoring, oversight and an enforcement mechanism to ensure that restraint and seclusion are only being used in the most extreme circumstances. Use of the techniques should be limited, better documented and exercised with more accountability,
The report recommends that the Kentucky Department of Education provide oversight on restraint and seclusion and permit restraint and seclusion solely in instances where there isMajority of students restrained in Kentucky schools are in 3rd grade or younger | Lexington Herald-Leader: