The Vermont Agency of Education is reminding schools to take care before secluding students after recent data showed a spike in incidents when students were inappropriately isolated.
As a last resort – and under strict conditions – schools are permitted to restrain or seclude students when their behavior puts them or others at imminent risk of physical harm. But Vermont rules also require that schools turn to restraint before seclusion, unless that particular student can’t be restrained for medical or mental health reasons.
Seclusion refers to interventions when students are locked in rooms alone – it does not include “time-outs,” where a student is not left alone and is under adult supervision. Congress has considered banning the practice altogether.
Tracy Harris, the coordinator of behavioral support at the Agency of Education said that can seem “counterintuitive” to many, who believe seclusion is generally less traumatic.
“I think sometimes they misunderstand the law,” Harris said. “It’s one of the most common questions I get.”
Schools are required to record each time they restrain or seclude a child, and to notify parents. Schools also must tell the agency about the total number of times such incidents occurred each year. In a subset of situations – when the restraint or seclusion lasts more than 30 minutes, when someone is injured, or when the practices are used in violation of Vermont rules – schools must send a full report about the incident to the state.
Harris said she was responding to trends in those reports when she issued guidance last month highlighting an uptick in reports of inappropriate seclusion.
The data hasn’t been finalized yet, but Harris said that of the 106 reports from the 2018-19 school year, 35 included seclusions done in breach of Vermont regulations. The vast majority concerned seclusions that occured when educators should have tried restraints first.
“Other reasons why schools might be in violation might be, for example, someone restrained or secluded the student who wasn’t trained to do so. Or perhaps they used an unauthorized hold,” she said. “But those numbers are very small.”
Last year’s data also included 16 reports of injuries, Harris said — all of staff, not students. And in 68 cases, the restraint or seclusion lasted more than 30 minutes.
Restraint and seclusion disproportionately affects students with disabilities, and advocates said they were heartened to see the agency spotlight the issue.
“I was pleased to see that they are analysing the data. I wasn’t terribly surprised by their findings,” said Marilyn Mahusky, a staff attorney with Vermont Legal Aid’s Disability Law Project.
But they also cautioned against taking the state’s data at face-value.
AJ Ruben, a supervising attorney at Disability Rights Vermont, said the group continued “to be very concerned about the overuse of restraint and seclusion,” but also wondered whether the state’s data reflected a changing reality on the ground or better reporting.
“The agency’s data is always questionable,” he said.
Mahusky said that while she didn’t know whether the data was reliable, she wouldn’t be surprised if seclusions were under-reported in the state. In the few instances in which Legal Aid had requested reports from the agency, Mahusky said the group had been surprised at the small number they’d received back. But she added that could be because school officials misunderstood what they were required to document.
Harris said it’s fair to ask whether recent changes in the restraint and seclusion data analyzed by the state reflected a change in reporting rather than a change in practice.
“We are relying on schools to self-report. And so, by nature, the data will be flawed, probably,” she said.
But either way, she said it was the agency’s responsibility to respond to the information it has in order to help schools improve their practices to avoid these interventions as much as possible.
The under-reporting or misreporting of such incidents would not be a problem isolated to Vermont. Earlier this summer, a federal watchdog issued a report highlighting inaccuracies in restraint and seclusion data reported to the U.S. Department of Education.
In the 2015-16 school year, the last year for which data was available, 70% of all public school districts in the country reported zero incidents of restraint and seclusion, according to the Government Accountability Office. Ten of those districts served more than 100,000 students each. That year, 56% of Vermont school districts reported no incidents, according to the report.
“Our findings raise serious concerns about underreporting and misreporting of the use of seclusion and restraint,” Jackie Nowicki, a director at the GAO and author of the report told NPR. “It is therefore not possible to know the extent of the use of seclusion and restraint nationwide.”
