logo
Proposed rollback of restraint and seclusion rules pits staff safety against student rights

Proposed rollback of restraint and seclusion rules pits staff safety against student rights

Yahoo24-04-2025

Krystal Emerson testified before the Maine Legislature's Education Committee about her son's experience being repeatedly restrained and put in isolation by staff at Ellsworth Elementary Middle School on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Eesha Pendharkar/ Maine Morning Star)
When he was in second grade, Krystal Emerson's son was physically restrained by a staff member or put in a small, isolated room at least 18 times over seven months during the 2023-24 school year at Ellsworth Elementary Middle School. He no longer attends school in person after the trauma of those experiences deepened his anxiety and emotional dysregulation, Emerson told Maine lawmakers during a public hearing on Wednesday.
A mother of five, Emerson has been speaking out for months against the practices of restraint and seclusion, which can include immobilizing students, dragging them down hallways, and confining them in closet-sized rooms. These measures remain legal in Maine, but under specific conditions.
But four years after the state passed a law limiting their use, some educators and administrators are now pushing to loosen those restrictions in order to give staff more flexibility to address what appears to be an increase in student behavioral crises.
Encouraging lawmakers to reject a proposal that would lower the legal threshold for restraint and seclusion, Emerson told members of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee that her son is still reeling from his experiences. Even driving past the school building or hearing it mentioned visibly unsettles him.
'It broke me, and it broke him,' she said.
The proposal before the Legislature, LD 1248 introduced by Rep. Holly Sargent (D-York), would make several changes to the text of a state law passed in 2021.
For example, in the section outlining when a restraint may be used, the bill would change the threat level from 'imminent danger of serious physical injury' to 'imminent danger of injury.'
Research suggests state not doing enough to help Maine districts manage student behavior
It also removes the word 'voluntary' when describing how staff can move a student. Under the proposal, involuntary movement of a student would no longer count as a physical restraint that would need to be reported, according to Audrey Bartholomew, associate professor and coordinator of Special Education Programs at the University of New England, who said she was drawing from her experience as a substitute teacher in Portland-area schools in testifying against the bill.
Proponents, which included several teachers, administrators, and the Maine Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, framed the bill as a minor but necessary change that will provide, as Sargent put it, 'clarity and flexibility for educators.'
Teachers and support staff 'are under siege from violent, out of control students,' said Rep. Will Tuell, (R-East Machias), who co-sponsored the bipartisan bill.
One district leading the push is MSAD 11 in the Gardiner area, whose administrators met with lawmakers to ask for the more flexible language, arguing it would give them more tools to be able to handle increasingly frequent violent outbursts.
After consulting with attorneys from Drummond Woodsum, MSAD 11 Superintendent Patricia Hopkins told Maine Morning Star she was concerned by their interpretation of the statute, which they took to mean that school staff could only restrain a student if they are about to cause harm dire enough to send someone to the hospital.
During the hearing, lawyers from Disability Rights Maine and Lives in the Balance, a Maine-based national nonprofit working to reduce restraints and seclusions, argued that's an extreme interpretation of the law.
'That is a striking interpretation. It is not one that I have seen case law support, especially in Maine,' Disability Rights Maine staff attorney Jeanette Plourde told the committee.
'I have not seen that interpretation being followed by schools, by the mere virtue of the fact that we continue to receive calls from parents of children…who have been subjected to restraint and seclusion,' she added.
Ellsworth Superintendent Amy Boles declined to comment on Emerson's testimony but said she believes relaxing the statute's language will help protect her staff.
'Our staff are getting beat up on the daily now, and it is getting harder and harder to find people that are willing to put themselves at risk,' she said in an interview with Maine Morning Star. 'Changing the language from 'serious physical,' which is very narrow, to a broader 'imminent danger,' I believe we're supportive of, because we have to protect our staff.'
Ben Jones, director of legal and policy initiatives for Lives in the Balance, told the committee that the key to reducing violent events is providing school staff with more training to deescalate those behaviors.
A recent report released by the Maine Policy Research Institute about student behavior said fewer than half of the 3,400 educators surveyed reported receiving classroom management training.
'It's very difficult for me to understand why more restraint and seclusion would lead to more safety for either party,' Jones said. 'But I've heard the pleas from the schools, saying we need something. And I'm saying that something doesn't have to be more force. It can be more training.'
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Harvard Probed for Hiring Discrimination by US House Committee
Harvard Probed for Hiring Discrimination by US House Committee

Bloomberg

time9 hours ago

  • Bloomberg

Harvard Probed for Hiring Discrimination by US House Committee

A congressional committee is investigating Harvard University over potential discrimination in its hiring and employment practices, adding to scrutiny of the school amid a showdown with the Trump administration over billions of dollars in federal funding. Publicly available documents 'suggest that Harvard may have been and may still be unlawfully discriminating' on the basis of criteria such as race and sex, nine Republican members of the Education and Workforce Committee said in a letter to university President Alan Garber.

High school graduate facing ICE deportation weeks after earning his diploma: ‘I was just living my life'
High school graduate facing ICE deportation weeks after earning his diploma: ‘I was just living my life'

Yahoo

time14 hours ago

  • Yahoo

High school graduate facing ICE deportation weeks after earning his diploma: ‘I was just living my life'

An Ohio high school graduate is facing deportation to Honduras by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) just weeks after earning his diploma. Emerson Colindres, 19, arrived in the United States with his family as an eight-year-old in 2014 but was detained during a routine check-in at an ICE facility in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash on Wednesday June 4, according to members of the community who have begun campaigning for his release. The Colindres family had sought asylum in the U.S., requesting protection from extortion by Honduran criminal gangs, only for their case to be rejected, their appeal denied and a final removal order issued in 2023. Since then, they have participated in ICE's Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP, a parole-like alternative to incarceration) without ever being overtly ordered to leave the country. Bryan Williams, the teen's soccer coach at local team Cincy Galaxy, told a local affiliate of ABC News that the three ICE agents who picked Colindres up had clearly been waiting for him. 'They informed us that they were detaining and deporting Emerson only,' he said. 'No explanation was given.' 'Emerson's one of the best kids I've ever met,' Williams continued. 'We don't know what we can do, but we're doing whatever we can.' Explaining the rationale behind the detention of the recent graduate from Gilbert A Dater High School, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement: 'Those arrested had executable final orders of removal by an immigration judge and had not complied with that order. 'If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen.' The DHS also noted that ISAP 'exists to ensure compliance with release conditions.' On Sunday, Colindres's teammates gathered outside the Butler County Jail in Hamilton where he is being held wearing 'Free Emerson' T-shirts and spoke to him by phone for 20 minutes. 'I was just... living life, minding my own business,' Colindres told a local journalist on the same call. 'And now I'm here.' On the conditions in which he is being kept, he said: 'It's just awful. We only go out once a day – sometimes twice. [It's] not a life someone who didn't do anything should be living.' Teammate Joshua Williams appealed for his friend's release saying: 'He didn't do anything wrong. And they just took him away. 'I was the last person who saw him, I got to hug him goodbye. I wish I hugged him longer. Because I didn't know that would be the last time I was going to see him.' Preston Robinson, another teammate, said: 'It's not like he had a say in whether he could or couldn't come. 'I just wanted to be here to show that I support him. Support anybody that's going through this, because it's just not fair.' Shortly afterwards, at the same protest event, Ada Bell Baquedano-Amador, Colindres's mother, addressed President Donald Trump, whose administration is now enforcing its long-threatened illegal immigration crackdown with increasing aggression. 'Please, Mr Trump – because I'm talking directly to you – have pity on us,' she said in Spanish. 'Have compassion.' Baquedano-Amador has since told The Cincinnati Enquirer that she too has been given 30 days to self-deport to Honduras in the wake of her son's arrest. 'You can't imagine what I'm feeling,' she said. 'How is my son going to make it over there? He doesn't know anything and the country where we come from is very insecure... It's not just.'

Asian American history poised to be added to Maine learning results
Asian American history poised to be added to Maine learning results

Yahoo

time5 days ago

  • Yahoo

Asian American history poised to be added to Maine learning results

(Photo by Getty Images) Both chambers of the Maine Legislature passed a bill that would require Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander history to be taught in Maine schools. The Senate on Thursday passed LD 957 with a 19-13 vote, after the House did so one day prior without a roll call. The bill would require the Maine Department of Education to convene a volunteer advisory committee to collect information and prepare materials to teach this history. It would also require the department to develop a process to enable schools to conduct internal audits of their curriculum to ensure the history is being adequately and accurately taught. Though, with a one-time cost of $15,000 for the department to convene the advisory group and prepare teaching materials, the legislation is expected to be placed on the appropriations table. Bills that land on this table, which is managed by the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee that sets the budget, have already passed the full Legislature with initial votes. However, if they don't have a specific funding source, they have to vie for remaining unappropriated money. Essentially, that's everything being voted through with a fiscal note because lawmakers are still drafting what will be in the next two year budget plan. This bill is one of several being considered this session to ensure diverse histories are taught in Maine schools, though the other bills seek to make sure already required curricula are actually being taught. Lawmakers revisit bills to ensure diverse histories are taught in Maine schools Maine has required Wabanaki and African American studies to be taught in schools since 2001 and 2021, respectively. But, school districts have failed to consistently and appropriately include Wabanaki studies in their curricula, according to a 2022 report, and many caution African American studies could see the same fate without additional resources and accountability measures. Last year, two separate bills were combined into one that proposed establishing a commission on Wabanaki and African American studies but that legislation died without final action. This idea is back for consideration this session with distinct bills. LD 1474, sponsored by Rep. Laurie Osher (D-Orono), would permanently establish a Wabanaki studies specialist in the Maine Department of Education to ensure the standards are being met. LD 1202, sponsored by Talbot Ross, would create the African American Studies Advisory Council to serve as a resource for educators, schools and the Department of Education to ensure the implementation of the curricula in accordance with existing state law. Neither bills have received floor votes so far. Another bill, LD 339, that sought to pilot a Wabanaki-centered curriculum for Wabanaki children attending public schools has been rejected by both chambers and is now effectively dead.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store