Latest news with #1248
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Proposed rollback of restraint and seclusion rules pits staff safety against student rights
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
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Legislation would make it easier to restrain and forcibly move Maine students
Principal Victoria Duguay of River View Community School said that under the current law, educators aren't allowed to escort students to safe spaces unless they consent — something that doesn't always happen in the midst of a behavioral crisis. (Photo by Troy Bennett/ Maine Morning Star) Driven by increasing reports of student misbehavior, some teachers and administrators want to make it easier for staff to physically restrain students, a practice which is only supposed to be used in emergency situations under current state law. Most states have some limitations on when schools can use restraints and seclusion, temporarily immobilizing students and putting them in empty rooms until they can calm down. Before Maine passed its current law in 2021, the state was restraining students at the highest rate in the country per capita, and secluding them at the second highest rate per capita, according to federal data cited by Disability Rights Maine at the time. These incidents disproportionately involved students with disabilities, leading disability rights advocates to push for the current law, which requires school staff to justify the use of restraint, only rely on them in cases where there was 'imminent danger of serious physical injury,' use the least amount of force necessary and end interventions as soon as the danger has passed. But in light of increasing behavioral challenges, some administrators and teachers want the lower the legal threshold for restraint and seclusion. On Wednesday, the Maine Legislature's Education and Cultural Affairs Committee is holding a public hearing on legislation, introduced by Rep. Holly Sargent (D-York), that would make several changes to state law. Specifically, the proposal would broaden the definition of 'physical escort,' striking the word 'voluntary' from descriptions of how staff can move or touch a student. The bill, LD 1248, would also decrease the level of danger posed from 'serious physical injury' to just 'injury.' Restraint and seclusion practices across the country have been linked to trauma, serious injuries, and even death. Disability rights advocates are warning that any changes must prioritize student safety and mental health, and that the use of restraint and seclusion generally goes against both. Before the law was passed, schools would sometimes drag students to seclusion rooms without classifying the action as a restraint, said Ben Jones, a former lawyer for Disability Rights Maine who now serves as director of legal and policy initiatives for Lives in the Balance, a nonprofit that advocates against punitive, exclusionary disciplinary practices in schools. Research suggests state not doing enough to help Maine districts manage student behavior The push for relaxing the rules is coming from districts like MSAD 11 in Gardiner, where administrators say frequent behavioral incidents, especially among younger students, have left them without the tools to respond. Principal Victoria Duguay of River View Community School said that under the current law, educators aren't allowed to escort students to safe spaces unless they consent — something that doesn't always happen in the midst of a behavioral crisis. 'When a student is dysregulated to the point where they're clearing a classroom and potentially shutting a building down, we didn't have any tools available to escort a student to a safe room if the student didn't want to go on their own,' Duguay said. She also pointed to the aspect of current law that requires a threat of 'serious physical injury.' 'Not having that ability to be able to get that child to a safe place is that piece in the law that we're struggling with, because they're not presenting that serious physical harm,' she said. Attorneys consulted by the district said that because most of the third to fifth graders the community school serves are young, they do not present a serious risk of injury to adults even when they lash out. Because of educator feedback, Maine's largest teachers union, the Maine Education Association, is supporting this legislation, along with a few other bills intended to offer de-escalation training and mental health support in schools, said MEA President Jesse Hargrove. 'We want to make sure that we are following least restrictive interventions, but we also want to make sure that other students and staff are safe,' he said. 'The state law is an effort to sort of create some space so that the folks at the local level have a bit more flexibility to address the concerns that they are seeing within their districts and school sites.' When asked if they are worried about the use of restraints increasing under a more relaxed law, MEA and Gardiner administrators, Duguay and Superintendent Patricia Hopkins, said they trusted educators to use the least restrictive processes possible. However, Atlee Reilly, managing attorney of Disability Rights Maine's educational advocacy, said he's concerned about the potential impacts of the bill. For example, because the proposal would remove the word 'voluntary' from the text that covers how a student could be physically moved, the law would no longer count involuntary movements as a restraint. Reilly argued that while the number of reported incidents would likely decrease, that 'doesn't mean that people are going to be putting their hands on kids less.' He added, 'I think that is almost certainly going to go up.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
