24-04-2025
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.'
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