Hayfield HS: More FCPS drama

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dumb question: does the restraint and exclusion policy apply to all students? Does it mean you cannot sit a child apart from the rest of the class?

Gee, I can remember when I was in school a teacher might tell a kid to go stand in the hall for a few minutes. Or, the corner....would that be exclusion?

No.

Seclusion is essentially locking a child in a room that they can’t leave. Calm down areas, hallway breaks, , etc are not seclusion.

Putting hands on a child to prevent physical harm to another child would not violate restraint and seclusion rules. Neither does a hand on the back or arm to escort a child to another location, etc. We have yearly trainings that detail what is and is not restraint and seclusion.

To clarify, yes, the policy applies to
All students. No, the examples above are not seclusion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dumb question: does the restraint and exclusion policy apply to all students? Does it mean you cannot sit a child apart from the rest of the class?

Gee, I can remember when I was in school a teacher might tell a kid to go stand in the hall for a few minutes. Or, the corner....would that be exclusion?

Dear God. No. As another poster said, it’s restraint and seclusion. Nothing you’ve described comes close to anything even remotely related to seclusion or anything wrong or illegal or unethical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dumb question: does the restraint and exclusion policy apply to all students? Does it mean you cannot sit a child apart from the rest of the class?

Gee, I can remember when I was in school a teacher might tell a kid to go stand in the hall for a few minutes. Or, the corner....would that be exclusion?

It's seclusion, not exclusion. Exclusion involves things like time out or not allowing a child to participate in an activity or telling the student they need to move and sit in a desk near the teacher. That's still allowed although frowned upon in some situations. If you tell a student to sit in the corner or go in the hall, they are free to leave the area without any physical barriers to their movement. Seclusion and restraint refers to putting a student in a situation where they cannot leave the room or move freely, either due to being put in a room against their will, or due to physically holding a kid back so they can't move. Seclusion rooms are now banned everywhere county-wide; if you put a kid into a closed room you better have multiple witnesses and never, ever take your eyes off the kid. Someone is supposed to be in there with the student and it's an absolute last resort. There are some very narrow exceptions to when restraint is allowed, and they all involve imminent risk to self or others. Probably 95% of seclusion and restraint cases involve kids who are in some kind of specialized program like a CSS site or an Enhanced Autism classroom. Each school has at least 2-3 staff members who are trained to restrain if needed. You can't use any kind of mechanical restraint like arm restraints and you have to keep the student in an upright position. Honestly if it gets to that point, you're better off calling 911 and hoping EMTs will chemically restrain, i.e., sedate, the student unless they're very small.

Anyway, no idea what happened at Hayfield but it seems unlikely that an entire admin team would be placed on leave over a single seclusion and restraint case unless a student were seriously injured in the process, and that would probably make the news.

[Anonymous]

I'm the person with the question--I taught school but long ago. I don't ever remember kids being "secluded." Has that been a common procedure? Isolated? Yes. Locked up? No. I do recall--in my own childhood--one teacher who was certainly "hands on"--but only with the boys. We were terrified of her. MANY years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the person with the question--I taught school but long ago. I don't ever remember kids being "secluded." Has that been a common procedure? Isolated? Yes. Locked up? No. I do recall--in my own childhood--one teacher who was certainly "hands on"--but only with the boys. We were terrified of her. MANY years ago.

If you graduated more than 20 years ago, students with those kinds of special needs were most likely in entirely different buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the person with the question--I taught school but long ago. I don't ever remember kids being "secluded." Has that been a common procedure? Isolated? Yes. Locked up? No. I do recall--in my own childhood--one teacher who was certainly "hands on"--but only with the boys. We were terrified of her. MANY years ago.

If you graduated more than 20 years ago, students with those kinds of special needs were most likely in entirely different buildings.

Sadly, yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the person with the question--I taught school but long ago. I don't ever remember kids being "secluded." Has that been a common procedure? Isolated? Yes. Locked up? No. I do recall--in my own childhood--one teacher who was certainly "hands on"--but only with the boys. We were terrified of her. MANY years ago.

If you graduated more than 20 years ago, students with those kinds of special needs were most likely in entirely different buildings.

Sadly, yes.

Nothing sad about that. Classrooms were calmer and more manageable.

[Anonymous]

No one knows what happened??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dumb question: does the restraint and exclusion policy apply to all students? Does it mean you cannot sit a child apart from the rest of the class?

Gee, I can remember when I was in school a teacher might tell a kid to go stand in the hall for a few minutes. Or, the corner....would that be exclusion?

No.

Seclusion is essentially locking a child in a room that they can’t leave. Calm down areas, hallway breaks, , etc are not seclusion.

Putting hands on a child to prevent physical harm to another child would not violate restraint and seclusion rules. Neither does a hand on the back or arm to escort a child to another location, etc. We have yearly trainings that detail what is and is not restraint and seclusion.

Seems like this is a huge loophole. It’s big enough for a teacher or an aide to essentially shove a child or drag them out of a room by the arm.

[Anonymous]

Seems like this is a huge loophole. It’s big enough for a teacher or an aide to essentially shove a child or drag them out of a room by the arm.

I cannot imagine a teacher intentionally shoving a child. When breaking up a fight, it might be necessary to drag a child by the arm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one knows what happened??

Doesn't sound like it. Saw a friend this weekend whose son goes to Hayfield and the parents in her circle don't know anything yet. They're all very interested in finding out, tho.