The quiet rooms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the alternative? I'm not being snarky. Restraining the child? Medicating the child? A lot of these kids are physically harming the teacher or other students. Obviously if they aren't a harm to others they shouldn't be in this room, but plenty of the kids are a harm to others.

This. I'm in canada and my school district disallowed rooms like this, but the level of violence from one of the children in my son's grade is insane. Like they lockdown the pod, lock all the classrooms while he throws a fit flipping tables and smashing stuff in the hallway. He is 9. Presents fairly typical other than the rage at the drop of a hat. He's suspended right now but unless the school is allowed to inject him with tranquilizers a room seems the best bet. Awful but the school system deals with some pretty extreme cases these days. He is a big kid too. Nothing works. 4-5 teachers including administrators can't help him when he unleashes. Yet he has rights. The rooms are disturbing but more so the situation of exactly what kids do these days. It was not like that when I was a kid.

You keep bringing up the most extreme cases. Your school system is not dealing with this appropriately. There are better behavior systems, I'm not going to mention names here. It is like moving a mountain to get a school system to look at better training. Not every parent is trying to mainstream their kids. There is so little inclusion in public schools that you would be stunned.

Why on earth would you NOT mention the better behavior systems!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not a fan of these spaces. My kid is in a self contained program and lacks the skills to deescalate himself. Often the quiet room is the safest place for him for everyone involved.

Yes the school and his therapy teams are working to try and teach him the necessary skills, but in the moment of crisis is not the time to do it. My son needs to explode before he can begin to calm himself.

I get a minute by minute report any time he is in the quiet room. It doesn’t thrill me but in the moment, I’m not sure what alternatives the school has. When incidents happen at home, he goes to his room where he can scream and hit without harming any family members. My son has never told me that he was not let out of the quiet room when he was able to ask in a calm voice.

Most school systems don't follow any kind of rules wrt reporting the incidents and as we've seen in Fairfax, Loudoun etc school staff rarely record the incidents of restraint and seclusion and they rarely inform the parents. Wherever restraint and seclusion are used, they will be abused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, parents advocated for their kids to be in inclusive mainstream schools and classes. Cake, meet eating it too.

What’s the alternative? Leave them in the classroom when having a meltdown where they could harm another student? Placing them in the hall won’t work, either. Trying to transport them to the office could cause big injuries because teachers cannot touch them. Honestly, while horrific sounding, these rooms seem like the best option.

My SIL has had her fingers and wrist broken on 3 separate occasions by out of control kids. Not many people outside of athletes can say that’s happened to them at work. There are absolutely kids who spend hours in these rooms because there is no other alternative according to her. Even the behavioral specialists cannot deescalate some kids.

Wrong. Kids being put in seclusion closets are already in self contained special ed classrooms (or schools). They have much smaller classes and the adult:kid ratio should be in the range of 1:4. They should have detailed behavioral plans being documented and followed that prevent most of these meltdowns from happening, and support from psychologists and behavior specialists. When a meltdown happens, the other students in the room should be moved out to another learning space (a pod in the hallway with books, for instance) and the child allowed to calm down without being touched or moved and then process with a teacher.

I do not get this at all. Where are the 24 other students supposed to go? Why do they lose their right to learn? How is the right of the one kid more important than the rights of the other 24?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read about this earlier today and am so horrified by it. Can anyone tell me if the child’s parents have to be informed when the school does this? In DC and in other states?

In most school systems there are some guidelines drafted with some wording about when these methods are to be used and how the students saftey is to be monitored and how the parents are to be informed. It never happens. I could fill this post with videos and news articles about kids who've been abused while being restrained or secluded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not a fan of these spaces. My kid is in a self contained program and lacks the skills to deescalate himself. Often the quiet room is the safest place for him for everyone involved.

Yes the school and his therapy teams are working to try and teach him the necessary skills, but in the moment of crisis is not the time to do it. My son needs to explode before he can begin to calm himself.

I get a minute by minute report any time he is in the quiet room. It doesn’t thrill me but in the moment, I’m not sure what alternatives the school has. When incidents happen at home, he goes to his room where he can scream and hit without harming any family members. My son has never told me that he was not let out of the quiet room when he was able to ask in a calm voice.

Most school systems don't follow any kind of rules wrt reporting the incidents and as we've seen in Fairfax, Loudoun etc school staff rarely record the incidents of restraint and seclusion and they rarely inform the parents. Wherever restraint and seclusion are used, they will be abused.

I can totally see how this is the case. But I just don't understand how else this is supposed to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, parents advocated for their kids to be in inclusive mainstream schools and classes. Cake, meet eating it too.

What’s the alternative? Leave them in the classroom when having a meltdown where they could harm another student? Placing them in the hall won’t work, either. Trying to transport them to the office could cause big injuries because teachers cannot touch them. Honestly, while horrific sounding, these rooms seem like the best option.

My SIL has had her fingers and wrist broken on 3 separate occasions by out of control kids. Not many people outside of athletes can say that’s happened to them at work. There are absolutely kids who spend hours in these rooms because there is no other alternative according to her. Even the behavioral specialists cannot deescalate some kids.

Wrong. Kids being put in seclusion closets are already in self contained special ed classrooms (or schools). They have much smaller classes and the adult:kid ratio should be in the range of 1:4. They should have detailed behavioral plans being documented and followed that prevent most of these meltdowns from happening, and support from psychologists and behavior specialists. When a meltdown happens, the other students in the room should be moved out to another learning space (a pod in the hallway with books, for instance) and the child allowed to calm down without being touched or moved and then process with a teacher.

I do not get this at all. Where are the 24 other students supposed to go? Why do they lose their right to learn? How is the right of the one kid more important than the rights of the other 24?

I think that it again needs repeating- these children are not mainstreamed with 24 other kids. These are kids that are already in special education programs that have much smaller ratios.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read about this earlier today and am so horrified by it. Can anyone tell me if the child’s parents have to be informed when the school does this? In DC and in other states?

In most school systems there are some guidelines drafted with some wording about when these methods are to be used and how the students saftey is to be monitored and how the parents are to be informed. It never happens. I could fill this post with videos and news articles about kids who've been abused while being restrained or secluded.

Here's a story on DC:
https://wamu.org/story/19/06/03/how-often-are-d-c-schools-isolating-and-restraining-students-its-hard-to-tell/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, parents advocated for their kids to be in inclusive mainstream schools and classes. Cake, meet eating it too.

What’s the alternative? Leave them in the classroom when having a meltdown where they could harm another student? Placing them in the hall won’t work, either. Trying to transport them to the office could cause big injuries because teachers cannot touch them. Honestly, while horrific sounding, these rooms seem like the best option.

My SIL has had her fingers and wrist broken on 3 separate occasions by out of control kids. Not many people outside of athletes can say that’s happened to them at work. There are absolutely kids who spend hours in these rooms because there is no other alternative according to her. Even the behavioral specialists cannot deescalate some kids.

Wrong. Kids being put in seclusion closets are already in self contained special ed classrooms (or schools). They have much smaller classes and the adult:kid ratio should be in the range of 1:4. They should have detailed behavioral plans being documented and followed that prevent most of these meltdowns from happening, and support from psychologists and behavior specialists. When a meltdown happens, the other students in the room should be moved out to another learning space (a pod in the hallway with books, for instance) and the child allowed to calm down without being touched or moved and then process with a teacher.

I do not get this at all. Where are the 24 other students supposed to go? Why do they lose their right to learn? How is the right of the one kid more important than the rights of the other 24?

I think that it again needs repeating- these children are not mainstreamed with 24 other kids. These are kids that are already in special education programs that have much smaller ratios.

All of them? Because maybe I am mistaken, but that's not the impression I got from the story. Also, so what about the rights of the other 9 kids in the sped classroom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wtf? One of the examples is a kid who wet his pants in the seclusion room and then pooped and was then left naked for almost an hour to run around swearing poop all over while the aide watched from outside and took notes.

This happened to a female student in my friend’s school. At one point, she was naked and covered in poop without so much as a blanket in the AC. My friend quit the next day.

But what is the alternative? If you had gone to school for the purpose of educating children and were making maybe 60k/year, would YOU physically restrain a child who is running around smearing poop?

Ugh. This is not what happens in most cases. The school your imaginary teacher exists in clearly doesn't have a clue what they are doing. You are so intentionally misrepresenting what is reality that it's not worth it to respond to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, parents advocated for their kids to be in inclusive mainstream schools and classes. Cake, meet eating it too.

What’s the alternative? Leave them in the classroom when having a meltdown where they could harm another student? Placing them in the hall won’t work, either. Trying to transport them to the office could cause big injuries because teachers cannot touch them. Honestly, while horrific sounding, these rooms seem like the best option.

My SIL has had her fingers and wrist broken on 3 separate occasions by out of control kids. Not many people outside of athletes can say that’s happened to them at work. There are absolutely kids who spend hours in these rooms because there is no other alternative according to her. Even the behavioral specialists cannot deescalate some kids.

Wrong. Kids being put in seclusion closets are already in self contained special ed classrooms (or schools). They have much smaller classes and the adult:kid ratio should be in the range of 1:4. They should have detailed behavioral plans being documented and followed that prevent most of these meltdowns from happening, and support from psychologists and behavior specialists. When a meltdown happens, the other students in the room should be moved out to another learning space (a pod in the hallway with books, for instance) and the child allowed to calm down without being touched or moved and then process with a teacher.

I do not get this at all. Where are the 24 other students supposed to go? Why do they lose their right to learn? How is the right of the one kid more important than the rights of the other 24?

I think that it again needs repeating- these children are not mainstreamed with 24 other kids. These are kids that are already in special education programs that have much smaller ratios.

All of them? Because maybe I am mistaken, but that's not the impression I got from the story. Also, so what about the rights of the other 9 kids in the sped classroom?

This happens all the time in mainstream classrooms. See this post from just today:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/840970.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t they need to have parents permission to do this? On our registration forms (public school) there is some sort of paragraph about this. I always check “no” (as in- no you are not allowed to put my kid in that room). My kids do not have any special needs and it has never come up, anyway. I have also never heard of them putting a kid in there (not that I necessarily would). I’m not even sure our school has such a room at all? Have had three kids at the school and know the layout etc very well and have volunteered a lot over the years.

NO. They do not need parents permission to do this. Parents have even sent signed letters saying that they do not want their child to be subject to seclusion/restraint and it is ignored.
Also seclusion and restraint aren't just applied to kids in special educaton. The school can do this to any kid that they think is having a behavior they don't like.

Are you seriously trying to say this doesn't exist because you haven't seen it? Do you even know anything about the self contained classes at your children's schools?

I volunteered at my kids schools and never saw the rooms or the self contained classrooms, but they were there. One hs in Loudoun kept one child completely secluded in a basement room for the years that child attended the school. The child did very well at their middle school but the principal at the high school wanted nothing to do with any kid with an iep. The windows in the room they kept the child were covered. The child was never allowed to interact with other kids and they assigned thug like male teachers who were inadequately trained to work with the student. It was like a prison and none of those teachers treated the student with even the slightest bit of respect. They treated this kid like an animal and that caused behaviors in the child. We had case managers at that school who didn't even know basic info about disabilities and assumed all kids with ieps were behavior problems and not to be trusted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t they need to have parents permission to do this? On our registration forms (public school) there is some sort of paragraph about this. I always check “no” (as in- no you are not allowed to put my kid in that room). My kids do not have any special needs and it has never come up, anyway. I have also never heard of them putting a kid in there (not that I necessarily would). I’m not even sure our school has such a room at all? Have had three kids at the school and know the layout etc very well and have volunteered a lot over the years.

NO. They do not need parents permission to do this. Parents have even sent signed letters saying that they do not want their child to be subject to seclusion/restraint and it is ignored.
Also seclusion and restraint aren't just applied to kids in special educaton. The school can do this to any kid that they think is having a behavior they don't like.

Are you seriously trying to say this doesn't exist because you haven't seen it? Do you even know anything about the self contained classes at your children's schools?

I volunteered at my kids schools and never saw the rooms or the self contained classrooms, but they were there. One hs in Loudoun kept one child completely secluded in a basement room for the years that child attended the school. The child did very well at their middle school but the principal at the high school wanted nothing to do with any kid with an iep. The windows in the room they kept the child were covered. The child was never allowed to interact with other kids and they assigned thug like male teachers who were inadequately trained to work with the student. It was like a prison and none of those teachers treated the student with even the slightest bit of respect. They treated this kid like an animal and that caused behaviors in the child. We had case managers at that school who didn't even know basic info about disabilities and assumed all kids with ieps were behavior problems and not to be trusted.

Jesus. I am so sorry for that kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:here's the lawsuit against Fairfax
https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.copaa.org/resource/resmgr/docs/2019_docs/2019.10.08_pl_s_complaint.pdf

I can't thank these folks enough for doing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t they need to have parents permission to do this? On our registration forms (public school) there is some sort of paragraph about this. I always check “no” (as in- no you are not allowed to put my kid in that room). My kids do not have any special needs and it has never come up, anyway. I have also never heard of them putting a kid in there (not that I necessarily would). I’m not even sure our school has such a room at all? Have had three kids at the school and know the layout etc very well and have volunteered a lot over the years.

NO. They do not need parents permission to do this. Parents have even sent signed letters saying that they do not want their child to be subject to seclusion/restraint and it is ignored.
Also seclusion and restraint aren't just applied to kids in special educaton. The school can do this to any kid that they think is having a behavior they don't like.

Are you seriously trying to say this doesn't exist because you haven't seen it? Do you even know anything about the self contained classes at your children's schools?

I volunteered at my kids schools and never saw the rooms or the self contained classrooms, but they were there. One hs in Loudoun kept one child completely secluded in a basement room for the years that child attended the school. The child did very well at their middle school but the principal at the high school wanted nothing to do with any kid with an iep. The windows in the room they kept the child were covered. The child was never allowed to interact with other kids and they assigned thug like male teachers who were inadequately trained to work with the student. It was like a prison and none of those teachers treated the student with even the slightest bit of respect. They treated this kid like an animal and that caused behaviors in the child. We had case managers at that school who didn't even know basic info about disabilities and assumed all kids with ieps were behavior problems and not to be trusted.

Jesus. I am so sorry for that kid.

To make it worse the kid came home with injuries regularly. The mom was on top of things, knowlegeable and a good communicator. School staff wouldn't answer her questions and mostly avoided her.

For the person who keeps making it sound like the kids with issues are the problem, can you imagine being a parent of a disabled child or a non verbal child who is sent of to school knowing that you have barely a clue as to what is going on in the classroom? I know a parent with a non verbal child who wanted basic information about what the child was doing at school, and the principal told the parent the teacher wasn't allowed to talk to the parent any more. The parent was not rude and was appropriate. The principal didn't want the parent to know what was going on in the class. As a bonus, the principal reported the parent to cps for no reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t they need to have parents permission to do this? On our registration forms (public school) there is some sort of paragraph about this. I always check “no” (as in- no you are not allowed to put my kid in that room). My kids do not have any special needs and it has never come up, anyway. I have also never heard of them putting a kid in there (not that I necessarily would). I’m not even sure our school has such a room at all? Have had three kids at the school and know the layout etc very well and have volunteered a lot over the years.

NO. They do not need parents permission to do this. Parents have even sent signed letters saying that they do not want their child to be subject to seclusion/restraint and it is ignored.
Also seclusion and restraint aren't just applied to kids in special educaton. The school can do this to any kid that they think is having a behavior they don't like.

Are you seriously trying to say this doesn't exist because you haven't seen it? Do you even know anything about the self contained classes at your children's schools?

I volunteered at my kids schools and never saw the rooms or the self contained classrooms, but they were there. One hs in Loudoun kept one child completely secluded in a basement room for the years that child attended the school. The child did very well at their middle school but the principal at the high school wanted nothing to do with any kid with an iep. The windows in the room they kept the child were covered. The child was never allowed to interact with other kids and they assigned thug like male teachers who were inadequately trained to work with the student. It was like a prison and none of those teachers treated the student with even the slightest bit of respect. They treated this kid like an animal and that caused behaviors in the child. We had case managers at that school who didn't even know basic info about disabilities and assumed all kids with ieps were behavior problems and not to be trusted.

FWIW (I am the pp above who asked about parent permission). I looked this up on our district website and it is made very clear “seclusion and restraint” are only allowed with prior written parental permission. Hence the paragraph on the registration forms which I put “no”. So this does not happen in our school unless the parents have ok’d it. I live in Arizona though.