Tina M. Steele / Flickr Seclusion rooms are enclosed spaces that are supposed to be used to calm or restrain children who become violent. Seclusion — and restraint, or physical force used to control a child — are often used for children with disabilities. Seclusion and restraint are supposed to be used only in emergencies. But [...]
The Columbus school district has used its seclusion rooms — some as small as a closet, some reeking of urine or covered in spit — as a place to punish children with special needs, a state investigation has found. Some schools continue to use a type of physical restraint so dangerous that is banned in [...]
Mary Gannon was born without arms. She now works as a math tutor at a middle school in the Lakewood school district west of Cleveland. Her students say she can do everything a “regular” teacher can do, Lakewood Patch reports. She uses her toes to write on white boards, handout papers and type. Gannon tells [...]
All schools will be required to track — and disclose — how often they are restraining or secluding children under a proposed state policy. But details about incidents, such as the reasons children are placed in seclusion rooms, would not be made public, according to a draft policy presented to a state Board of Education [...]
Columbus Dispatch visual journalist Courtney Hergesheimer traveled to schools around Ohio as part of StateImpact Ohio and The Dispatch’s reporting on the use of seclusion rooms in Ohio schools. Her video, narrated by Dispatch reporter Jennifer Smith Richards, shows what some of the seclusion rooms we visited look like. Some have tile floors; other have [...]
Last week, a caller to WOSU’s All Sides with Ann Fisher talk show explained what happened when the school he worked at stopped using seclusion, or timeout, rooms. [Listen to the clip at the 23:30 mark.] The caller, identified only as Mike, told WOSU he taught at a county school for severely mentally disabled children. The [...]
J. Stephen Conn / Flickr The Kentucky State Board of Education voted today to sharply limit the use of seclusion and restraint in public schools. The Kentucky policy would also require schools to tell parents when seclusion and restraint are used. Kentucky did not previously regulate the use of seclusion and restraint in public schools. Ohio [...]
Teachers in schools across Ohio that have seclusion rooms get little training in how to use the rooms. Teacher-preparation colleges don’t extensively cover how to seclude a student with special needs, either. But even without special training — and in many cases, no district procedure to follow — teachers are putting children in seclusion rooms in [...]
Seclusion rooms are enclosed spaces that are supposed to be used to calm or restrain children who become violent. In Ohio, no state law governs their use, and the Ohio Department of Education has provided little guidance and virtually no oversight to schools. An investigation by StateImpact Ohio and The Columbus Dispatch found that seclusion rooms are [...]
Ohio students are regularly taken out of class and put into separate rooms, known as seclusion rooms. Educators and special needs advocates alike agree that these rooms should only be used when a child is in danger of hurting themselves or others around them, but an investigation by StateImpact Ohio and The Columbus Dispatch found [...]
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