Georgia public schools could soon be barred from putting students in so-called “seclusion rooms,” like the one where a 13-year-old Hall County student hanged himself in 2004.
Jonathan King was attending the Alpine Program, a public school in Gainesville for students with emotional and behavioral problems, when he killed himself with a cord a teacher gave him to hold up his pants.
His final hours were spent in an 8-by-8 seclusion room at the school. It was a room with no windows, bathroom, food or water.
Such rooms would no longer be allowed in a Georgia public school under proposed rules being considered Thursday by the state Board of Education. The use of physical restraint of students also would be reserved for only extreme cases.
Neither can happen soon enough for Jonathan's parents, Don and Tina King.
“It will be a relief to know that nobody else’s child could be put through this,” Tina King said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week. “I would have never dreamed my child was being locked in a cell like that, day after day after day.”
The state board rules could be approved as early as July and in place for the 2010-11 school year.
Seclusion has already been eliminated as a practice at Jonathan's school, where officials have denied any wrongdoing in his death. The school was sued by the Kings. Lower courts have dismissed the lawsuit, but an attorney for the family has filed paperwork that could put the case before the U.S. Supreme Court for reconsideration.
Seclusion is a controversial -- and sometimes dangerous -- disciplinary measure that a recent U.S. Department of Education study found Georgia and 18 other states allow but do not regulate.
Twenty-four Georgia public schools -- including Alpine -- that serve students with severe emotional and behavioral problems eliminated seclusion rooms by October 2009, said Garry McGiboney, associate state superintendent for policy, external affairs and charter schools.
But physical restraint and seclusion rooms -- which can be anything from an empty classroom to a janitor’s closet -- are still being used in special education and regular school programs across the state, said Nancy E. O’Hara, interim associate superintendent for innovative instruction.
“Some schools use it a lot, and some schools use it very little,” O’Hara said.
Leslie Lipson with the Georgia Advocacy Office said state schools have “been like the Wild West."
“You name it, we’ve seen it. Duct tape, Velcro, handcuffs. Dangerous techniques from psychiatric hospitals that schools have been using without much thought for training or safeguards,” she said.
The Georgia Advocacy Office is a federally funded, private nonprofit organization that advocates for people with disabilities.
The new state rules, which have been months in the making, would prohibit seclusion, the use of chemical restraints such as prescription psychotic drugs, mechanical restraints such as handcuffs or prone restraints. With the latter, a student is placed face down on a floor or surface, and physical pressure is applied so the student can’t get up.
Physical restraint would be limited under the new rules, except in situations where students are in imminent danger to themselves or others or are unresponsive to less intensive, calming techniques.
“This is not going to restrict teachers’ ability to have discipline in the classroom, monitor the hallways or conduct business as usual,” McGiboney said.
The new rules, if adopted, also would require that a student’s parents be notified within at least a day of the student being physically restrained.
The state DOE started working on the rules just before U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a call last July for all states to review, and possibly change, their rules on the use of restraints and seclusion. Duncan’s edict followed congressional hearings and a report from the Government Accountability Office on deaths and abuse related to the use of seclusion and restraints.
Lipson, the advocate, said the proposed new rules are “very forward-thinking” and “a totally huge first step.” But she said the state Board of Education could make even bigger improvements by putting in place some potential punishments for schools that don’t adhere to the rules, as well as a data system to track instances where physical restraint is used.
State officials said this week they recognize that the lack of a data system is being criticized. But they said the decision was made to hold off on a state system, anticipating that a federal data system will be phased in over the next few years.
Jonathan’s parents speak out
Drafts of the rules were rolled out at a series of public hearings held around the state. Don and Tina King, who live in Murrayville, just outside Gainesville, were at many of them, sharing Jonathan’s story and advocating for the elimination of seclusion rooms.
“You send your kids off to school every day, then you get that call. It’s a heartbreak,” Don King said. “I miss him every day.”
Tears roll down Tina King’s face as she describes the couple’s shock at learning that what Jonathan nonchalantly described as “time out” at school was actually time locked in a small seclusion room.
“You think, when your child is going to school, they’re being taken care of and learning what they need to be learning,” Tina King said. “I really wish I had pushed for a lot more details [from Jonathan].”
The Kings said they learned only after Jonathan’s death that their son -- who was diagnosed at age 5 with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder -- had previously tried to commit suicide at school, Don King said.
On the day Jonathan killed himself, his shoes had been taken from him so he couldn’t kick the door of the seclusion room, Tina King said.
“But they left him with a rope long enough so he could hang himself,” she said. “Had they just given him enough rope to hold up his pants, this never would have happened. Had they called me and said he needed a belt, this would never have happened.”
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