New efforts are underway at the Indiana statehouse following a Call 6 Investigation into the use of seclusion and restraint in schools.
Sen. Randy Head (R-Logansport) is authoring legislation that would require school resource officers to report to the Indiana Department of Education when they use a manual hold on a child or place them in a room by themselves.
As defined by Indiana statute, seclusion is when a student is physically prevented from leaving, such as being placed in a room alone, and restraint is when a staff person, such as a teacher, places the child in a manual hold.
The methods are typically used to prevent a child from hurting themselves or someone else.
Sen. Head and members of the Indiana Commission on Seclusion and Restraint in Schools are concerned school employees are calling school resource officers to use seclusion or restraint, rather than doing it themselves.
Call 6 Investigates obtained the 2015-2016 numbers and found some school districts misreporting the number of incidents, and many reporting zero incidents across the board.
“We have schools that are counting seclusion and restraint incidents in different ways, and we want to get everyone uniform,” Head told Call 6 Investigates on Friday. “If schools are calling in law enforcement officers, we want to know that. We want to get an accurate picture of what’s going on.”
Melissa Keyes, legal director for Indiana Disability Rights, said Head’s legislation fills a much needed gap in current law.
“However, the bill falls short in that there’s still no accountability for the schools,” said Keyes. “If they don’t report, there’s nothing to hold them accountable.”
Currently, there is no punishment in the law for school districts who fail to report seclusion and restraint accurately.
The Commission on Seclusion and Restraint vowed to investigate why some districts misreported the number of incidents, but a November meeting to discuss the issue was canceled and never rescheduled.
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“It’s disheartening, because I would hope this would be a priority for Indiana,” said Keyes. “Seclusion and restraint is a big problem. I hope the new administration picks up where the old one left off.”
It’s not yet clear what how the new Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick, will handle the issue of seclusion and restraint.
McCormick was not available for an on camera interview on the topic.
D.J. Schoeff, a Carmel school resource officer and vice president of the National Association of School Resource Officers, told Call 6 Investigates school staff members typically don’t involve them unless they’ve tried everything else.
“Any hands-on situation a school resource officer would have inside a school would be a very last resort situation,” said Schoeff. “There would be very few circumstances of that.”
Scott McKinney, president of the Indiana School Resource Officers Association, said it would not be difficult for officers to document seclusion and restraint incidents.
“It doesn’t happen often,” said McKinney. “In law enforcement, we have a lot of paperwork that we deal with. I would see it as checking another box.”
Both Schoeff and McKinney plan to meet with Senator Head to discuss the legislation regarding school resource officers.
Head also authored the law that requires school districts to report every instance of seclusion and restraint to the state, as well as to the child’s parents.
The school resource officer legislation, Senate Bill 61, is assigned to the Committee on Civil Law
The bill will likely get a hearing, as Sen. Head is the chairman of the committee.
Parent Checklist
- Check your district’s numbers HERE
- Ask your school if they use seclusion or restraint
- When discussing your child’s IEP with the school, ask whether seclusion or restraint is included
- If your school doesn’t have seclusion rooms, ask if they call them something else? (Calming, sensory, etc.)
- Ask to see your school’s seclusion and restraint policy.
- Contact Indiana Disability Rights if you have concerns at 317-722-5555 or 1-800-622-4845
