When Discipline Starts a
Fight
Pressured to Handle Disabled Children,
A School Tries Restraints, 'Isabel's Office'
By Robert Tomsho
July 9, 2007
WAUKEE, IOWA - When Eva Loeffler walked into her daughter Isabel's
classroom at Waukee Elementary School on Dec. 15, 2004, she says a
male guidance counselor was trying to contain the shrieking 8-
year-old by wrapping his arms around hers in a restraint hold.
Isabel, suffering from autism and other disabilities, had a
history of aggressive behavior, but Mrs. Loeffler had never seen
her so agitated. Her eyes were glazed and her face was red. "She
was like a wild animal," says Mrs. Loeffler, who, at the time,
felt sorry for the counselor who had to deal with her daughter in
such a state.
That sympathy waned as Mrs. Loeffler and her husband learned all
the measures the school district used on Isabel. These
included
restraint holds by three adults at once and hours in a seclusion
room that teachers called "Isabel's office." There the girl
sometimes wet herself and pulled out her hair, according to
documents filed in a 2006 administrative-law case the Loefflers
brought against the school district.
In March, the presiding administrative-law judge ruled that the
district had violated federal law by educating Isabel in overly
restrictive settings and failing to adequately monitor its
methods. The district has appealed. Its lawyer, Ronald Peeler,
says it used "established educational principles" in addressing
Isabel's problems, and made adjustments when its discipline wasn't
working. "We are not dealing with an exact science here," says Mr.
Peeler.
As public schools come under pressure to teach more children with
behavioral disabilities, the use of restraint and seclusion has
become a contentious issue. Faced with laws that make it more
difficult to expel or suspend misbehaving special-education
students, educators say they need to use harsh tactics sometimes
to protect other children and teachers.
The danger comes when schools turn methods designed for
extraordinary circumstances into routine disciplinary tools. The
result can be a vicious cycle of punishment and rebellion, hurting
the very children who were supposed to benefit from attending a
mainstream school.
Some states are taking action. Last year,
from restraining students by holding them face-down on the floor.
The move was sparked by the case of Michael Renner-Lewis III, an
autistic 15-year-old who died in 2003 after being restrained in
that manner at a Kalamazoo-area high school. This year,
districts using restraint or seclusion.
At psychiatric hospitals that receive federal funds, only licensed
medical personnel may order a troubled patient to be put into a
restraint hold or locked in a room. The subject must receive a
face-to-face evaluation within an hour. Even with these rules,
restraint and seclusion result in as many as 150 deaths a year in
health-care settings, according to the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, which is campaigning to eliminate the
practices.
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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal