There were 1,585 incidents of restraint in New Hampshire schools last academic year, according to data collected by the state department of education. That’s hundreds more incidents than were recorded two years before, when schools reported restraining children 916 times.
That’s most likely not because practices on the ground have changed dramatically. Rather, the Legisla
ture in 2014 revisited the school restraint and seclusion statute, tightening reporting requirements and narrowing when the practices could be used.
Before, schools only had to report a restraint if a child had been restrained “unreasonably,” according to Michael Skibbie, the policy director for Disability Rights Center – New Hampshire.
“The (prior) phrasing allowed people to say that ‘what we did was not unreasonable, therefore it’s not restraint,’ ” Skibbie said.
Children with disabilities are far more likely to be restrained and secluded than their peers, and the DRC lobbied for the changes.
Schools also didn’t have to report incidents of seclusion at all before the 2014 amendment. There were 1,127 incidents of seclusion reported to the state during the 2015-16 school year and 797 reports the year before.
The 2014 law change was controversial. Disability rights advocates pushed for it to get a clearer picture of how often restraint and seclusion was occurring and to encourage districts to look at non-physical interventions. But the NEA-NH – the state’s largest teacher’s union – and the associations representing school boards and school administrators opposed the changes. They argued the new regulations about when restraint and seclusion could be used would sow confusion and hamstring teachers dealing with out-of-control students.
Alan Pardy, the executive director of the New Hampshire Special Education Administrator’s Association, said that while the new law had caused a lot of initial anxiety, educators appeared to have adjusted.
“It’s been very quiet. I think people have just accepted what the new law and requirements are. I have to say it’s not been on our radar screen,” he said.
He speculated that educators were accommodating to the law by exploring non-physical interventions, which is in part exactly what the law was intended to do. But he cautioned this was hunch, and not based on data.
“The documentation is a lot more thorough and really walks people through the rationale – What happened? What could have been done differently?” Pardy said. “It’s really a way of analyzing how decisions were made.”
But Skibbie said it did seem like some educators remained confused about what they could or couldn’t do.
“I think it’s been mixed. I’ve been in the room when educators say that the law doesn’t allow them to ever touch a child. And that’s just wrong,” he said. “I think it’s unfortunate that there are some educators that believe that they don’t have the tools available to them to keep order and maintain safety.”
Skibbie points to research from the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy from 2014, which noted that a majority of schools across the U.S. didn’t report ever restraining a child.
“A substantial number of schools in this country do not restrain children. Ever. To me that is a strong indicator that there are ways to keep children and staff safe without the use of physical force,” he said.
Concord Superintendent Terri Forsten said that’s a laudable goal – but that for now, intervening physically remains necessary sometimes. In the district as across the country, she said, students are coming to school with increasingly severe and complex mental health needs.
“We think it’s related to children who have experienced trauma and are living in trauma. That really impacts them and their ability to center themselves,” she said.
Pardy said that the state’s total numbers for restraints and seclusion could “on the surface” potentially be too high. But he said he didn’t know how New Hampshire schools compared nationally, or what a fair baseline could be.
He added that the Department of Education might want to keep track of schools or districts that consistently reported high rates of seclusion or restraint.
“I would think that if a district is reporting a lot of incidents (over time), then we would say ‘Hmm, maybe we have a training issue now,’” he said.
A majority of New Hampshire schools reported no restraints or seclusions last year, but that includes high schools, and restraints and seclusions typical occur with young children. About half of all elementary schools in New Hampshire reported restraining or secluding a child at least once last year, according to state data.
In Concord, Broken Ground and the high school recorded no cases of either restraint or seclusion last year. Mill Brook reported nine restraints and no seclusions, Abbot-Downing reported four restraints and two seclusions, and Rundlett Middle reported five restraints and two seclusions.
But the Christa McAuliffe School reported 48 restraints and 43 seclusions, and Beaver Meadow reported six restraints and 18 seclusions.
Forsten attributed the difference in reports across schools to a handful of children with “extraordinary special needs.”
“Sometimes you have two or three children who are really in a crisis mode,” she said.
Forsten said the district uses Crisis Prevention Institute training to teach staff about how to deal with student outbursts. And she said that as long as she had been in education, there had been an emphasis on non-physical interventions.
“Always, in working with children, the absolute last resort is to support them in a physical manner. That’s just kind of always your thinking,” she said.
But she said that she had seen a change in how things are recorded.
“The shift that I’ve seen is actually in an improved process around documentation. Around more clarity in communication with parents. And, in our process, there’s always a reflection on what we could do differently,” she said.
Schools that reported the highest number of restraints or seclusions were often urban – but not always. Symonds Elementary in Keene reported 227 seclusions last year, and the Maple Avenue School in Claremont reported 130 restraints. Heron Pond Elementary in Milford reported 93 restraints, and Simonds Elementary in Warner reported 119 restraints.
The Department of Education investigated 41 cases of restraint or seclusion last year across the state, but found that nobody acted inappropriately, an attorney for the department said.
“The parameters of Department of Education investigations is to determine if actions taken were consistent with and in compliance with RSA 126-U and Ed 1200. No State investigations revealed teacher misconduct,” Diana Fenton wrote in an email.
The education department typically investigates if a parent, the district, or the state’s Division of Youth, Children and Families asks them to, Fenton said. Per state law, they also have to review every school’s records every three years.
Ten restraints last year led to injuries, according to state data.
In his experience, a majority of injuries are accidental and not malicious, Skibbie said. But they can result in broken bones just the same.
“Most of the injuries that I’ve looked at have been the result of somebody without appropriate training restraining a child. And the law requires that people have training. It’s very easy to hurt a little kid,” he said.
(Lola Duffort can be reached at 369-3321 or lduffort@cmonitor.com.)