The controversy over the firing of Broken Ground School special education teacher Lori Fosdick makes two things clear.

First, Concord School District has no policy, according to superintendent Terri Forsten, for what to do when a child runs away. It needs one.

Second, the New Hampshire Education Association was correct when it warned well-intentioned legislators who changed the definition of restraint in 2014 that the result would be confusion.

Teachers, administrators and staff don’t know when or if they can restrain a child without breaking the law, so most of them don’t do it. The official policy is hands off.

The law needs clarification, and every school district needs protocols in writing that govern when and how a child can be restrained without sanction

“There isn’t a district policy on what to do when a child bolts,” Forsten told Monitor reporter Ray Duckler.

“When there is any kind of elevated issue, we look for there to be a team present, for those team members to make their decision,” Forsten added.

In a study that appeared in the journal Pediatrics in 2011, 49 percent of the parents of children over age 4 with autism said their child had run away or wandered off at least once. More than half of them were gone long enough to cause worry and fear.

Nearly two-thirds of the cases (65 percent) involved a close call with traffic and one-quarter involved potential drowning. An accident can occur in seconds, leaving no time to consult or call police.

A bipartisan group of senators rewrote the law to address what was seen as the improper use of restraint and seclusion by entities that work with special needs children. Restraint, previously defined as unreasonably limiting a child’s movement, was changed to any action that “immobilizes a person or restricts the freedom of movement of the torso head, arms or legs.”

The first definition is subjective, the second unworkable in the real world. Similar changes were made throughout the law.

Fosdick is a veteran teacher whose work with children earned her the support of more than a few parents who want her reinstated, and she wants her job back. The matter is headed to arbitration. We don’t have information enough to say one way or another, but Fosdick, it seems, should be given the benefit of doubt.

The law does allow trained individuals to restrain a child when his or her behavior presents an imminent threat of serious physical harm to the child or others. But what if the threat isn’t imminent. The child runs out of the school but not toward a road or pond? What if the harm is to property. When a child is acting out physically teachers have been known to ask all the other children to leave the room rather than restrain the angry child. What should a teacher do if a child begins smashing things?

Some parents of special needs children want teachers to restrain their child to reduce the risk of injury or death.

The law requires that only those with special training may legally restrain a child. But, to return to the “run toward the road” situation, what if the person best able to prevent potential harm is the janitor, a coach or the lunch lady?

Perhaps every school employee should be given at least basic training in safe restraint techniques. Everyone, parents, teachers, administrators and children would benefit by protocols that are clear but flexible enough to fit as many situations as possible.