The Illinois State Board of Education announced an emergency action to end placing children behind locked doors alone in school disciplinary actions, saying the practice has been “misused and overused to a shocking extent.”
Under the new rules, public school teachers would still be allowed to send misbehaving children to time-out rooms, but isolated time-outs would be banned. The state board said children would be put in time-out only if accompanied by a “trained adult” in a room that remains unlocked throughout the process. Time-outs also must be used only for therapeutic reasons or to protect the safety of students and staff, according to the press release.
In addition, the board announced it will begin investigating all known incidents of isolated seclusion in the past three years in Illinois schools in order to “take corrective action.” It encouraged anyone with information about abusive time-out rooms or restraints in any school setting to report directly to the agency.
According to the Tribune-ProPublica report, several school district officials said they had not reviewed seclusion reports from their schools until reporters requested them. State officials had not previously monitored these practices either.
Such practices aren’t unique to Illinois. In many states where teachers rely on isolated seclusion and physical restraining to control children, schools are not obligated to notify parents about their children having been restrained or placed in a time-out room alone.
Earlier this year, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced the Department will review the use of “possible inappropriate use of restraint and seclusion” in American schools, especially among students with disabilities.
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