Seclusion, Restraints & Students with Disabilities

From Lawyers.com:  (click for full article)

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights has made public that 70% of the public school students subjected to physical restraint and seclusion are students with disabilities.

Iowa's Senator Tom Harkin is sponsoring a bill called the Keeping All Students Safe Act. It would ban seclusion and confinement of children in locked rooms or spaces from which they cannot exit, and restrict physical restraint to emergencies posing a threat of serious bodily injury to self or other. Schools will no longer be able seclusion and restraint as ways punish children, coerce compliance, for behavioral infractions, or as a substitute for positive behavioral support or proper educational programming.  These means would not be options when less restrictive measures would be effective. They would not be permitted to be used for hours. The bill would ban restraints that are life threatening (including those that interfere with breathing), mechanical and chemical restraints, and aversives that threaten health or safety, and restraints that interfere with the ability to communicate or which would harm a child. The full text of the Keeping All Students Safe Act.