Two Ohio teachers caught on video dragging an Autistic boy will not be criminally charged. The disturbing video below shows the teachers restraining the boy. The teachers still face possible disciplinary action.
This type of incident of restraint and physical punishment of students with disabilities is more common than you might think.
A study of 99% of public schools by the United States Office of Civil Rights found that students with disabilities are restrained and secluded at a much higher rate than their typical peers. The office found that although students served under IDEA make up only 12% of the U.S. public school population, they make up 67% of students who were restrained or secluded.
That’s 70,000 students with disabilities who were restrained or secluded in the 2013-14 school year, for which the last data was recorded. Let that sink in for a moment. And assuredly there’s a lot more incidents that are not reported.
A “No Consent” Letter for Restraint and Seclusion
The best way to prevent this type of incident from happening to your child is to find out if your school’s personnel are trained in non-violent crisis prevention and to add a “No Consent” letter for restraint or seclusion in your child’s official records. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is very clear about this issue. The law states that school districts MUST consider the use of positive behavioral supports and Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) plans if a child’s behavior interferes with their education or the education of others, but most do not.
Read Related Post: Why Your Child’s Teacher Should Be Trained in Non-Violent Crisis Intervention
I could never imagine my son’s teachers using the techniques the teachers above used and my son doesn’t really have any violent behaviors. Still, I have a “No Consent” letter on file. The statistics are not in your child’s favor, no matter who your child’s teacher is. It’s prudent to add this type of letter to your child’s record whether you like their teachers or not. The letter need not be adversarial, but instead puts in writing your expectations for behavior supports.
What should be included in a “No Consent” Letter
A “No Consent” letter will make it clear that you do not approve or consent to any harmful or exclusionary techniques. Include the following in your letter:
- Name and contact information for your school district
- Date that you send the letter
- Name of your child, birthday, and school they attend
- Describe your child’s disability and any behavior concerns you have
- Clearly state that you do not consent to any negative behavior techniques including: restraint, seclusion, physical management, seclusionary time outs, forcible holding, dragging, use of ties and straps, slaps, deliberate humiliation, or deprivation of nutrition or exercise.
- Clearly state your opposition to these strategies: This letter is to make it clear that I have not authorized or given consent to any of the above strategies being used on my child
- Add family emergency contact information in case any situation arises where the school feels they cannot respond in a safe and non-threatening way.
- Make clear that IDEA states that only positive behavior supports like a formal behavior analysis should be used. Add that you would like to be part of any team that develops a FBA plan.
- Add any effective behavior techniques that have worked in the past for your child.
- Ask that an IEP meeting be held if problems arise or persist.
- Thank them and remind them that you will be holding them accountable if any restraint or seclusion technique without your permission.
The last time Congress took up the issue was in 2010, but the bill died because of language in the bill that would have allowed restraint and seclusion to be written into the students IEP. Now the federal government under the new Every Student Succeeds Act is requiring states to reduce these “adversive behavior interventions.” Sadly, parents must be proactive about the possibility of restraint and seclusion until school districts and the government takes a clear stand.
If you want to see a sample of a “No Consent” letter click here. Do you have a no consent letter on file for your child? Has your child ever experienced this type of negative behavior strategy? Tell me what you think below.
I’m not a fan of seclusion or restraint… but that’s not an accurate picture at all. Those are improperly trained staff that absolutely should be addressed. Through the school system and possibly legally. A no consent letter is not going to address staff training.
I appreciate this point of view. You’re right, a no-consent letter won’t address staff training. It’s only one piece of the puzzle. Schools and parents definitely need to talk about this and be clear about their expectations. This incident is the exception to the rule, but it may move people to have a conversation about more positive behavior supports per the law. A No-Consent letter doesn’t have to be adversarial. Parents could even chose to list certain restraint and seclusion techniques that may be helpful for their particular child. It’s all about setting expectations, and having that conversation on record.
Parents can offer training to individual teachers on appropraite ways to help their childs specific needs. Autism has a wide range of severity.
This incident may be the exception to the rule in many areas, but not the “exception” in others. This type behavior by teachers is happening more often than parents realize. It happened in our County in Florida, only worse. I point that is disturbing is, here, we have no idea how long the abuse went on to non-verbal children before a child was hurt, which brought the abuse to light. We need cameras in all classroom, lunch rooms and halls. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. They have cameras on buses. The film is looked at only after a requested suspension or student complaint. Cameras protect everyone involved, especially where alleged abuse has been come to light.
Here, the teacher had been investigated in the past for abuse, yet nothing was placed in her personnel file so no one knew and it was business as usual. Strong Teachers Union. Admin Management must know the contract to protect students.
These teachers were dragging the child on the ground!! Charges need to be filed!!
I think this may just be the beginning. No criminal charges were filed, but the school may take disciplinary action.
Absolutely ridiculous!! Those “women” need to be held down and dragged like dogs across the floor! I would seriously beat anyone who treated my son this way! Shame on you cows and I really hope you watch this post because I want you both to know how terrible you are! Pathetic waste of oxygen! What is wrong with people! Teachers are suppose to care for the students! I’m really starting to think school will grab any skank off the street and consider them “qualified” to be special needs aids/assistants! Throw them in jail this is child abuse!
These schools are not getting proper restraint training. Dragging by the leg is flat out abuse. I’ve had to restrain children simply for my safety, their safety, and those around them. I’ve been kicked, punched, bitten, stabbed, etc by children with violent behaviors when working with them in DDA’s and in schools. I had to seclude a child and almost got my nose broken, clumps of hair pulled out, and almost stabbed with scissors. I did not want this child in an extremely violent meltdown to get out and hurt the other children until she calmed down. I put my life at risk so the other children weren’t at risk. Another child stabbed me with pushpins during a meltdown (this child was very difficult to deal with) and gave me a black eye by repeatedly kicking me in the eye, but since we were working in a backroom where it was quiet and away from other people because it seemed to set him off I just had to hope that someone came back soon to help. The point is, sometimes restraints are necessary.
Thank you for working with students with violent behaviors. Yes, I agree that restraints may be needed, and parents and schools should create a plan of action. A “No Consent” letter could include this plan and restraints that may work for their child. Thanks for serving in our schools!
This answers my question. While I don’t agree with some specific items listed, I wish my son’s school WOULD restrain him. I obviously wouldn’t allow him to be dragged and I’m very much concerned about how he is spoken to so that he’s not made to feel like a “bad” kid, but it just makes good sense to restrain him to avoid him running off, hitting or throwing things. My son is ADHD and ODD but has a high IQ. He figured out that if he stripped down to his underwear no one would touch him. But instead of restraining him when the first show comes off, they let him get undressed and then just try to keep him in one room to wreak havoc. If they’d restrain him for just a short time he’d calm down and it would be all over. Am I to understand that I can specifically include, in writing how they should restrain him and what I would and would not allow? Would doing this make it more likely that they move him off campus to the one district school where they put the most difficult children? I feel like I have to tread lightly because if I make things too complicated they’ll decide they’re not equipped to handle him at his home campus.
Hi Mandy, yes that’s a thin rope to walk. You want to be specific about what behavior supports you approve of, but also that inclusion in his homeschool is paramount. I’m not a behavior expert, and just a new advocate. I would try and find a behavior specialist in your area, or find a special education advocate on http://www.copaa.org. You are the expert of your child. Good luck to you and your son!
I agree dragging by the leg is not appropriate but sometime you have to remove a child by any means. I work with one that will grab a child smaller then him and try to choke them. Thankfully his mom will come and work with us and help train. Teaching body language and Cue’s to when he is getting ready as he is non verbal.
How should we go about requesting proper training? What options do we have as parents? Thank you for all you do!
I plan to do a follow-up story on this very topic. Stay tuned.
This is why I refused to sign a letter for this very thing. I don’t trust what people mean as restraint. It means different things for different people and my son has son physical ailments also so heck no. I will never sign something like that.
There is no excuse for dragging a kid across the floor. This is utterly unacceptable, no matter what the kid did. But on a side note, the decision decades ago of keeping all children in mainstream classrooms regardless of disability is one of the culprits of untrained and overwhelmed instructors. Don’t special needs students deserve to have specially-trained teachers? It worked quite well in my elementary school. Where are the other students while these teachers were doing this? How can these teachers cope with one special needs child while teaching all the others? For all I know, they provoked this child, and he is perfectly capable of being in a mainstream classroom. My comment is in general. I don’t know enough about this specific case.
You’re right, we don’t know the facts leading up to this encounter. My suspicion is they may not have had a formal behavior assessment (FBA) on this child, and didn’t have the right behavior supports in place. Federal law states that children cannot be placed in separate classes solely based on behavior. I wonder if they had the right supports in place if this child could easily be included with his typical peers.
It looks as though they were dragging this child to the office, possibly for disciplinary reasons? If that’s the case, the school obviously does not have plans in place for when behavior incidents occur. I would think the correct course of action would be to call down to administrators so that the behavior can be officially documented and handled by someone who is trained in this area. Which is obviously not these teachers/employees. I’m anxious to read your follow up on this article.
As a parent of a young adult who as a child was isolated for far less and not supervised..and allowed to sit in his own poo for over two hours because of that…… I so support no isolation r restraint but as a teacher I see the other side too…….if the child was hurting the teacher(which is what I read) or others. The child needs to be removed…..but I also read they did it improperly….. typically at our building now a child may need restraint to be removed but. Certainly not dragged….we are currently in professional development to not restrain……..maybe classroom kids would leave area and leave responsible adult with child…..I totally believe in inclusion my child was included all through high school he was isolated several times and even expelled once because of the anger of his para….principal apologized but not adult who should of been expelled lol…….looking back my child was treated very unfairly…. many times. And he was never violent. Never……. just noncompliance…..so what does that say………I’m so glad we are done with school and on to more respectful situations with work.
Great reporting at a crucial time. Media has opened up the tragic abuse of Autistic children in our school systems. No charges filed. No discipline placd in personnel files. No independent investigations. If an inhouse investigation but never placed in personnel files. School Boards ignoring abuse for the love of budget and “good ole’ boys syndromes”. School Superintendents moving up and arrogant, not in it for the children period (after election). Administration failing to know the teachers Union Contracts, so teachers placed back in/never taken out of the abusive environment they created for 4-5 year olds that are non verbal as well as other. Autism is on the rise and teachers cannot cope with the situation, altho they are supposively (Special Ed) trained, paid additional salaries, lower numbered students, larger classrooms as well as the school is given additional dollars for each student. It is a vicious cycle and detrimental to these innocent children that seem to have no recourse. TWO ADULTS dragging a 5 year old…TWO ADULTS could drag me or another adult.
I am an NVCI trainer (nonviolent crisis intervention). I teach teachers how to restrain a student when they are in imminent danger of causing harm to self or others. I spend more than half of the 12 hour class talking about preventing the need for restraint. As an educator I have been kicked, spit on, had feces thrown at me, bit and hit. I have broken up innumerable fights and have restrained students that were hurting themselves. Teachers need a last resort tool to keep kids safe. Without it, at least two children I have worked with would have permanently damaged themselves. I have never heard of a No Consent Letter and I wonder what legal strength it has. Personally, as an educator, I would recommend a collaborative meeting with the educators where you develop a range of responses and list them in the IEP. If your young child is running in to traffic and you have a No Consent Letter on file, I am still going to do everything I can to get my hands on him and keep him safe. If I didn’t, I couldn’t live with myself.
It may depend on your state as to the legal authority of a “no consent” letter. I got a lot of my information from Wright’s Law at this link: http://www.wrightslaw.com/blog/parent-request-no-restraint/ and Federal law does state that schools requires the use of functional behavior assessments and positive behavior supports. I agree a letter along with open communication with the school would be most effective.
As someone who has worked with special needs population and holding a Master’s in Ed, specialized in Special Education with an emphasis in Autism, I’m warry of the article. First off, the term “Autistic child” or those using lables as an adjective does not promote the person first philosophy in the peoples lives affected by 1973’s landmark law. The article’s language towards the people being served is backdated. If you were unaware of the “people first” language philosophy, make note now. In CA, one cannot restrain a child at any cost unless undue harm to the child or another child might occur. This is for everyone. Those who have IEP’s are given extra provissions reguarding any possible prejuduce created by the fedurally recognized disorder. Parents must agree to have their child restrained or put in issolation. You, the staff, must possess a NVCI card and go through classes on a yearly bases after the initial training. Function of Behavior is very crutial if this is needed. Those of us working with children who are prone to violent outbursts must provide various levels of support. There are many empathetic people who support these souls, and then there are people who have ugly hearts who like to control. I hate those who pray on the week. I have also restrained a few students who have chemical imbalances. I have heard students, who were restrained, appologize for their behavior and asked the same person who restrained them to help them not get so mad. These students are thinking about actively changing their behavior. My students are my children of the world. I have met more empathetic helpers in my life. I reform or remove the others.
Thank you Valerie! I am aware of people’s first language, as I have a child with Down syndrome. I understand that language and semantics is a hot-button issue in the disability community and I’m very sensitive to this issue. That’s why I follow the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network’s policy on language as it pertains to Autistics. Their official policy is that self-advocates with Autism prefer the language “Autistics” or “Autistic boy” because they understand that Autism is an inherent part of their individual identity. You can read more about their policy here: http://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/identity-first-language/. Thank you for working with our children!
This has important information for parents of SPED kids. I feel compelled to make an important correction. In some states the kids receiving Special Education is higher than 24% of the population-in other states it is 20%. The old days of 12% are long gone.
There is restraint to protect the teachers and the child.. and then there is physical abuse, dragging a child by the foot down a corridor. That is NOT physical restraint. That was abusive. I would skip the police and ask Department of Family and Children services to get involved.
My husband and my self would be in jail. I would face these” teachers”. This just wrong with any child. Punish them!!!!! Teachers does that word mean something. I’m so mad and crying at the same time.
My son had been held in seclusion for a long time before I even knew it. He was locked in a small concrete room, no shoes, only a dog bed on the floor, in the basement of the school. I was not even aware of this room until one day he did not come outside to the car after school. After searching frantically for him, one of the admins asked if I had looked in the basement special ed room. I quickly ran downstairs only to find my son curled up on a dog bed sleeping in this tiny room with the door locked. There was a glass window for observation, but he was locked in. Then I was told they “forgot” he was in there. He must have been in there a long time in order for him to fall asleep. I am sorry but how do you FORGET a child has been locked in a concrete room by himself for hours????? I am still very, very upset about this, and found out it happened often. This was many years ago, probably 9 years or so, but I have warned other parents about it since the day I found out. I still cry thinking about how my child was treated. Who knows what else really happened that I am still unaware of???
Very disturbing. After injuring kids today, they treat them like animals.
Only person that should handle a child is a parent not a teacher teachers are there to watch and teach our children not to abuse them, this is not ecceptable
I worked with students of both special needs and general needs for 31 years before my own physical needs caused me to take retirement. I was not only trained in methods to handle children who on accession needed help to regain control of themselves physically because they had become a danger to themselves or others. In looking at this inflammatory video it does appear that the staff involved should be at the least removed from working with children pending investigation both internal and possibly from some version of children services yes. That would violate any training we had in my district and we were heavily trained. The letter you describe does not make sense to me as you cannot put your hands on a child without consent in a IEP which cannot be written without an FBA. A general Ed student would of course not have the behaviors to the extend of a child with special needs, that is part of being a student with special needs. Percentages simply do not apply. Deal with the student in front of you and their needs. That is a redundant statistic to through out. That is like saying in younger years they will be further behind in testing then their gen ed peers. Well of course they are. That’s why they need extra assistance. Now get them what they need, trained appropriate help. If someone fails, remove the failed person, get back to educating children.
My brother Ethan has Autism and when he used to be in school he was also mistreated by various staff members throughout the years. He was verbal and didn’t have any behavior problems. However when Luis would talk about the things that would happen to him at school (from student bullies and teachers) the IEP team eventually classified him as emotionally disturbed- WITHOUT the input of the family whatsoever. They did this after repeated incidents of him trying to tell another teacher on what was happening to him at the school/other teachers, but of course most teachers aren’t going to believe another teacher/friend would mistreat a student in any way- even if it’s secluding them or verbally being horrible to the student.
And no, he didn’t have any emotional issues either. The school/staff did this just because he complained what was happening to him from teachers at the school and school bullies- and of course the teachers didn’t want to believe it simply because he was a student who had special ed services/had an IEP and “those type of students just don’t want to be in school”. The school bullies were the type that got decent grades, showed good behavior, but acted totally different at lunchroom, recess, or in the bathroom and hallways (when a teacher wasn’t present/nearby) and of course after school hours.
After the repeated incidents teachers started making things up about him, and of course my family didn’t really do anything they had the thought like “oh well he will soon graduate 8th grade anyway.” or “it’s okay because soon he will have better teachers in a new school” or “he isn’t getting injured in a physically noticeable way.”
It was a really tough time at that school because it happened with multiple teachers in the 7th-8th grade (for both years had same/similar teachers) and the same IEP/special ed teacher, and really the same other staff that may attend an IEP meeting.
The only other students who had special ed services in the school were those that didn’t know a significant amount of English and as a result had some minor challenges in reading and/or writing that still required some sort of support to be fully successful in the classroom- or were students with speech challenges. So, basically there was no other student like Ethan.
* None of the classrooms had cameras inside the classroom. Neither did the special ed/resource room
Let’s be clear on something. Restraining a child that might otherwise hurt themselves or another student is one thing. This however was clearly not just restraining a child. Stick to the actual footage. This child was held, then picked up, then almost dropped several times, then drug by one leg around like we were dealing with an inanimate object. Why was the child walked so far away from the class anyway? Couldn’t they have tried right there inside the door to calm the child and give them a time to relax from the previous moment? They weren’t dealing with him at all. He was being bullied by teachers who didn’t actually see him as a person worthy of good treatment. Regardless of what he could do or was acting like, he deserves respect and his feelings are valid and deserve consideration. Did you see when he was carried passed other students? This child even though he has autism will remember this incident and was embarrassed in front of his peers for his disability. He was being dragged pass faculty as well. Is this school just nuts? They gave up on this child way before this incident and I would almost bet that this isn’t the first child they have assaulted in this way in the name of “RESTRAINT!”