Boy tells lawmakers he was forced into 'seclusion room'
SALEM, Ore. – Lawmakers heard emotional testimony Friday about a bill that would ban some types of so-called "seclusion rooms" in public schools.
The type of isolation room at issue is similar to a room in Washington, which was a standalone cell or padded room. KATU first reported on the parents' outrage over the use of that isolation room last year. Since those series of reports, the Longview School District stopped using that isolation room. But that type of room may soon be banned all together in Oregon schools.
A mother and others testified before lawmakers in support of the ban.
Jennifer Harrison said school staff at her son's Eugene school, McCornack, used the room to punish him for four years without her knowledge.
"I was never notified. I didn't know it was happening until I walked in and found him screaming facedown on the ground with two adults sitting on top of him," she said.
Her son, Jared, now in the seventh-grade, said he was in the first-grade when he was first forced into one of those rooms, sometimes for hours. His mother sat by his side in tears as he told legislators it happened almost every day for four years.
"You have two adults dragging you into a room and locking the door behind you and you're just a little kid and you don't know what's going on," he said. "You're not going to be calm. And I know no one else in the room was calm. They were all freaking out because their friend's being locked in a room. It didn't help the situation at all. It made it worse – much worse than it would've been if I had just sat in a timeout chair for five minutes."
Kerry Delf, a spokeswoman for the Eugene School District, said she couldn't comment on specific students.
McCornack does not have a seclusion room in use at this time but it did have one at one point when it had a "behavior support program," she said.
There are a few seclusion rooms throughout the district, she said, but they are only used as part of a "student behavior support plan," which is developed in cooperation with the parents.
"A student wouldn't be put in a seclusion room if they were not part of a behavior support plan, which a parent would have to agree to first," Delf said, adding the rooms are not used for punishment or discipline.
The district follows the Oregon Department of Education’s guidelines regarding seclusion rooms, and they do not have locks, she said.
If Oregon's bill passes, it would join four other states that ban "isolation rooms." Those are Nevada, Texas, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
On Thursday a Washington House committee approved new legislation that would require schools to notify parents if their kids are put in isolation or restrained. The bill's sponsors expect it to pass the full Legislature and become law.
Watch Jennifer and Jared Harrison's full testimonies:
This is absolutely appalling. No amount of justifications can ever convince me otherwise. Our children should NEVER be handled this was by schools. I hear in the news all the time parents being charged with child neglect because they locked their children in bedrooms. How is this different? This is God's earth. Can we really believe God would approve an adult has the right to subject God's little ones to such a horrendous condition?
As an adult, I would be scared to death if I were placed in an isolation box for poor behavior on the job. My behavior would only get worse, not better, with this form of punishment. Personally, I only listen to respectful reprimand, and if needed, one-on-one peer discussions regarding my poor behavior. So, if we are trying to teach our children to act like adults, let's treat them the way we would want to be treated.
School's could fund a program that provides one-on-one peer supervision for children who require closer supervision. The teachers are expected to manage 24+ students a day. When one child acts out, the teacher looks for a quick solution (and rightly so, because they are overwhelmed) to manage that child . Schools SHOULD NEVER make an isolation box the only solution available to a teacher. Schools COULD provide the child an adult peer supervisor who could take the child out of the classroom, work with that child one-on-one until the child is ready to re-enter the classroom. Sound like a lot of work and money? You bet! Are our children worth it? You bet!
When I worked in Psych care, it was the law to require a doctors order before the "Isolation Therapy" happens. The laws should be similar here. The sad thing is that we are about 15 years behind compared to other states that have more stringent laws which  leaves the door wide open for abuse of all kinds. With this many sex offenders here, I am shocked to see males taking care of female clients/patients. I can go on all day about what I have seen. I refuse to work in healthcare here because the laws are from the dark ages and it is frustrating. This is a rights violation to anyone who is not on a behavior plan. ACLU! Would you give your kid a prescription drug that is intended for someone else.. There's no difference here.
This is some kind of Dark Ages torture. Right out of the dark and hideous past. Here we have all these educated "professionals" unable to handle their students, so they lock them in solitary confinement. Pathetic and incapable educators. They aren't even educators, they are 'keepers' and should probably work at the zoo.Â
These ARE NOT "Isolation Rooms".....they are 100% TORTURE CHAMBERS!
I used to teach special needs, I'm sorry I can't swallow this garbage. Those rooms have a valid purpose. This particular child was doing something to get put in there.
@Jeepers  If this room has a valid purpose, then every special ed teacher, to receive their classification as SPED teacher, should have to spend an hour per day during the course of their studies, in the isolation chamber. See how you can stomach solitary confinement.Â
I like the testimony about all his friends being upset about the child being taken out of class, Yeah the show is over.
@Bert Exactly. This affects the other students deeply and profoundly, as they watch their fellow student and friend be tortured.Â
@KKStJohn @Bert Everybody loves the mentally ill
Please understand; Not all special needs/special ed students have autism
Not everyone with autism is non verbal
Not every isolation room/safe room/ seclusion room looks like the one in the picture
The continued use of phrases like locked in or thrown in a closet cell etc. is unfair and inflamatory. Even in this boys testimony he says it didn't look like a closet, and if you listen to him when he describes it, it was a small room with a window in the door but no other windows, he described carpet on the walls and stated the ceilings were taller then those in the room they were in.
When sweeping decisions are made as a reaction to ignorance, assumptions, exageration or simply missunderstanding people get hurt.
These rooms are very necessary for more students then many may realize. It would be a tragedy to see them go away. I am sorry for any effected by the missuse or abuse of its purpose. For everyone else, if you are not familiar with them or their purpose, please don't make assumptions or pass assumptions on as fact, just ask questions. Look into Temple Grandin and her "squeeze machine" it's the same thing, it was missunderstood and removed, she would not have been able to continue her college education had people not been forced to listen and understand, now she is hero. Well, at least she certainly is one of mine.
http://www.grandin.com/inc/squeeze.html
@JMithe difference is that a "seclusion room", used as punishment, is solitary confinement being forced on a person. as punishment. temple grandin's squeeze machine was used voluntarily as a self-calming technique. see the difference? one is consensual, the other is not. consent is IMPORTANT.
@JMi funny how you avoid anything I have said plus my questions.Â
MY SON WAS LOCKED and FORCED in a room the size of a closet. there is no wrong use of words here.Â
If you listen to him he says there wasn't a window. They put it in later. There was only a peephole and sometimes the kids would turn off the lights when he was in there.Â
These rooms need to go.Â
Now if you would like to talk to ME about what I say, then I ask that you reply to me.Â
@Dava @JMi Home school your child. That will solve all problems for everyone.
@myopinion240 @Dava @JMi  most will not homeschool, because problems like this are for someone else to solve, then blame the 'someone else' for causing the problem. Granted, in the case of medical problems these rooms would be torture, but many of the kids that have "problems" is just from either poor upbringing, or the TV being the babysitter while Mom/Dad is 'doing thier thing of ignoring the kids...then screaming foul when anyone else tries to discipline them. "How dare you discipline my child...I allow him to do ANYTHING he wants, and you are not going to stop him!"
@Dava further
Several posts, news articles and news casters have referred to the small windows in the pictured seclusion room as peepholes. I readily admit from that, my own experience and not having any sort of picture or dimensions for reference I fell into the trap of an assumption as to what the peephole he referred to looked like and that the window installed later was referencing a larger window.
I don't argue that the lights being turned out on him is unacceptable. It certainly is. If I have missed something or there was something else more specific you felt I was trying to avoid I am willing to address that. Again, I apologize that you felt my post was directed at you and I am sorry for your unfortunate experience.
@Dava
I apologize if you got the impression I was avoiding your questions. That certainly was not my intention. I am very sorry you and your son had such a horrible experience. I think that anyone that abuses or missuses the intent of such a room should be disciplined.
If you would like me to respond your specific questions I can certainly read through, find them and offer my opinion. I was not intending to do that, which is why I placed my post separately and not in reply. My intent was to address the many other posts that generally refer to seclusion rooms as closets based solely on the article and picture presented, that the picture is not representative of all seclusion rooms and the fact that the picture is not the room being discussed in the testimony and that the young man states it did not look like a closet.
@Dava @JMiÂ
If you listened to what people are saying, you will find that they are against these small rooms/closets/booths, but not against the idea of a sensory room or chill zone type room. The larger rooms where students have room to move around, can see outside, can be monitored, etc. work well. These legislative changes would ban the smaller rooms and set rules and such for the usage of the larger rooms.Â
@Jenni S. @Dava
I am listening to what people are saying &Â many seem to be of the impression that the concept of seclusion consists of dragging a child into a closet and locking the door. That all such rooms look like the one in the picture and that they are used to punish children that can't speak for themselves.
As I've said before, Sensory rooms are brilliant tools, but they serve a different purpose, you said yourself that when a child is having a meltdown your sensory is kept empty. sounds like a lot of the seclusion rooms I've seen.
The House Bill does not address the size of the room.
You know, I have to admit; I just don't understand where all these developmentally / behaviorally disabled kids are coming from these days... Â IÂ went to school from the early '50s to 1964; because of the fast-growing areas we lived in, we were in large classes (30-40 kids), and most of the time, we were on half-day sessions (normal class loads; just concentrated into half-days so they could use the same school buildings for more kids). Â Â
We were pretty much normal, active, middle-class kids - some quieter, some noisier, the occasional "problem kid", but nothing really serious... Â Most of us had parents that were involved with our educations, but they weren't what we now call "helicopter" parents... Â We were expected to behave within certain parameters at school - and we were held accountable if we didn't, by the school AND by our parents...Â
What is going on that has happened in the last couple of decades that we now have all these kids who are seemingly unable to behave, who require a whole raft of special instructors, counselors, behavioral consultants, and so on, just so they can learn anything...? Â (This is not even to mention a truckload of weird medications whose warning lists of possible adverse reactions are 3 times as long as the list of benefits they supposedly provide...) Â Â I honestly don't understand this...
@margay1 it's because the disabled kids were being locked away so you didn't have to look at them.
@margay1 Thank you for being honest about not understanding. There are different studies for different things, and different people saying it's different things. lol
One reason why we are seeing it more is because parents are keeping their children instead putting them in asylums.Â
@Dava @margay1 ~  Oh, there are lots of things I don't understand, Dava... and the longer I live, the more of these there seem to be..!  :-)  Â
Seriously though, I do know that some of those so-called "fertility" drugs way back in the '50s-'60s caused severe birth defects... in fact, in 1959, my parents fostered and then adopted a baby with such defects... but they were physical only; there is nothing wrong with my younger brother's mind or behavior (well, he's a little wacky, but I think that comes from living in LA)... Frankly, many of the "medications" they're pushing so hard today really scare me... I often wonder just how thoroughly they're tested for adverse effects...and certainly, some of those effects could be developmental in nature...Â
It's a complex world we live in these days... so many questions and not enough answers...Â
@margay1Â There are actually several scientific studies looking at this very questions, a few of the potential answers include:
People waiting longer to start a family. Older sperm and/or eggs seem to point to a higher likelyhood of developmental issues.
Some medications once thought to be safe during pregnancy, turning out not to be.
At one time it was more acceptable and likely that a child with a deficite would not be enrolled in school or sent to an institution.
Population growth in general.
Not an exhaustive list obviously but, that's some of what seems to be happening.
@JMiÂ
Yea, a lot of kids who had these issues would have been sent off to an institution when they were very young and you may not have even known that the family down the street had a child with these issues. We have family members who had siblings with various conditions - including depression and what we think was autism - and they didn't even know those siblings existed until later in life.Â
@Jenni S. @JMi ~  That is another undoubtedly valid point Jenni... It could well be that the actual "numbers" of these kids hasn't increased as much as our "awareness" of them has, simply because they are out here in the "mainstream" of life, and not warehoused in some mental hospital somewhere...
I do recall that in those days, having a family member in a mental institution  was something that was pretty much a "hush-hush" subject... rarely spoken of outside the immediate family, and sometimes not even within the family... very sad...
So perhaps we are evolving beyond the wished-for "world of fairy tales and unicorns" and starting to deal with people and situations as they really are... and if this is the case, then it is a good thing...
@JMi ~  Thank you, JMi, for your very helpful response... all of the points you raise make sense, and I appreciate the nice way that you presented them... :-)
@margay1 @JMi Thank you, for the kind words.
the dude..i think its a dude, in the left of the pic if flipping the bird to someone. maybe the kid
could be part of this boys behavior problem is telling the truth.
Home schooling is an option
Can you smoke in them? Are they bullet proof?
I have a hard time believing that child never said anything in 4 years... How many kids come home and complain about the teacher?! Â All of them, so he never mentioned it? Â Hmm...
@Grammy54 special needs children are taught to be compliant. don't you know what ABA is? it's compliance training.
@Grammy54Â
Special needs children rarely will complain about things like this, issues at school, abuse, etc. It's why they are a population that is so at risk for long-term abuse. It was one of the first things we were warned about when our daughter was diagnosed.Â
don't you have to earn your way into the room? he might as well get used to it if he's going to be a troublemaker. jail ain't no summer camp
@Phuzz Troll
@Dava @Phuzz name calling will get you sent to the room ; )
@Phuzz @Dava OK ...that was funny.Â
When kids get out of control and unsafe for themselves or other students by all means put them in one of these rooms!!! Kids need to realize that there are consequences for thier actions. It's another way of behavior modification that protects everyone in the school. As a parent of a child with Special Needs from the schools I would support this to protect him or anyone else. Bring them to BSD
@Cable-guy Chris What happens when they lock up your child for rocking in his chair?Â
when a child is "out of control and unsafe" it's called a meltdown. There are Sensory rooms for that.Â
@Dava @Cable-guy Chris Why are they in a classroom with normal children in the first place. Once they have the so called meltdown, it interupts the whole class. That to me is unfair to the other students in the room. Why can't they be put together in a room of their own?
?
@myopinion240 @Dava @Cable-guy Chris what makes you think that kids are being thrown in the closet from a mainstream classroom? also, "so called meltdown"? i'd like to see YOU deal with constant sensory overload like autistic people have to. you'd get upset, too.
when a child is out of control, yelling and screaming uncontrollably, throwing chairs where harm to self or other may occur. The room is protection for all parties involved.
@myopinion240 @Dava @Cable-guy ChrisYou know what I meant, but that's fine. I'll play...
It's my tax money as well, and all the other parents with especial needs children. So, should that money get wasted by NOT using them? We should let them sit at their desk and do their nails while children are being locked in closets?Â
@Dava @Cable-guy Chris behavioral specialist "  (schools have them at no cost) Beg to differ. The taxpayers are paying for the behavior specialist, and not to mention "That is one reason there are so many aids in the class room"
@wondering @Jenni S. @JMi @DavaÂ
The problem is that the situation isn't being handled by the school at all. A child who has these meltdowns should be having time with the counselor, special education staff, etc. to help them with the issues. When this happens, the mainstream teachers rarely - if ever - have to deal with the meltdowns. That's how other schools handle it, and it works well. The student learns how to identify when a meltdown is imminent, the teacher knows the student's signal, and there is a pre-set procedure in play for what happens then. Often times it means the child heading to the special education room, sensory room, chill zone, etc. while the teacher makes a quick call to the appropriate staff to let them know. Took about 30 seconds of the teacher's time, no meltdown, and no padded closet. Not a lot different than a teacher having to handle a child getting a bloody nose, throwing up, etc.
When it's handled properly, then the "normal" kids aren't constantly interrupted by the special needs kids. At that point class isn't interrupted any more often from meltdowns than from other medical issues, like the ones I mentioned above.
But when all you do is throw a kid in a padded closet, not only are you not dealing with the situation, you're making it worse.
@wondering@Jenni S.@JMi@Dava
 "These kids need special ed teachers who are trained to handle their "meltdowns"
The teachers union is lobbying for higher salaries and more vacation. How in hell are they going to pay for more teachers?Â
DAY ONE, LESSON ONE:Â MONEY DOES NOT F----G GROW ON TREES!!!
@wondering @Jenni S. @JMi @DavaWOW, you're not reading.Â
These teachers are special ed teachers that are trained to handle meltdowns. "These" kids are not with mainstream kids.Â
I also pay taxes so that my child is not locked into a closet.Â
@Jenni S. @JMi @Dava  The teachers should not have to deal with these issues. These kids need special ed teachers who are trained to handle their "meltdowns". Furthermore, it is conpletely unfair for the normal kids having their education constantly interrupted by the SN kids. I pay taxes so my child can learn. Hard to learn when there are constant problems that are keeping the teacher from doing his/her job.
@JMi @Dava @Cable-guy ChrisÂ
Our sensory room is completely empty, although if a child is not at the point of a meltdown where they're going to throw things, they can have items in the room with them (a book, a bean bag chair, stuffed animal, etc.). Some schools utilize a special education room as more of the "sensory" room (quieter, not as bright, etc.) and then an empty office as a "chill zone" kind of room.
Dava - I so agree with you. They do the same with our daughter. We've made huge strides to where she has had one incident in class all year, and that one was because they had a substitute teacher who didn't know the plan (and therefore didn't let her leave the room when overload was coming on). That's a big difference from where she was. Had they just locked her in a closet, the problem would be worse, not better. Instead, she now has the tools to be able to help notice when a meltdown is on its way and what steps she can take to avoid it.
@Dava @Cable-guy Chris Ideally you would have access to both. A sensory room is a wonderful tool to avoid an escalation however at a certain point of escalation (not always an avoidable situation) even the sensory room could be destroyed and/or opportunity for the child to get hurt in the process of breaking/throwing/hitting/head butting the items in the room.
@Cable-guy Chris http://www.themonarchschool.org/academics/sensory-room.html
My sons school has one. Also they call a room clear if a child becomes a threat, but since using other ways to redirect a child that is having a meltdown they haven't had to do a "room clear" for some time now.Â
I encourage you to find other ways to help your child with his meltdowns. Talk to his OT. Have a behavioral specialist (the schools have them at no cost) visit your son while he is in class to find out what trigers his meltdowns. Then hold a behavioral plan meeting. Each child has the right to have a certain daily schedule geared just for him. That is one reason there are so many aids in the class room. Our schools get paid a big amount on a daily basis to care for your son. Use the resources that are there for you and for your child. It's not the 50s.
well maybe you should work with the school districts then to get that worked on I have not seen one "sensory room" in any of the schools my children have been in. They have my permission to put my son inthe closet if he is having a meltdown.
@Cable-guy ChrisÂ
Again....that is when a Sensory Room is used, and parents are called...NOT a closet.Â