Senator Harkin Introduces Keeping All Students Safe Act
NDRN Urges Senate Passage

For Immediate Release                 
December 19, 2011                    

Contact: David Card        
202.408.9514 x122
press@ndrn.org

WASHINGTON – The National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) applauds the introduction of legislation that addresses the use of restraint and seclusion on children in schools. A different version of the legislation passed in the House of Representatives last year but was unable to clear the Senate. Senator Harkin (D-IA) introduced this version - the Keeping All Students Safe Act (S.2020) - on December 16, 2011.

“A year has gone by since Congress failed to pass restraint and seclusion legislation,” said Curt Decker, NDRN’s executive director. “Our network continues to investigate instances in which kids as young as 5 years old have been confined, tied up, pinned down, and battered through the use of restraint and seclusion.

Disability Rights Florida is assisting a 14-year-old student whose leg was broken while being restrained; Disability Rights Wisconsin is representing 5 students who were so badly abused with restraints that their teacher was fired and criminally charged; an expert observer in Maryland witnessed school staff restrain a 5-year-old kindergartener diagnosed with Autism; a young man in Delaware was pinned to the floor face down where he struggled to breath for ten minutes as punishment for appearing to be disrespectful to staff; in Utah, children were being locked into mechanical chairs.

“What will it take for Congress to pass this legislation?” asked Decker. “Another death?”

NDRN documented the death of a 7-year old Wisconsin girl who suffocated while being restrained for blowing bubbles in her milk and a multitude of other similarly, horrific stories in a report entitled School is Not Supposed to Hurt released in 2009. That report was the catalyst for last year’s vote by Congress.

The legislation addresses many of the problems documented in NDRN’s report: Inconsistent (and sometimes non-existent) standards in many states on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools; Parents and guardians not being informed of the use of restraint and seclusion on their children; Use of inherently dangerous restraint and seclusion techniques with little to no training or monitoring; Use of restraint and seclusion in situations that clearly do not call for the use of such extreme techniques, and the lack of reporting of such incidents to help the proper authorities identify where problems may exist that could be addressed with additional training.

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