Anson Stevens-Bollen
Last November, the New Mexico Developmental Disabilities Council assembled a working group of parents, teachers, school administrators, lawyers and other disability advocates to study one specific issue that disproportionately impacts disabled students in public schools: the use of restraint and seclusion.
Michelle Tregembo, a special education advocate who works for the DDC, recounted the working group’s experience delving into the issue at a July 24 Legislative Education Study Committee Meeting, during which the working group also presented its findings and a list of 31 recommendations for legislators to consider when developing legislation in the next session.
“During the meetings, the group heard heartbreaking stories from both parents and school administrators about having children restrained or secluded,” Tregembo said. “Parents whose children have disabilities told tragic stories that led, in some cases, to the child not being able to attend school at all.”
Tregembo said incidents relating to restraint and seclusion of students are not uncommon for parents of students with disabilities, and that the DDC has been supporting more than 550 families across 74 school districts in the state.
“Several families have called [us] over the years, and it’s just a part of their story that they expect their child to be restrained,” Tregembo said. “It’s not even necessarily the reason they call.”
Nonetheless, the working group’s report, which members presented at the LESC meeting, found that the Public Education Department currently has “no reliable data” on how often restraint and seclusion occurs in public schools and that school districts do not equally implement state requirements.
The working group’s recommendations include: amending state policy to ban prone restraints (which hold a person face down); monitoring school districts’ compliance with state requirements; improving data collection; enforcing parental notification of restraint and seclusion incidents; and ensuring staff are trained in de-escalation.
According to PED Chief Counsel for Special Education Miguel Lozano, the PED only began to require school districts to report incidents involving restraint or seclusion of students in the 2020-2021 school year—a year when no incidents were reported due to schools moving online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the years since implementation, the number of recorded incidents has grown, though Lozano said it is likely still an undercount. The PED’s data says two incidents occurred in 2021-2022; 13 occurred in 2022-2023; and 50 occurred in the most recent school year.
“We couldn’t really identify how much it was happening, where some hot spots are or whether it was particular demographics,” Lozano said at the meeting, though he noted the increase in reports indicate that “the districts are beginning to understand and utilize our reporting system in more frequent ways.”
At Santa Fe Public Schools, restraint and seclusion are used as “a last resort,” according to SFPS Superintendent Hilario “Larry” Chavez. Last year, he tells SFR via email, the school district had zero restraint incidents and one seclusion incident.
“We always want to try de-escalation techniques as a first attempt,” Chavez says. “We follow all state and federal guidelines and regulations, and nothing above and beyond.”
However, the NMDDC argued at the LESC meeting that existing state and federal guidelines for restraint and seclusion of students use vague wording, which often results in school districts improperly deploying restraint and seclusion methods.
“[Restraint and seclusion], even in appropriate circumstances, can put a student in a situation where they no longer feel safe at school, in their classroom, with a particular individual,” Lozano says. “Positive behavioral support and pushing those out to our practitioners in the field is an important part of what the Office of Special Education would like to do and is working towards today.”
Senior Attorney for Disability Rights New Mexico Laurel Nesbitt said that in her perspective, as a parent of a young adult with autism, restraint and seclusion are used “too broadly” in schools, despite state law since 2017 requiring that restraint and seclusion only be used to prevent “a student or another person from imminent, serious physical harm.”
Nesbitt said she thinks the policies need to be “in reality what they are on paper. They should not be used as punishment, as a form of discipline.” Nor should they be used “as a way of gaining compliance from students or as a routine behavior intervention or a convenience for staff and administrators,” she said. “An instance of restraint or seclusion when it occurs should be seen as a symptom of something gone wrong, something that is avoidable going forward, with more work on the part of team members who can put that work in.”
When restraint or seclusion occurs at SFPS, Chavez says the district expects staff members to fill out a form reporting the incident, including the techniques used. If the student has an Individualized Education Program, he adds, the student’s IEP team should re-evaluate the student’s plan to determine if anything needs to be changed to better accommodate the student.
“We want to try to resolve a situation without putting hands on a student, but nevertheless, if we have to move into our last resort, we want to be able to identify what failed, what worked and how we can improve,” Chavez says.
Chavez says that parents are “just as important as any other staff member” when it comes to IEPs, and that he wants to ensure the district effectively communicates with parents about any incident that occurs.
“I think when parents are included in the discussion and being informed of what took place on campus, they can also help us try to rectify and put internal controls not only at school, and also maybe set expectations outside of school,” Chavez says. “Listening to that [LESC meeting], I think it’s always good to go back and revisit these policies, especially around restraint and seclusion—because times change, laws change.”
