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School board to launch review of
student restraint policy
May 09, 2007
By Laura Green
 Walking
from class to class was always one of the difficult parts of the
school day for Josh Foster.
Cerebral palsy caused his labored
gait. But the headstrong 13-year-old, who also has autism, rejected
an aide who offered to help him get to art class at Lantana Middle
School one day in September.
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Josh parked himself in the school
courtyard and refused to budge. When the aide tried to force him
into an adult stroller, the 105-pound teen began flailing, said his
mother, Darlene Foster.
Accounts of what happened next
differ.
According to the boy's mother, four
adults each took a limb to control the now kicking and thrashing boy
and a fifth helped wrestle him to a mat.
Nat Harrington, spokesman for the
Palm Beach County School District, said that depiction is
inaccurate. Confidentiality laws prevent Harrington from describing
the district's version of events.
State law allows teachers to use
physical restraint only when a special education student is a danger
to himself or someone else. Josh's mother said the boy wasn't
hurting anyone by refusing to move.
But Harrington said: "Our
indication is that the school employees followed exactly the
procedures that they are trained to follow, not only in this, but in
other incidents with this same student."
Because of complaints such as
Foster's, the Palm Beach County School Board today will review its
policy on restraining students, written in 1994.
School board member Bob Kanjian,
who has an autistic son, sought the policy review, saying special
education parents had approached him with frightening stories.
It is impossible to know how often
staff members restrain a student because some schools were not
keeping logs, Kanjian said.
"At the district level, they can't
tell me how many times the restraints were used, on whom they were
used and who used them. All of that, they're supposed to know," he
said.
After his information request,
principals were asked last week to begin faxing monthly logs so the
district can compile a list.
Some parents also told Kanjian that
administrators weren't informing them when their child had been
restrained. That would be a violation of district policy, said Russ
Feldman, the district's special education executive director.
Since the district's policy on
restraining student was written, the number of students with autism
and communication disorders has mushroomed.
Between 1994 and 2004, the number
of school age children in U.S. public schools with autism spectrum
disorders increased from 22,664 to 193,637, according to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. About 700 Palm Beach County
students are classified as autistic.
Feldman would not comment on the
incident at Lantana Middle because he was not a witness.
But he stressed that physical
restraint should be used in rare cases, only by someone properly
trained and only after trying to resolve a situation through other
means.
Being physically restrained might
be traumatic for any student. But it can be even more jarring for
autistic children, who can be extremely sensitive to touch. Even a
gentle hand on their arm can feel like sandpaper.
Yet, some autistic students act out
physically themselves, pinching or hitting, in part because many
struggle to convey emotion in words.
Phyllis Musumeci said her son, who
also attended Lantana Middle, would become so frustrated because of
his inability to communicate that he would bite his own arm. He was
restrained repeatedly because his behavior was viewed as a threat to
himself, said Musumeci, who ended up pulling him out of school.
As the number of autistic children
in public schools continues to grow, more teachers and
administrators need specialized training.
That's why it's important for the
district to reconsider its policy, said Jaclyn Merens, South Florida
Regional Director of Autism Speaks.
"There is tremendous damage that
can be done to any human being who is restrained against their
will," she said. "That can do damage to your psyche. Then you get
even more escalated behavior possibly."
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