While the Numbers are
Important, We Need to Focus on the Reasons and Solutions
[CLICK HERE for the
Full Blog Message]
Dear
Colleagues,
Introduction
Back in March, we
wrote a two-part Blog Series on the issues related to the number of seclusions
and restraints in our nation’s schools.
Critically, while seclusions and restraints involve both general
education students and students with disabilities, the latter group is disproportionately
represented in these events.
The two Blogs in
this Series were:
Congress Take Note: How to Really Address the School
Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic. The U.S. Department of Education
Keeps Pushing PBIS, but PBIS Ain’t Got Nothing to Give (Part I, March 2,
2019)
_ _ _ _ _
States Take Note: How to Really Address the School
Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic. What State Departments of
Education Need to Learn If Using PBIS to “Solve” This Problem (Part II, March
16, 2019)
In this Blog
Series, we cited the federal definitions in this area, and reported some of the
most-recent national seclusion and restraint incident data.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Definition and Current Incident Levels of
Seclusion and Restraint
The Civil Rights
Data Collection (CRDC) is an ongoing U.S. Office of Civil Rights survey
involving all public schools and school districts in the United States. Initiated in 1968, the CRDC measures student
access to courses, programs, staff, and other resources and issues that impact
education equity and opportunity for students across the country.
In the May, 2012 U.S. Department of Education’s Restraint
and Seclusion: Resource Document,
the following CRDC definitions were documented:
The CRDC defines seclusion
as:
The involuntary confinement of a student alone in a
room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving. It
does not include a timeout, which is a behavior management technique that is
part of an approved program, involves the monitored separation of the student
in a non-locked setting, and is implemented for the purpose of calming.
The CRDC defines physical
restraint as:
A personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the
ability of a student to move his or her torso, arms, legs, or head freely. The
term physical restraint does not include a physical escort.
Physical escort means a temporary touching or holding
of the hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, or back for the purpose of inducing a
student who is acting out to walk to a safe location.
_ _ _ _ _
The most-currently
published CRDC school report is for the 2015-2016 school year. This Report
summarized the experiences of more than 50.6 million students at over 96,000
public schools across the country, and it included the following seclusion and
restraint data.
During the
2015-2016 school year:
· Over 84,000 students covered under
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act were restrained or secluded in
2015-16 (69% of the more than 122,000 students restrained or secluded nationally).
· 23,760
students with disabilities were secluded (66% of the 36,000+ seclusions for all
students across the country).
· 61,060
students with disabilities were restrained (71% of the 86,000+ restraints for
all students across the country).
· 1.3 of every 100 students with
disabilities nationally was restrained or secluded.
_ _ _ _ _
In the early part
of 2019, these data prompted a fair amount of Congressional attention. . .
which resulted in a formal hearing and talk of national legislation. But any real resolution to this issue must be
multi-layered. While, top-down, it may
require federal and/or state legislation, it eventually must be, bottom-up,
functionally addressed in our schools as part of an effective
multi-tiered system of supports and interventions.
And if Congress or
state legislatures get involved, they must have accurately, differentiated,
and well-analyzed data. This is
because much of the current data have gaps, do not differentiate different
student groups in meaningful ways, and have not been analyzed to determine the
root causes of the behavioral situations that result in student seclusions and
restraints.
In Part II of this Blog Series, I stated:
The need for accurate, differentiated, and
well-analyzed data is particularly important at the present time. Indeed, in mid-January (2019), the U.S.
Department of Education’s Offices for Civil Rights (OCR) and Special Education
and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) announced an initiative to “address the
inappropriate use of restraint and seclusion” on students with
disabilities. OCR and OSERS plans to
attend to three specific areas: (a) Increasing the number of compliance reviews
in districts across the country; (b) Disseminating more legal and intervention
resources focused on prevention and alternative responses; and (c) Improving
the integrity of incident reporting and data collection.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A Recent Federal
Government Report States: Schools
Under-Reported their Seclusion and Restraint Data
On June 18, 2019,
Jacqueline M. Nowicki, the Director of the Education, Workforce, and Income
Security Office within the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) sent a
letter to the respective leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives Subcommittees
on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Committee
on Appropriations.
This letter was
headlined: K-12 Education: Education
Should Take Immediate Action to Address Inaccuracies in Federal Restraint and
Seclusion Data.
Here are the
essential “take-aways” from this letter in direct quotes from this document:
·
Every 2 years, the
Department of Education (Education) collects and publicly reports data from
nearly all public school districts and schools as part of its Civil Rights Data
Collection (CRDC). Districts self-report
and certify the data. Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) uses CRDC data
in its enforcement of various federal civil rights laws prohibiting
discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, and
disability.
·
As we reported in
February 2019, Education data suggest that the restraint and seclusion of K-12
public school students is rare nationwide, though it disproportionately affects
students with disabilities and boys in general.
In broad terms, Education defines restraint as restricting a student’s
ability to freely move his or her torso, arms, legs, or head, and defines
seclusion as involuntarily confining a student alone in a room or area from
which the student is physically prevented from leaving.
·
We have work
under way on districts’ reporting practices for restraint and seclusion data in
response to a provision in the explanatory statement from the House Committee
on Appropriations accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018. As
part of our data reliability testing for that work, we analyzed the number of
districts that left fields pertaining to restraint and seclusion blank, or that
reported all zeros for those fields, to determine the prevalence of blanks or
zeros in the CRDC at the national, state, and district levels.
Our data reliability testing raised questions about
the completeness and accuracy of the CRDC restraint and seclusion data (my emphasis added).
· We are therefore
issuing this separate report on the issues we have identified to date regarding
potentially incomplete data. Because Education is currently collecting and
validating restraint and seclusion data for the 2017-18 school year, it is
important it take immediate steps to address underreporting before it publishes
these data.
·
For the most
recent CRDC—school year 2015-16—70 percent of the more than 17,000 school
districts in the U.S. reported zero incidents of restraint and zero incidents
of seclusion. In 39 states and the District of Columbia, more than half of the
school districts reported zero incidents; and in 12 states, 80 percent or more
of the districts reported zero incidents. However, our analyses of 2015-16 CRDC
data and review of Education documents indicate that CRDC data do not
accurately capture all incidents of restraint and seclusion in schools.
· While according
to Education’s business rule districts with more than 100,000 enrolled students
are likely to have at least one incident of restraint or seclusion, one-third
(10 of 30) of such districts in the country reported zero incidents of restraint
and zero incidents of seclusion in the 2015-16 school year.
· Documents from
Education that we reviewed indicated that the misreporting of zeros occurred in
smaller districts as well. These erroneous reports were detected either by the
media or in the course of larger investigations by Education into restraint and
seclusion, rather than by any systemic review of the CRDC data.
·
Collecting
accurate civil rights data is key to OCR’s mission to ensure equal access to
education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation through vigorous
enforcement of civil rights laws that protect students from discrimination on
the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, or disability. Federal
Standards for Internal Control state that agency management should use quality
information to achieve the entity’s objectives. These standards also note that
such data should be reasonably free from error and bias and faithfully
represent what they purport to represent, and that agency management should
evaluate sources of data for reliability. Absent reliable and accurate data,
neither Education nor the public can know the prevalence of restraint and
seclusion in public schools.
· Conclusion: Our analyses raise questions about whether the
confirmed instances of misreported zeros to the CRDC are indicative of a more
pervasive pattern of underreporting of restraint and seclusion in U.S. public
schools.
Although districts, not Education officials, are
required to certify their data as “true and correct,” the Department of
Education has repeatedly published restraint and seclusion data in its CRDC
without always correcting known reporting errors. Data left uncorrected
could further undermine the public’s confidence in these data and limit the
utility of a dataset intended to assist with federal civil rights monitoring,
enforcement, and oversight.
We believe the 2017-18 data collection is at risk for
similar reporting issues.
_ _ _ _ _
Commentary. Clearly,
the seclusion and restraint numbers above are an underestimate of what actually
occurred in our nation’s schools during the 2015-2016 school year. But until we have accurate data, we do not
know just how “bad” the problem is.
In order to get
accurate data, however, four things are needed:
· Clear
and objective seclusion and restraint definitions that are indisputable, and
that result in reliable and valid reporting;
· A
powerful balance of incentives, consequences, oversight, and accountability that
motivate and ensure that schools accurately report their incidence data;
· Data
management or student information systems that are user-friendly and
time-efficient, and that collect and analyze seclusion or restraint incident
reports in meaningful ways; and
· A
reporting protocol that differentiates different student groups, and that helps
to determine the root causes of the behavioral situations that result in a
student seclusion or restraint.
The latter two
points in the last bullet above will frame the remainder of this Blog.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Disaggregating Seclusion and Restraint Data by
Disability
In order to fully
understand any of the seclusion and restraints data for students with
disabilities, they need to be disaggregated across the thirteen disability
areas identified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA,
2004). The primary reason for this is
that seclusion and restraints vary across these disability areas, and this
variation is important to analyze and understand. . . especially if we are
going to decrease the need for these actions.
[CLICK HERE for a
Crucial Analysis of State Seclusion and Restraint Data by Disability. . . and
its Surprising Implications]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Analyzing the Root Causes of the Behaviors Triggering Seclusions and
Restraints
Even if a state’s
near-majority of seclusion and restraint incidents involved students with
autism and/or emotional disturbances, it is critical to not assume that there
are similar root causes for the behaviors “triggering” the need for such
drastic actions.
Indeed, every student
with a disability is different, and if we are going to choose and implement the
best services, supports, strategies, and interventions with these individual
students, we need to know the specific root causes for their challenges.
Thus, in the spirit
of an individualized education program, there is a need for an
individualized functional assessment to determine what that “program” needs
to be.
From a state perspective, all of these
individual assessments need to be collated to determine the patterns of
behavior that result in districts and schools using seclusions and restraints
for students with autism and emotional disturbances.
Conversely, the
states also should identify the patterns of multi-tiered services, supports,
strategies, and interventions that are preventing the need for seclusions
and restraints—that is, that are successfully preventing or helping staff
to respond to these students’ social, emotional, or behavioral upsets.
With these results,
State Departments of Education (SDoEs) and Districts can determine whether they
have the “right” services, supports, strategies, and interventions available,
and whether there are training needs or gaps that need to be addressed.
_ _ _ _ _
The “High-Hit” Root Causes for Students’ Challenging
Behavior
Relative to assessing the root causes of
students’ challenging behavior, there are three crucial initial principles.
[CLICK HERE for the
Full Blog Message with these Three Principles]
_ _ _ _ _
Beyond these Principles, there are at least ten
primary reasons why students demonstrate social, emotional, or behavioral
problems in their classrooms.
[CLICK HERE for the
Full Blog Message with these Ten Reasons]
_ _ _ _ _
Critically, if we do not know and understand
these root causes, we will likely never identify and implement the right
interventions or solutions.
For students whose behavior escalates to the
point that schools use seclusions and restraints, a big part of the root cause
analysis should also focus on their emotional control and coping skills, and
the situations that trigger the behavioral escalation. These assessments
must be ecological in nature. They need to look not just at the student,
but at how other people, task and situational demands, settings, and
interactions are related to problem at-hand.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
What Strategic or Intensive Interventions Can Replace
the Need for Seclusions and Restraints
From my perspective—and
given my continuous consulting with schools across the country—I believe that
one of the major reasons for schools’ need to resort to (unnecessary)
seclusions and restraints is the lack of “Tier II and Tier III” intervention
training and expertise.
In addition, there
also is not enough real, continuous, and collaborative coordination between districts’
related services and intervention professionals, and the community-based
clinicians (e.g., psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers) who
are available or are working with specific students.
In the former areas, many students with
significant social, emotional, behavioral, and/or mental health needs (again,
based on accurate functional assessments) often need one or more of the
following clinical interventions.
[CLICK HERE for the
Full Blog Message with the Lists of Clinical Interventions]
_ _ _ _ _
In addition to the listed interventions, many students
with significant social, emotional, behavioral, or mental health challenges
need additional interventions that include medication, intensity
community-based individual and family therapy, and specialized school
settings—so that the right interventions can be implemented in the right
ways.
This is, once again, why an ecological approach
is necessary, and why the integration of school, family, and community services
is essential.
At the same time, however, we know that some of
these students have such significant, diverse, and historical needs that there
are no silver bullets. Nonetheless, until schools have the skills,
resources, and capacity to select and implement one or more of the “right”
interventions listed, we really do not know the levels of success that we might
have with these students.
So. . . let’s put the “horse before the
cart.” Let’s get these interventions into the hands of the right school
professionals, and let’s see what happens. We need to empower our colleagues
with the tools to get the job done.
In the final analysis, I have never met anyone
working in the schools who wants to seclude or restrain a student. This
is not to excuse these incidents. . . it is to embark on a systematic plan—as outlined
above—to diminish their need.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
During the past
four weeks, I have worked intensively with a number of school districts—helping
them each to write a federal grant.
While the “core” of the grant proposals focus on improving school
climate and safety, the more “subtle” parts of the grant are directed to training
administrators, general and special education teachers, and related services
and clinical professionals in how to implement strategic and intensive services,
supports, strategies, and interventions to behaviorally challenging students.
Critically, in many
schools, their classroom climates are often dictated by the students with the
most significant social, emotional, and behavioral challenges. Given the presence of these students in every
school, the multi-tiered process must address the Tier I, Tier II, and Tier
III needs of all students—but especially the challenging students—simultaneously.
This is where the
current PBIS and SEL frameworks fail.
The PBIS framework
fails, because it is most often implemented in a sequential Tier I to Tier II
to Tier III approach—and most schools never get to the Tier III services,
supports, and interventions needed by the most challenging students.
The SEL framework
fails, because it does not even discuss the need for multi-tiered student services
and supports.
What is needed is an
evidence-based science-to-practice model—one that we have described in previous
Blog messages.
Unless we change
course relative to school discipline, classroom management, and student
self-management, very little is likely to change in the districts and schools with
large numbers of (disproportionate) behavioral problems related to trauma, disability,
bullying, emotional- and self-control gaps, and mental illnesses.
And thus,
concurrently, very little is likely to change in the districts and schools that
are responding to students’ upsets with large numbers of seclusions and
restraints—whether they were counted during the 2015-2016 school year or not.
And so, once again,
the needed federal, state, and local agenda must include the following:
· Clear
and objective seclusion and restraint definitions that are indisputable, and
that result in reliable and valid reporting;
· A
powerful balance of incentives, consequences, oversight, and accountability that
motivate and ensure that schools accurately report their incidence data;
· Data
management or student information systems that are user-friendly and
time-efficient, and that collect and analyze seclusion or restraint incident
reports in meaningful ways; and
· A
reporting protocol that differentiates different student groups, and that helps
to determine the root causes of the behavioral situations that result in a
student seclusion or restraint.
_ _ _ _ _
As always, I appreciate your dedication in
reading and thinking deeply about these issues.
These are issues related not only to the quality of our educational process,
but also to the necessity to advocate for our most-needy students.
If any of you—with your school or district
team—would like to talk with me by phone, Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. about
any of these (or other school improvement, academics or student discipline, or
multi-tiered services) issues or practices, all you need to do is contact me
and get on my schedule. The first
conference call is totally free.
Meanwhile, I hope that you are enjoying your
summer time off. . . it is well-deserved.
Until the next Blog, be successful and well
!!!
Best,
Howie
