House of Representatives Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Hearing - We are here to discuss the Federal Government's role in protecting the health and safety of students and school staff. Every student in our country, from Congressman Morelle's district in New York to my district in the Northern Marianas, and all points in between, deserve a healthy school climate where they can learn and grow. And every educator deserves to feel safe in the classroom.
Unfortunately, we know that this is too often not the case. The widespread use of dangerous restraint and seclusion discipline practices are undermining school climate and putting students and school staff at risk. A growing number of research shows that each year hundreds of thousands of students exercise--experience restraint or seclusion. In a 2015-2016 school alone 122,000 students were physically restrained, mechanically restrained, or secluded.
While we do not have data on injuries to school staff, anecdotal evidence suggests that there are untold numbers of educators who are also physically and emotionally harmed by the use of seclusion and restraint. Without proper training teachers conducting restraint can further escalate the situation and unintentionally inflict costly injury on themselves, which can require them to seek physical rehabilitation. All of these scenarios require resources and time that could be otherwise spent in the classroom teaching students. And while Federal law restricts the use of these practices for children in hospitals and treatment facilities to emergency circumstances, Congress has never addressed seclusion or restraint for students in our Nation's classrooms.
This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
