'I'm not safe here': Schools ignore federal rules on restraint and seclusion
Photos show blood splattered across a small bare-walled room in a North Carolina school where a second grader repeatedly punched himself in the face in the fall of 2019, according to the child's mom.
His mother, Michelle Staten, says her son, who has autism and other conditions, reacted as many children with disabilities would when he was confined to the seclusion room at Buckhorn Creek Elementary.
"I still feel a lot of guilt about it as a parent," says Staten, who sent the photos to the federal government in a 2022 complaint letter. "My child was traumatized."
Documents show that restraint and seclusion were part of the special education plan the Wake County Public School System designed for Staten's son. Starting when he was in kindergarten in 2017, Staten says, her son was repeatedly restrained or forced to stay alone in a seclusion room.
Federal law requires school districts like Wake County to tell the U.S. Department of Education every time they physically restrain or seclude a student.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/01/16/1224837120/im-not-safe-here-schools-ignore-federal-rules-on-restraint-and-seclusion
And the district did not report. Repeatedly did not report. I understand this was one reason a friend in Page County, VA, removed her son from public school and home schooled him from fourth grade through high school.