Students at Vermont schools have been subject to restraint or seclusion — meaning forcible immobilization or isolation — at least 125 times this school year, according to newly released data compiled by the state Agency of Education.
At least 55 Vermont students have been subjected to restraint and seclusion from October 14, 2022, to early April, according to the agency, which presented the data to members of the House Education Committee Thursday morning. In one instance, a single student was reported to have been restrained or secluded 25 times.
The data is intended to represent the most serious instances of restraint and seclusion in schools: incidents that lasted longer than half an hour, caused serious injuries, or broke state rules.
Because of that — and the fact that schools are responsible for reporting incidents — the data likely accounts for only a fraction of the total restraint and seclusion cases.
“This is the data that we have,” Ted Fisher, a spokesperson for the Vermont Agency of Education, told lawmakers. “There may have been incidences (sic) that weren’t reported appropriately and that itself is in violation of the rules. But we see what we see.”
It’s not clear how the most recent figures compare to similar periods in past years. Records from previous years do not appear to be readily available, and Fisher told lawmakers Thursday that officials have changed their data collection practices.
“In the past, we haven’t collated the data in a way that’s really meaningful,” he said.
The terms restraint and seclusion refer to practices in which a school staff member physically immobilizes or isolates a student. That can involve pinning a child to the ground on their stomach or back, or leaving them isolated in a small room.
Such practices are permitted in Vermont schools but are intended to be used only in very rare instances. State rules allow restraint and seclusion only if a student “poses an imminent and substantial risk of physical injury” and if “less restrictive” options have failed.
Now, however, lawmakers in the House Education Committee are weighing further restrictions.
H.409, a bill introduced last month, would prohibit seclusions entirely and ban restraint that is “life-threatening, restricts breathing, or restricts blood flow, including prone and supine restraint.”
Members of the committee began considering the legislation in mid-March, and the bill did not pass out of the committee before the March 17 crossover deadline. Committee chair Rep. Peter Conlon, D-Cornwall, said that lawmakers will likely continue discussing it next year, in the second half of the two-year legislative biennium.
The legislative attention comes months after the frequent use of restraints and seclusions in the Harwood Unified Union School District drew attention and controversy. In the 2017-2018 school year alone, district officials there recorded a total of 451 restraints. (The federal Department of Education collects data on the practice, but its publications often lag years behind.)
The district is currently reassessing its policies around the practice.
Under Vermont rules, schools only have to report instances of restraint or seclusion to the state if the incident causes death, serious injury, lasts longer than 30 minutes, or breaks state rules. Each of the 125 incidents noted in the data presented Thursday fit into at least one of those categories.
The incidents involve 55 students at both public and private schools, although Fisher, citing student privacy laws, was vague about exactly what happened in specific incidents.
Since October 2022, five instances of restraint or seclusion led to “injury requiring outside medical treatment or hospitalization” for either the student or a staff member, according to the agency’s data.
In 80 instances, a restraint or seclusion lasted for more than 30 minutes, and in 36 cases, the practices broke state rules, according to the data. It was not clear exactly what rules were broken in those 36 cases.
Of the 55 students involved, 36 experienced only one restraint or seclusion within the listed time period. Fourteen students experienced between two and five incidents, and five students each experienced six or more. One student experienced 25 instances of restraint or seclusion — the most of anyone, according to the data.
“So that means one student was restrained 25 times?” Rep. Sarah Austin, D-Colchester, asked at Thursday’s hearing.
Citing privacy law, Fisher declined to answer directly.
“What I will note is that at least one student had 25 instances of restraint and seclusion,” he said. “And I think that speaks for itself.”
