U.S. Office of Civil Rights reaches agreement with Davis Joint Unified on seclusion and restraint
In the wake of a student death in 2018, Davis Joint Unified agreed to change its policies, training and record-keeping related to secluding and restraining students with disabilities, the U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday.
Under the agreement between the district and the department’s Office of Civil Rights, Davis Joint Unified will improve the way it monitors students with disabilities who are placed at private schools. That includes better record-keeping of seclusion and restraint incidents, training school staff and taking other measures to ensure students are safe and families are well informed.
Secluding and restraining students is legal in California if a student is an immediate physical threat to themselves or others. It’s also legal for districts to pay for students in special education to attend private schools if the district can’t provide services the student needs. In this case, Davis Joint Unified referred a 13-year-old boy with autism to a nonpublic school in El Dorado Hills, where he collapsed after he was restrained for about an hour in November 2018. He later died at a local hospital.
“I am grateful for Davis Joint Unified School District’s commitment to take important steps to ensure that its students with disabilities are not denied a free and appropriate public education as a result of the use of restraint or seclusion whether they are placed in district schools or nonpublic school settings,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. “The tragic death of a child subjected to prolonged and repeated restraint at a school placement through this district underscores the urgency for school communities everywhere to carefully examine their restraint and seclusion practices to safeguard children in their care, in addition to their obligation to satisfy the federal civil rights laws we enforce.”
Under Assembly Bill 2657, which passed in 2018, California schools are required to report seclusion-and-restraint incidents annually to the state, including incidents that occur at private schools. The Office of Civil Rights also collects similar data.