The U.S. Department Of Education plans to offer school districts guidance on restraint and seclusion before the next school year begins, officials said Thursday, even as Congressional efforts on the issue continue to appear stalled.
Alexa Posny, the Education Department’s top special education official, told a federal autism advisory committee Thursday morning that her agency will issue guidance to schools this fall around the same time it releases the first ever national data on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools.
The guidance, Posny said, will be an effort to advise schools on how to handle an issue which is currently loosely regulated through a patchwork of inconsistent state and local rules.
“There are no federal regulations that exist, so it makes it very hard for us at the Department of Education to go out and say you can and can’t do this,” Posny told the safety subcommittee of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. “We have no role in enforcement at this point.” (Read all of Disability Scoop’s coverage of restraint and seclusion >>)
Using restraint and seclusion is an addictive behavior.