Legislation would make it easier to restrain and forcibly move Maine students

Driven by increasing reports of student misbehavior, some teachers and administrators want to make it easier for staff to physically restrain students, a practice which is only supposed to be used in emergency situations under current state law.

Most states have some limitations on when schools can use restraints and seclusion, temporarily immobilizing students and putting them in empty rooms until they can calm down. 

Before Maine passed its current law in 2021, the state was restraining students at the highest rate in the country per capita, and secluding them at the second highest rate per capita, according to federal data cited by Disability Rights Maine at the time.

These incidents disproportionately involved students with disabilities, leading disability rights advocates to push for the current law, which requires school staff to justify the use of restraint, only rely on them in cases where there was “imminent danger of serious physical injury,” use the least amount of force necessary and end interventions as soon as the danger has passed. 

But in light of increasing behavioral challenges, some administrators and teachers want to lower the legal threshold for restraint and seclusion. On Wednesday, the Maine Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee is holding a public hearing on legislation, introduced by Rep. Holly Sargent (D-York), that would make several changes to state law.

Specifically, the proposal would broaden the definition of “physical escort,” striking the word “voluntary” from descriptions of how staff can move or touch a student. The bill, LD 1248, would also decrease the level of danger posed from “serious physical injury” to just “injury.”

Restraint and seclusion practices across the country have been linked to trauma, serious injuries, and even death. Disability rights advocates are warning that any changes must prioritize student safety and mental health, and that the use of restraint and seclusion generally goes against both.

Before the law was passed, schools would sometimes drag students to seclusion rooms without classifying the action as a restraint, said Ben Jones, a former lawyer for Disability Rights Maine who now serves as director of legal and policy initiatives for Lives in the Balance, a nonprofit that advocates against punitive, exclusionary disciplinary practices in schools.

Research suggests state not doing enough to help Maine districts manage student behavior

The push for relaxing the rules is coming from districts like MSAD 11 in Gardiner, where administrators say frequent behavioral incidents, especially among younger students, have left them without the tools to respond. 

Principal Victoria Duguay of River View Community School said that under the current law, educators aren’t allowed to escort students to safe spaces unless they consent — something that doesn’t always happen in the midst of a behavioral crisis.

“When a student is dysregulated to the point where they’re clearing a classroom and potentially shutting a building down, we didn’t have any tools available to escort a student to a safe room if the student didn’t want to go on their own,” Duguay said. 

She also pointed to the aspect of current law that requires a threat of “serious physical injury.”

“Not having that ability to be able to get that child to a safe place is that piece in the law that we’re struggling with, because they’re not presenting that serious physical harm,” she said.

Attorneys consulted by the district said that because most of the third to fifth graders the community school serves are young, they do not present a serious risk of injury to adults even when they lash out. 

Because of educator feedback, Maine’s largest teachers union, the Maine Education Association, is supporting this legislation, along with a few other bills intended to offer de-escalation training and mental health support in schools, said MEA President Jesse Hargrove.

“We want to make sure that we are following least restrictive interventions, but we also want to make sure that other students and staff are safe,” he said.

“The state law is an effort to sort of create some space so that the folks at the local level have a bit more flexibility to address the concerns that they are seeing within their districts and school sites.”

When asked if they are worried about the use of restraints increasing under a more relaxed law, MEA and Gardiner administrators, Duguay and Superintendent Patricia Hopkins, said they trusted educators to use the least restrictive processes possible.

However, Atlee Reilly, managing attorney of Disability Rights Maine’s educational advocacy, said he’s concerned about the potential impacts of the bill. For example, because the proposal would remove the word “voluntary” from the text that covers how a student could be physically moved, the law would no longer count involuntary movements as a restraint. 

Reilly argued that while the number of reported incidents would likely decrease, that “doesn’t mean that people are going to be putting their hands on kids less.” He added, “I think that is almost certainly going to go up.”