Parents sue Fairfax schools, allege improper seclusion and restraint of students with disabilities

Parents and disability rights groups are suing the largest school system in Virginia, alleging students with disabilities experience discrimination, trauma and physical harm through the excessive and improper use of seclusion and restraint in Fairfax County Public Schools.

The parents, Jennifer Tidd, Pamela Ononiwu and Ashley Thomas, are accusing the 189,000-student school system of using the practices to “silence, detain, segregate, and punish students with disabilities,” according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Fairfax school officials said they have completed a thorough and independent review of seclusion and restraint guidelines, and added staff, increased training and appointed an ombudsman for special education. The school system also created a task force to look at best practices for restraint and seclusion. The parents who filed the lawsuit lambasted that task force as a “public relations ploy.”

"We acknowledge that the use of restraint and seclusion is an especially sensitive and challenging issue and is appropriate only when less restrictive alternatives fail," Superintendent Scott Brabrand said in statement released late Tuesday. "We will continue to base our procedures and practices on that guiding principle."

Tidd’s son was secluded on at least 745 occasions and excluded from class several hundred more times over seven years, according to court papers. Tidd said she did not receive notice or documentation of the instances of seclusion within 24 hours, despite school system guidelines that say she should have been notified in that time frame.

“We have really no way of knowing what the total is,” Tidd said. “Our trust has been breached.”

The parents, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of four students, are asking the federal court to bar the school system from using either of the closely related practices on students with disabilities until an alternative system is implemented...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/parents-sue-fairfax-schools-allege-improper-seclusion-and-restraint-of-students-with-disabilities/2019/10/08/066166dc-e9f8-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html?fbclid=IwAR2jBM7dYNR7fZZwflf3IaCf6xormBz2_s7KU7CkcsyAV_ekV1gNcbbbwC8