After report, Illinois officials vow to stop punishing students with solitary confinement

Listening from outside, school staff reportedly did not intervene as children cried, injured themselves and begged to leave their small timeout rooms. But they did take meticulous notes.

“I’d rather die. You’re torturing me!” one student said, according to records obtained by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune as part of a broad investigation.

“Please someone respond to me,” notes document another child pleading. “I’m sorry I ripped the paper. I overreacted. … Please just let me out. Is anyone out there?”

A first-grader started banging his head against concrete and plywood walls, leading a staffer to write at one point, “Nurse filling out concussion form,” according to the investigation. But a month later, notes indicate, he was back in the room — hurting himself again and so dizzy when he stood up that he “almost fell over.”

These accounts and more, published Tuesday in ProPublica and the Tribune’s exposé of school practices across Illinois, have stirred an outcry from people shocked that a punishment found in prisons would be common in classrooms. Reporters reviewed notes from lockups that were triggered by misbehavior as minor as failing to complete work and using “raised voice tones,” in apparent violation of state law...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/11/20/illinois-officials-vow-stop-putting-students-solitary-confinement-after-damning-report/