MONTAGUE — The Disability Law Center didn’t find any systemic signs of “abuse or neglect” at Hillcrest Elementary School despite parent complaints that triggered an investigation this year, but it did make seven recommendations to improve the school’s time-out room.
The room, which the school calls a “calm-down room,” was the focus of complaints by a handful of parents who were concerned the room was being used in a discriminatory manner for students with disabilities and have since pulled their children from the school over the past year. One of those students was injured after hitting his head on the room’s wall, school nurse reports obtained by The Recorder showed.
Caitlin Parton, a lawyer from the nonprofit advocacy center, visited the school on Feb. 12. The investigation started that month after the center received a complaint from the families in January about the treatment of several Hillcrest students.
Parton found at least two design flaws with the room — the possibility that the door could be locked from both inside and outside, and the inability to see all parts of the room through the door’s small window — as well as procedural problems in how school staff keep track of when and how the room is used and notify parents of its use, according to a report provided to The Recorder Thursday.
The calm-down room is a converted storage room with concrete walls and one small window in the door. Since the start of the investigation, the school had scenes from children’s books painted on the walls.
A Recorder investigation found that many of the county’s schools have similar rooms, but some have padded walls, more windows and use various protective equipment to contain students in crisis.
“After reading the report I contacted the DLC and was told these findings were not intended for publication, nor to be the last word on this matter, but to be thought of as an invitation for us to respond, preferably in conversation, with our opinions about what they found, in hopes that through ongoing dialogue we would arrive at a mutual understanding of improvements for Hillcrest,” Gill-Montague Superintendent Michael Sullivan wrote in a response to the report.
Sullivan said the district plans to work with the law center to make changes at the school. “We welcome the DLC recommendations and have already implemented some and will soon implement the remainder. In some cases we are taking actions going beyond the scope of their recommendations to ensure student well-being and consistent implementation of best practices.”
The center found that students could conceivably lock themselves inside the room without the constant supervision of a staff member. Sullivan, in his response, wrote that the lock was removed in February, and previously told The Recorder that students were never locked in the room.
When first asked by The Recorder, Superintendent Sullivan denied that the door could be locked, but said that sometimes a teacher might hold the door shut when a child is inside. State regulations prohibit students from being placed in a space where they are unable to leave.
According to an advisory issued in July 2015 by the state director for special education, students displaying self-injurious behavior must be accompanied by a staff member in the same setting. Staff may stand outside the room with the door closed if it is “not safe for the staff member to be present with the student.”
Parton also wrote that she observed that the window in the door was small enough that students could duck out of sight. Sullivan, in his response, said the window will be widened this summer and a convex mirror will be installed in the opposite corner.
Jessica Robinson, the mother of Landon Cummings, one of the students pulled from the school, said that when school officials contacted her about her son’s head injuries and behavioral issues, they never mentioned the room. Landon is now being homeschooled, but Robinson said her son is enrolled in a school for the fall.
“We found a good school, it doesn’t have a room and it actually deals with students,” she said.
The law center found that parents are not always notified when the calm-down room is used and the method of notification varies. There was also no formal or consistent log of the use of the room.
Sullivan said a more consistent record-keeping and notification system will be implemented, and has drafted new guidelines for staff on when to use the room.
He maintained that the district “does not believe the room has been used for punitive purposes,” but rather that de-escalation methods used prior to the room were not properly reported at all times.
If a child is kept in the room for more than 20 minutes, parents are notified either by phone at the end of the day or through a notebook that travels home with the student. The law center said the school should consider notifying parents of children put in the room for less time.
The law center also found that students are sent to the calm down room for behaviors related to their disabilities. The majority of children who are taken to the calm down room are part of the therapeutic classroom, a separate classroom with only children with disabilities in it.
“The calm down room has been used as punishment for behaviors related to a child’s disability,” Parton said in the report. “Being isolated in the calm down room in response to behaviors directly related to their disabilities is punitive.”
Sullivan disputed that assertion, saying the room is only used after other methods to calm the student have failed. He wrote that those methods are always used, but those actions may not always be reported properly.
The report went on to explain that these children have diagnoses of trauma, reactionary disorder and oppositional defiant disorder.
You can reach Lisa Spear at:
lspear@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 280
You can reach Tom Relihan at:
trelihan@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 264
On Twitter, @RecorderTom