Children Are Routinely Isolated In Some Fairfax County Schools. The District Didn’t Report It.
- Jenny Abamu
- Mar 16, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 2, 2019
Students who are a danger to themselves or others are sometimes physically restrained in school or isolated in a room. For years, Fairfax County Public Schools reported to the federal government that students were never physically restrained or confined in spaces. But I interviewed several parents and gathered many documents showing that wasn't the case.
I first learned about this story after observing abnormalities in the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights data. Then I obtained documents revealing hundreds of cases where Fairfax County Schools students were restrained or secluded multiple times. Some students were as young as six years old. A single child was confined to a room more than 100 times in a school year.
IMPACT: Following this investigation, Fairfax County officials said they received messages from special education advocates, concerned parents and community members about their seclusion and restraint policies. In response, they launched “a complete and thorough evaluation and review” of seclusion and restraint in schools.
The review found that school officials had been remiss in their reporting for many years. Though the school district had guidelines governing the use of seclusion and restraint, there was evidence that those guidelines were not followed. Hours of discussion following this reveal left district officials with a long list of tasks that have budget and policy implications.
Other follow up stories:
MEDIA APPEARANCES: In response to this story I was interviewed by The Kojo Nnamdi Show, the Education Writers Association, and Sirius XM's The Big Picture with Olivier Knox.
MEDIA PICK-UPS: This story was picked up by several media outlets like:
The Washington Post:
WUSA9:
Fox5DC:
DC Line
DCist
SiriusXM
Washington City Paper
etc.
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