Lawmakers eye new bill on restraining students

Key lawmakers want to ban schools from using "seclusion rooms" to control students with developmental disabilities and restrict how and when school staff may physically restrain them.

"Restraint" and "seclusion" have become buzz words in the disabilities community, as news reports continue to surface of excessive force and isolation of children with autism and other disabilities.

Vikas Kamat of Citrus County says he is the parent of one such child. Last year, a local television station aired a surveillance video of Kamat's 14-year-old autistic son being dragged down a hall on his knees and thrown into an isolation room at a public school in Lecanto. Kamat said he demanded the videotapes after his son came home with torn clothing.

"You just need to look at the video to understand the gravity of this," Kamat said. "I just want to make sure no other parent ever goes through this."

He was one of several parents who appeared at the Capitol on Wednesday with Rep. Dorothy Hukill, a Republican from Port Orange who has filed a bill to reign in the use of such tactics.

"Children across our state have suffered physical injury, trauma, mental health problems and for some, sadly, even death from the misuse of restraint and seclusion," she said.

Florida is one of only 19 states without official policies governing the use of physical restraint and forced seclusion in schools, Hukill said. Her bill would set strict rules for manually restraining children with disabilities and outlaw their isolation in seclusion rooms.

She is not the first lawmaker to tackle the issue. Rep. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, and Sen. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, filed the bill last year, but it made little progress. Wednesday, Sachs said the House version stalled because she is a Democrat.

Hukill has backing for this year's version from at least one influential House Republican, budget chief David Rivera of Miami. Gardiner confirmed Wednesday that he intends to sponsor the bill again in the Senate.

The proposal also ran into trouble last year partly because of concerns that, in a difficult budget year, implementing it would cost money. Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, said that was a reason the education committee she chairs did not consider it. But she "would be happy to hear the bill" this year, she said, having since listened to testimony from parents on the subject.

Hukill said this year's bill may carry an as-yet undetermined cost as well, given the need for things such as teacher training. But the state incurs hidden costs by not addressing the issue, she argued, noting the example of a student so traumatized by excessive restraint that he requires round-the-clock care. "Let's talk about what it will cost us if we don't pass this."