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What in the heck is going on at the Kaskaskia Special Education District?

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Illinois

* Kaskaskia Special Education District home page…

KSED #801 is a special education cooperative whose Central Office is located in Centralia Illinois. KSED #801 partners with its thirty member school districts within the Clinton, Marion, and Washington Counties. KSED strives to provide integral special education services, support, and leadership to our member districts and the needs of the students within their districts.

One division of KSED…

Bridges Learning Center (BLC) is a therapeutic education center that serves students with severe behavioral, emotional, and developmental disorders. Self-contained classrooms are located at BLC that provide services to students enrolled in grades kindergarten through high school.

The mission statement for the Bridges Learning Center is to

“provide a safe, caring, and therapeutic learning environment where students with emotional, social, and educational challenges can best develop the skills and character necessary to achieve at his or her highest potential and transition to a successful future.”

* Now, let’s go back to the ProPublica/Tribune story on forced student isolation…

By 8:35 a.m. on Dec. 19, 2017, all five of the timeout “booths” at Bridges Learning Center near Centralia were already full. School had been in session for five minutes.

Each booth is about 6 by 8 feet, with a steel door. That day, one held a boy who had hung on a basketball rim and swore at staff when they told him to stop. In another, a boy who had used “raised voice tones.”

Two boys were being held because they hadn’t finished classwork. Inside the fifth room was a boy who had tried to “provoke” other students when he got off a bus. Staff told him he’d be back again “to serve 15 minutes every morning due to his irrational behavior.”

None of those reasons for seclusion is permitted under Illinois law.

Yet, over the course of that one day, the rooms stayed busy, with two turning over like tables in a restaurant, emptying and refilling four times. The other three were occupied for longer periods, as long as five hours for the boy who hung off the basketball rim. In all, Bridges staff isolated students 20 times.

Seclusion is supposed to be rare, a last resort. But at Bridges, part of the Kaskaskia Special Education District in southern Illinois, and at many other schools, it is often the default response.

Bridges used seclusion 1,288 times in the 15 months of school that reporters examined. The school has about 65 students.

According to the Tribune/ProPublica Illinois analysis of Bridges records, 72% of the seclusions were not prompted by a safety issue, as the law requires.

Only 65 students and yet forced seclusion was used 1,288 times in 15 months? That place needs to be investigated pronto.

* Meanwhile, this is from Hope School in Springfield…

Rich,

In today’s Capitol Fax, you write about the ProPublica/Chicago Tribune article about the widespread use of “isolation rooms” to deal with children experiencing behavioral issues. We also read that alarming article and wanted to share Hope’s stance on these rooms and our own answer to providing the best care for our students.

At Hope, we specialize in educating children who represent a broad spectrum of learning styles and abilities. We recognized years ago that so-called “isolation rooms” are not an appropriate answer to the behavioral needs of children, nor are they appropriate for use on any child with a disability. Hope utilizes open sensory rooms for our students to elect to use them who need a quiet space to cope with overwhelming sensory stimuli, or to re-regulate. These rooms are located within classrooms and the students are always near their peers and the classroom staff. Students are not permitted to enter the room unless accompanied by a staff person. The goal of these rooms is to be a calm atmosphere where students can choose retreat. The rooms do not have a door so the children are free to come and go. Our trained behavioral staff monitor each classroom to ensure that these rooms are being used correctly at all times. For children with sensory issues, a room such as this has been proven to be helpful in dealing with the overwhelming feelings they may experience in a situation where they become overstimulated.

We strive to provide the very best learning environment for all of our students. The idea of isolation rooms is antiquated and does nothing to help a child learn. In fact, it does the exact opposite. At Hope, our mission is to educate our students in the most inclusive environments, which is why we focus on adapting our classroom environments to help our children learn and grow to the best of their abilities.

Jodi Ogilvy
Director of Communications
Hope

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:22 pm

Comments

===Only 65 students and yet forced seclusion was used 1,288 times in 15 months?===

I literally couldn’t stomach reading all of the article but I got that far and had the same question. Simple math tells me that’s about 86 times a month and that the average student was put in isolation about 20 times.

They do need to be investigated, and criminally charged, and probably sued by the parents

Comment by Joe Bidenopolous Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:27 pm
If there was a time to merge school districts and downsize superintendent staff it is now. This local control has created zero accountability or checks and balances. What is going on in Kaskaskia doesn’t happen in prisons or anywhere else in society.

Comment by Almost the weekend Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:28 pm
Hope School is taking all the fun out of torture chambers.

It’s time we recognize these isolation rooms aren’t being used to manage the emotions of children, but to provide an outlet for adults in places like the Kaskaskia Special District.

Comment by Thomas Paine Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:29 pm
This has been bothering me all night. I am sickened by this. My daughter works with special needs people and she is aghast. People should be prosecuted for this.

Comment by Former State Employee Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:34 pm
Michael Malice appears to be somewhat correct when he said: “public schools are literal prisons for children and the only time many people will ever encounter physical violence in their lives. ”
https://tinyurl.com/wguycgb

Comment by Steve Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:36 pm
I appreciate the focus on KSED #801. As disturbing as it was to read the entire article yesterday I found the facts of this particular District particularly disturbing. Quite a few years ago I knew several teachers that worked with these “special” students, but do not recall them ever saying anything about these seclusion rooms. That is not to say that they did not exist then.

“Bridges used seclusion 1,288 times in the 15 months of school that reporters examined. The school has about 65 students.” And to think my tax monies support this madness.

It will be interesting to see if there is any local groundswell of outrage about this.

Comment by illini Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:41 pm
“Michael Malice appears to be somewhat correct”

What a nice, ignorant over-generalization.

Comment by Anon E Moose Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:49 pm
I would hope that Hope is following best practices. They are one of only a few (relatively) in the state that are devoted full time to educating special needs children. What makes me sad is that this is avoidable with common sense and community involvement. For heaven sake, this is happening at schools where adults are looking the other way. What is happening to our society ?

Comment by Education First Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 12:49 pm
That is crazy. I know I said yesterday in the comments that isolation can be necessary with extremely violent students, but I do believe it should always be supervised and just to the point to get the student to calm down to not be a danger to himself or others.

Comment by Chicagonk Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 1:14 pm
The board that oversees KSED is made up of the school administrators from the school districts that send children to Bridges. Unlike many school boards who are voted in and are local community members, this board is made up of K-12 administrators who should be very aware of Illinois school code. It is time for an evaluate and review the overall implementation of IDEA law in Illinois. It is time to make mental health supports and training essential in every school throughout the state.

https://sites.google.com/ksed801.com/ksed/about-us/board-policies

Comment by Busy Mom Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 4:28 pm
Cue more lawyers lining up to sue the KSED employees and Board in their individual capacities for damages under Section 1983, ADA, and some other laws I can’t even think of. The Defendant’s explanations will be a dark smokescreen–not that it will help. Good thing they’re trained and certified professionals (max snark).

Comment by revvedup Wednesday, Nov 20, 19 @ 5:12 pm