Are Alabama schools still illegally secluding children? Official reports donât say.

After AL.com inquiries into the practice of seclusion and restraint in Alabama schools, state officials will update how they track and record incidents.

But questions remain about reporting in recent years – and whether anyone in the state was keeping track. In July, Alabama delivered some records, after three years of requests from AL.com, but they offer no detail, conflict with local and federal reports and do not match AL.com’s own reporting.

“We’re making the assumption that they’re doing everything right,” said Candice Cortiella, executive director of The Advocacy Institute, about poor data and secretive processes surrounding seclusion and restraint. “That’s not necessarily the best assumption to make, right?”

Spreadsheets of reported incidents show that the state department only could provide numbers for a quarter of Alabama’s school districts and only for three of the six years requested.

“We gave you everything we have,” State Superintendent Eric Mackey said. The department was unable to explain what happened to the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 records.

What we know

Alabama does not allow schools to use seclusion, the practice of locking or isolating a student alone in a room. Alabama allows staff to physically restrain a student if necessary to protect the student or other people; staff are not allowed to use restraints as punishment, or to mechanically strap a student down or chemically drug them into submission. Prone restraint, or laying students face-down on a flat surface, is also prohibited.

The table below shows numbers of incidents reported by local school districts to the Alabama Department of Education.

The state’s reports, one for each of the three school years, are titled “Seclusion and Restraint” with a line item for each school district. A single column contained either a number, an asterisk indicated 10 or fewer incidents or was left blank. Reports of seclusion and restraint were not separated into separate columns.

The vast majority of Alabama school districts listed in the state reports have blanks in the column for reported incidents. A spokesman said a blank means zero incidents were reported to the state, but AL.com found that at least one district had, in fact, reported numbers that were missing from that state data.

An asterisk denotes at least one incident but fewer than 11.

In an effort to determine what the single column of numbers represent, AL.com asked the three school districts that reported the highest numbers for the 2021-22 school year – Hoover City, Alabaster City and Shelby County – for more information.

All three said all of the incidents were cases of physical restraint, allowed under the state rule. Each indicated that they do not use seclusion and that use of physical restraint is documented.

Shelby County Schools Communications Director Cindy Warner said many schools have calm-down corners and sensory rooms. Students in those spaces are supervised by an adult who encourages the student to use self-calming strategies and assists the student in working through the situation.

“Most of the students who were restrained are from self-contained behavior units located at schools across the district,” Warner said. “Teachers and behavior specialists work with these students on coping skills, anger management, conflict resolution, and other skills. Physical restraint is used as a last resort and only if the student is going to be a danger to himself/herself or others.”

Physical restraint is used as a last resort and only if the student is going to be a danger to himself/herself or others, Warner said.

Bad data

In an attempt to verify the state’s data, AL.com asked several large school districts to confirm that they had reported zero incidents in recent school years.

According to the state department’s records, Baldwin County had zero incidents of seclusion or restraint. But Baldwin County provided reports to AL.com showing they in fact reported hundreds of incidents in both 2021-22 and 2022-23.

Baldwin County Communications Director Chasity Riddick provided proof that the district submitted the reports to two people in the state department.

The department did not respond when asked why Baldwin County’s report was not included in the data they provided AL.com.

Poor record-keeping is not unique to Alabama, according to Cortiella. Cortiella has followed efforts to collect better information on the number of incidents of seclusion and restraint for many years.

First off, she said, asking schools to report their own numbers is problematic.

“We’re at the mercy of the schools and districts to self-report,” Cortiella said. Because publicly reporting the use of seclusion and restraint can raise red flags, she said, “There certainly would be a human inclination to try to tamp [the number of incidents] down if they can, if they could.”

But low numbers and a lack of reports don’t necessarily mean that it’s not happening, Cortiella said. She recommends setting parameters that would trigger a state review and that could mean reporting no incidents or reporting a high number of incidents.

“A lot of attention seems to be paid on the side of ‘you’re reporting a lot of kids so what is your problem,’” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be any attention being paid to ‘you’re reporting no kids so what is your problem?’”

In 2020, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found multiple problems with the federal Office for Civil Rights seclusion and restraint data collection. GAO made six recommendations for quality checks to get more accurate information which included setting parameters like those Cortiella mentioned.

Because the state department did not provide 2017-18 data as requested, it isn’t possible to verify if the state is receiving the same information schools report to the federal Office for Civil Rights for their every-other-year data collection.

The U.S. Office for Civil Rights is expected to release data for the 2020-21 school year soon, which AL.com plans to compare what schools reported to the state and what was reported to federal officials.

Accountability

Getting accurate numbers is important, but doing something with the numbers is something different entirely.

Cortiella said under federal special education law, state education agencies are required to monitor and follow up on reports for students with disabilities. Alabama’s reports do not include information about whether the student that is restrained or secluded has a disability.

There is no federal law addressing restraint and seclusion, leaving states free to make their own rules. Alabama is one of six states that specifically bans seclusion in public schools according to reporting from AL.com affiliate NJ.com.

The state board’s 2011 rule does not specify any actions the department is required to take regarding incidents listed on reports, only that districts submit the reports to the department. It does not specify what happens when a teacher or other staff member violates the rule, either.

Mackey said districts report inappropriate incidents directly to the state department. State officials do not rely on the annual report.

“If we get a report that somebody has restrained a child or secluded a child that is beyond what the code allows, then we would absolutely initiate an investigation,” Mackey said. “And there’s a whole process for that.”

Mackey was not aware of any investigations that have been initiated in recent years.

“I literally do not know of any such accusations in my time [as superintendent] that have been about inappropriate seclusion or restraint,” he said.

Education Department attorney Jason Swann said they may have received calls that were looked into, but those were resolved after being deemed “inaccurate or wrong or fake or from another state” and no full investigations or procedures to revoke anyone’s teaching certificate were initiated.

“There’s no question,” Mackey said, “if we got a report from a district or a report from third-party sources that ABC school district down the road is restraining kids every day, even if it were allowed by the Code, I can assure you that Dr. Jeter would be following up and saying okay, what’s going on or sending somebody down there.”

But not knowing how many incidents of seclusion and restraint there are makes it hard to determine whether schools are overusing these methods or if there are patterns within districts that need addressing.

“I don’t think there’s a serious issue,” Mackey said, “because I think it would be reported [through other pathways]. I really do believe that.”

Again, there are no numbers to back up Mackey’s assertion.

“I do think we need a better reporting system,” he said. “And that’s why we’ve gone to a new reporting system.”

Mackey is referring to a Google form created for 2023 reporting that standardized the way districts file reports with the Department. The form did not initially include a separate column for incidents of seclusion, but that column was added after AL.com asked whether numbers were combined.