Ms. Musheno said that while states have made progress by enacting legislation to protect students from these practices, at least 11 states do not have policies in place. In many states, she said, parents are not notified that their child has been placed in seclusion or has been restrained.
“We need a federal floor,” she said.
Her organization is part of a coalition working on federal legislation that would make it illegal for any school receiving federal funds to seclude or physically restrain a child, except when necessary to protect students and staff, and that would provide training to help educators address challenging behavior.
Ilene Schwartz, a professor of education and the director of the Haring Center for Inclusive Education at the University of Washington in Seattle, said that educators are sometimes “asked to do things that are near to impossible,” and are hamstrung by limited options and resources, including time and training.
It’s a “very hard job, and an underappreciated job,” she said.
Washington lags behind other states in serving students with disabilities, according to a yearlong investigation published by the news station King 5, which estimated that many of the state’s 150,000 school-age children with learning disabilities were being left behind because of a lack of funding.
The Governor’s Office of the Education Ombuds in Washington, which works with families and school districts to resolve disagreements and complaints, received 920 calls from families, community professionals and educators last year, about 35 percent of which involved concerns about special education programs, said Rose Spidell, an education ombuds with the office.
Ms. Spidell said that families are sometimes seeking reassurance that there is empathy and love for the child by asking, “Would you do this for your own son?”
Lucas’s case is “heartbreaking,” she said, but it showed the need for more direct and frank conversations about the myths and stigmas around disabilities.
