Close school seclusion rooms next year, New Hanover parents and advocates say

Sydney Hoover, Wilmington StarNews
·4 min read

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A local advocacy group is pushing for New Hanover County Schools to end its use of seclusion and restraint by the 2023-24 school year.

The group, Love Our Children, has recently seen success with its advocacy. Earlier this year the district moved to end out-of-school suspensions for children under eight except in extreme circumstances, partly because of its work.

Now, the group is shifting focus to its next initiative: eliminating the use of seclusion rooms and adopting more collaborative and proactive solutions.

Seclusion rooms in New Hanover County Schools tend to be small, well-lit and ventilated rooms lined with blue padding. The rooms are used when students become aggressive and are a space where they can scream, hit walls, or other things to calm down when they become overwhelmed.
Seclusion rooms in New Hanover County Schools tend to be small, well-lit and ventilated rooms lined with blue padding. The rooms are used when students become aggressive and are a space where they can scream, hit walls, or other things to calm down when they become overwhelmed.

Peter Rawitsch, one of Love Our Children’s founders, said the goal is to back advocate and parent Sandy Eyles, who has addressed monthly board meetings for more than a year about the use of seclusion and restraint.

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“Love Our Children is in the process of picking our next effort or next endeavor. We are using this time to throw all of our support in Sandy's effort to end the inhumane use of seclusion rooms,” Rawitsch said.

Over the last year, the use of seclusion rooms has become a popular topic at board meetings and around the county. The push to end seclusion and restraint has earned bipartisan support, advocates say.

Eyles said she started seeing more interest in the topic after she brought a visual display of students who had been secluded in New Hanover County Schools through a chain of paper dolls she spread across the Board of Education Center while presenting in December.

She said her group, NHC Educational Justice, and Love Our Children have long been united in their efforts, and to have Love Our Children’s support is significant in her advocacy work.

“Since the beginning, we’ve aligned in our goals and our mission,” Eyles said. “To have their support toward seclusion and restraint means everything because ithe more voices, the better.”

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Earlier this month, the StarNews reported an autistic student at Masonboro Elementary had been placed in a school closet used as a seclusion room for nearly 2,000 minutes over a span of a few months.

The family of the student later shared their story with the StarNews and during a public comment session at the May school board meeting.

At the June meeting, at least eight speakers addressed the board on the issue of seclusion and restraint, asking members to take steps to end its use by the 2023-24 school year.

“I hope you feel that outrageousness for that parent, that child, everything they will have to go through from here on,” one speaker said during the school board meeting, referring to the Masonboro Elementary family.

Rawitsch said the changes that were made to improve discipline in schools and end suspensions can also contribute to ending the use of seclusion.

He and other advocates want the district to continue looking into new plans for addressing behavioral issues, like the recommendations and programs from the group Lives in the Balance, which focuses on awareness around punitive and exclusionary discipline.

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During the June board meeting, Assistant Superintendent for Support Services Julie Varnam said the district is continuing to work on establishing learning environments that are “supportive, culturally responsive and focused on building relationships and community.”

Varnum shared that a team of teachers and specialists are currently working on developing new measures to address behavioral issues and identifying ineffective practices that could be discontinued.

Additionally, she shared that the district is taking steps including adding more professional development for staff on “trauma-sensitive approaches” to behavioral issues, improving reporting systems for incidents such as seclusion, refining regulations for use of seclusion, and more.

Varnum told the school board while it could be possible to end the use of seclusion and restraint by the 2023-24 school year, that will rely heavily on establishing a well-planned professional development opportunity for the staff who are making decisions on safety in the classroom each day.

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For advocates, they say now is the time to begin implementing those changes and are encouraged by continued efforts from the district.

“We can honor the expert knowledge of our educators and build upon it so they won’t need to use seclusion rooms at all,” Rawitsch said.

“Stop putting children in padded closets,” he continued. “Start treating all of our students with dignity and respect.”

Reporter Sydney Hoover can be reached at 910-343-2339 or shoover@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: New Hanover advocates call for end of school seclusion room use