Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) secured a resolution agreement from the St. Johns County School District in Florida to ensure that its restraint policies and practices do not deny students with disabilities a free appropriate public education (FAPE).
OCR’s review to date raised serious compliance concerns regarding the district’s civil rights obligations to students with disabilities pursuant to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title II) and their implementing regulations with respect to district restraint practices.
While OCR found that the district has clear and detailed policies prohibiting the use of seclusion and limiting restraint to emergency situations only, OCR nonetheless confirmed very high rates of restraint for students with disabilities in the district, with one student restrained 126 times during the two school years OCR reviewed, another restrained 120 times, a third restrained 84 times, and a fourth restrained 77 times in that period. The district restrained 153 students with disabilities 1,711 times in the 2018-19 school year and restrained 132 students with disabilities 954 times during the 2017-18 school year. The district restrained one student for nearly 6 hours in one incident.
Following these repeated and sometimes lengthy restraints, the district appears not to have consistently re-evaluated students with disabilities subjected to restraints, or otherwise assessed whether the regular or special education services those students received were sufficient to provide them a FAPE, as required under Section 504 and Title II. In one student’s case, OCR found no evidence that his Individualized Education Plan (IEP) team ever meaningfully discussed the impact of restraint on the services he was receiving or may have needed, even after he had been restrained 77 times, including 14 times in the span of just three and a half weeks.
The district likewise appears not to have consistently assessed the need for compensatory services for restrained students with disabilities. For example, OCR found another student’s IEP team never discussed whether she may have needed compensatory services, even though she had been restrained dozens of times, including for more than two hours on at least one occasion.
In addition to these concerns, OCR’s review also uncovered inaccuracies in the district’s recordkeeping practices for its use of restraint, hindering the district’s ability to assess its civil rights compliance regarding restraint practices. The district did not report, and OCR’s investigation did not identify, any incidents of student seclusion.
OCR notes that the district has drastically reduced its use of restraint since the initiation of this compliance review through implementing a different response method in emergency situations. OCR looks forward to monitoring the effectiveness of these practices and the district’s civil rights compliance with the terms of the resolution agreement announced today.
To ensure compliance with its federal civil rights obligations with respect to restraint of students with disabilities, the district committed to:
- Convene the IEP or Section 504 teams for the 132 students who were restrained during the 2017-18 school year and for the 153 students restrained during the 2018-19 school year to determine whether the students’ current interventions and supports are sufficient, whether any changes are needed, and whether the students require compensatory services for denial of a FAPE or other instructional services missed as a result of restraint.
- Revise the district’s policy and manuals regarding restraint and seclusion.
- Implement a monitoring program or revise its current program to assess the district’s use of restraint on a monthly basis and report to OCR for OCR approval on each use of restraint during the monitoring period.
- Provide training to staff. And,
- Develop processes to maintain records to allow accurate reporting and to ensure the provision of a FAPE to the district’s students.
“St. Johns County School District has committed to steps necessary to ensure protection of civil rights for students with disabilities when the district subjects them to restraint and to necessary corrective action for those students whom the district restrained in the past,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. “OCR will carefully monitor district practices going forward to ensure students with disabilities in its schools experience the full civil rights protection Congress has guaranteed to them.”
The resolution letter to St. Johns County School District and the resolution agreement are available on the OCR website.