Articles labeled: special education

More details are coming out about a special education school in Georgia that forced students into “cell-like seclusion rooms” for bad behavior. One boy hanged himself in the room during a “time out”.

“We thought that meant go sit in the corner and be quiet for a few minutes,” Tina King said, tears washing her face as she remembered the child she called “our baby … a good kid.”

But time-out in the boy’s north Georgia special education school was spent in something akin to a prison cell — a concrete room latched from the outside, its tiny window obscured by a piece of paper.

Called a seclusion room, it’s where in November 2004, Jonathan [King] hanged himself with a cord a teacher gave him to hold up his pants.

An attorney representing the school has denied any wrongdoing.

The report then goes on to say that such “seclusion rooms” are used at schools across the country. Now, we’re certainly not experts on special education and don’t have any first hand insight, but we can’t imagine shoving a mentally disabled or autistic child who is acting out into a cold, dark concrete room with a tiny window is going to be particularly helpful. Certainly we’ve made more advances in taking care of these children than that?