Oregon law broadens definition of child abuse to include restraints, seclusion in schools

SALEM, Ore. — Days before her 5-year-old son's school sent her a letter about a restraint they had used on him, Glenda Scherer says she suspected something had happened.

"He always loved going to school and then prior to us finding out (about the restraint) he started just not wanting to go to school, and he didn't really have the skillset or the ability to communicate to us that something was wrong at school," she said. "He started hitting himself and scratching his face and just being really upset, and that is not behavior we had ever seen before."

Her son has a disability but is verbal, andScherer says he does not easily or regularly become dysregulated. Oregon schools are required to inform parents in a timely manner when restraints are used.

"When you do a restraint there are certain ways that you are supposed to do it, and they never really said what they did," she said.

She has been trying to obtain documentation about the incident since it happened a year ago. She said what her son told her was alarming.

"He talked about the teacher dragging him by his feet," she said. "He said, I want to go to a school where the teachers don't hurt the kids."

When there is an allegation of abuse at a school, the Office of Training, Investigations and Safety (OTIS) -- a division of Oregon DHS -- is charged with investigating.

Scherer's said OTIS opened an investigation and found claims of abuse to be unfounded.

Certain types of restraint and seclusion are illegal in Oregon and against school policies; however, OTIS can only find claims of child abuse in schools substantiated under specific definitions. Even in cases when evidence showed those illegal restraints were used, OTIS could not substantiate claims of abuse unless there was also evidence of physical harm, like bruises or broken bones.

Senate Bill 790, which passed the Legislature this year, changes that by expanding the definition of child abuse to include restraints and seclusion that are already prohibited in Oregon statute.

During legislative hearings, Dave Manly, OTIS's interim director, told of incidents where restraints were clearly abusive but to which his office could not substantiate abuse claims because of the narrow scope of abuse definition at the time.

"I do have a story of an incident that OTIS received, where the reporter had witnessed staff members at a school isolating a couple of different kids in what they called a 'converted closet' when the kids became out of control," he said. "There was no behavior that was concerning that they would hurt themselves, so they were being put in this room with no concerns about theat. The reporter said they witnessed the staff dragging the kids across the school by their arms, physically picking them up, putting them in this isolation room."

Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, who sponsored the bill, said it should provide a layer of accountability for school districts to make sure there are enough properly trained staff to care for all students safely and appropriately.

"Once we started working on the bill, one of the concerns was, we have a lot of classified staff, especially, that are in classrooms where they haven't been given the training that they need to support kids. They haven't been given access to the student's behavior support plans or their IEPs, and there aren't enough people in the classroom to manage it," she said. "This bill also says if there is an emergency and a teacher imposes a restraint that they weren't trained to do but they had to do that because it was an emergency, we are not going to hold them accountable for that. If it occurred because there weren't enough staff or the district refused to provide training, that allegation of abuse would be substantiated against the school district."

An OTIS abuse substantiation does not lead to a criminal record and may not lead to job termination either. There are numerous avenues for employees and administrators with a substantiated abuse claim against them to appeal.

The measure also requires the Oregon Department of Education to make reports on the number and type of substantiated abuse claims and where they occurred available to the public on a quarterly basis.

Scherer said she hopes this will increase transparency and help parents like her reestablish trust in the system.

"This whole experience has been really horrific for our family," she said. "You are supposed to be able to trust public schools, and it really made it hard for me to feel like I could send my child and they wouldn't even follow the rules."

She said her son has since been enrolled at another school and has had no further incidents.

"They said 'he's really bright, and he's brilliant in math, and thank you for sharing him with us,'" she said. "It was totally a different experience."