The Department of Education recently released the new Civil Rights Data Collection that analyzed equities and disparities in educational opportunities in our nation’s schools during the 2009-2010 school year. Data were gathered from 72,000 schools, or roughly 85% of students. Among the data examined was the frequency with which students were secluded or restrained. Almost 70% of the 38,792 students who were restrained during the past calendar year had disabilities, although students with disabilities comprise only about 12% of the student population. African-American males, who make up only 21% of the student population with disabilities, represented 44% of those students restrained. And finally, although approximately half of students with disabilities are male, 70% of students with disabilities who were restrained were male. According to TASH and other disability groups, the data are sobering. TASH characterizes the use of restraint and seclusion as an issue of “national significance,” which leads to “traumatic physical and emotional harm, and even death.” In a press release, Barb Trader, the executive director of TASH, states, “Our students need equitable access to education and protection for their personal safety under the law, and clearly that’s not happening for students with disabilities or those from diverse backgrounds. It is a national tragedy that any child, especially the most vulnerable, is not safe in school.”
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