Editorial: Sober refection needed on solutions for student isolation

ProPublica and The Chicago Tribune did a great service last November when their joint report "The Quiet Rooms" exposed a pattern of abuses of student isolation by school districts across the state. Four months later, we are seeing the risks of overreaction and the wisdom of careful, considered regulation when dealing with complex problems.

In the immediate wake of the press exposé, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois State Board of Education and the legislature responded quickly to entirely ban the practice of isolating students for behavioral outbursts. Bills were introduced in the state House and Senate to permanently ban such seclusion and some lawmakers and congressmen called for nationwide bans.

Such alarms are easy to understand, and officials were right to act boldly to get control of a situation that has grave implications for the mental and physical health of children.

But in the intervening months, we've also had the opportunity for deeper reflection on the issue, and with the ISBE's 150-day temporary ban set to expire in April, it's important to produce responses that account for the broad range of circumstances students and teachers encounter.

Teacher Kerry Doctor and other special education experts emphasized this point in a Sunday Daily Herald story by our columnist Burt Constable. Doctor and officials from the Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization, which oversees special needs programs at Kirk School in Palatine and Timber Ridge and Miner schools in Arlington Heights, described how monitoring students locked in a padded room during a crisis through a one-way mirror worked effectively to protect both students and teachers.

The state school board saw this, too, and has moved to relax its emergency rules to allow for seclusion under very specific safety-focused conditions. At hearings around the state, scores of other education experts also have told regulators that, properly administered, seclusion has a place in the management of some students in some situations. We need to listen to them.

The key, of course, is identifying which students and which situations. "The Quiet Rooms" report helped identify hundreds of times when the wrong choices were made. The state school board and lawmakers are right - indeed, they have a duty - to respond to end those abuses and misuses. But a reflexive outright ban ignores the insights of the thousands of dedicated, caring professionals who work every day with students in the most difficult circumstances. The best ultimate response will take full advantage of their experience.