I know there has been some concern about the PARTY portion of this bill, specifically title 2, which would outlaw restraint and seclusion in the classroom. Members of this committee have asked Is this really our place? Is this an issue for the states? Should we really be enacting this kind of legislation?
Last year, eight-year-old Isabel Loeffler, who has autism, was held down by her teachers and confined in a storage closet where she pulled out her hair and wet her pants at her Iowa, elementary school.
In 2001, one 14-year-old in Texas, died from his teachers pressing on his chest in an effort to restrain him . There’s also Jonathan King who hung himself in a seclusion room in Georgia. There are hundreds of cases of abuse like these reported every year.
Questions should be asked of every bill we see in this committee. However, I am here to answer the question of whether or not we , and I do so with a resounding yes. Yes, this issue needs to be handled on a national level, and it needs to be handled today.
Not all 50 states have enacted clauses protecting against this kind of abuse. Some state legislatures have even failed to put it on their agenda.
I find that offensive, and I find it morally repugnant. Every student in the U.S. needs to be protected from this despicable form of abuse, regardless of the state they live in.
My esteemed colleagues, please, I urge you, do NOT let our children’s safety be the thing that you brush aside to “leave up to the states.” This is something which we need to take a national stance on, today – to establish a precedent that in the United States of America, one cannot use these methods of restraint against our children.
We owe it to our children.
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