NYS sets limits on student behavioral interventions and begins requiring annual training and reports |
On Board Online • December 18, 2023
By Shubh N. McTague
Staff Counsel
On Nov. 30, 2023, the State Education Department (SED) issued a memorandum that notes new limits on behavioral interventions for students and explains new reporting requirements for the 2024-25 school year.
School personnel now are prohibited from using prone restraints as well as utilizing seclusion, i.e. the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or space where they are physically prevented from leaving or that they may perceive that they cannot leave at will (which is different than a timeout). These and other changes relate to amendments made by the Board of Regents to its own rules (section 19.5) and corresponding commissioner's regulations. The changes became effective on Aug. 2, 2023, and are based a new law that amended Education Law section 4402.
The new law requires school boards to "develop a procedure to notify a parent or person in parental relation of a student with a disability on the same day that a physical or mechanical restraint" is used on the student. Parents must also be notified if the student is placed in a timeout room.
Some of the recent amendments require school districts to adopt a written policy establishing administrative practices and procedures regarding the use of timeout and physical restraints, and this policy must be posted on the district's website. Also, staff who may be called upon to implement such must annually receive training on safe and effective timeout and physical restraint procedures.
The Nov. 23 memorandum details new reporting requirements. Beginning with the 2024-25 school year, school districts and BOCES must submit an annual report to SED on the use of physical restraints or timeouts as well as any substantiated or unsubstantiated allegations of use of any prohibited intervention (corporal punishment, mechanical restraints and prone physical restraints or seclusion).
This annual reporting requirement replaces the reporting of incidents of corporal punishment which is collected bi-annually during the school year. For the 2024-25 school year, SED states that school districts should, in part:
- Maintain documentation of all incidents and identify the reason for the intervention.
- Have procedures in place for collecting and reporting incident data for students who are in the district as their district of residence, attending a state-supported school, attending an in-state or out-of-state private residential or non-residential schools for the education of students with disabilities, or attending approved preschool special education programs and whose schools do not directly report to SED via the Student Information Repository System (SIRS).
- Report student behavioral interventions data through SIRS.
- Collect data at the time of the incident.
- Report the data to SED on an ongoing basis throughout the school year.
The memorandum also includes guidance as to: (1) the selected fields to be reported to the SIRS; (2) intervention/restraint response type codes and descriptions that provide definitions of aversive interventions, corporal punishment, mechanical restraints, physical restraints, prone restraints, seclusion, use of timeout in accordance with behavioral intervention plans (BIPs), and use of timeout not in accordance with BIPs; and (3) intervention reason codes and descriptions; and (4) event timespan (duration) descriptions.
SED notes that the 2024-25 templates and timeline will be posted prior to the upcoming school year. For questions regarding the reporting of the data, SED states that schools can contact their Level 1 Reporting Center or Big 5 point of contact. A copy of this memorandum can be found at bit.ly/46WYAvB .