Keeping All Students Safe
It is time to protect our most vulnerable students
The reintroduction of the Keeping All Students Safe Act marks a pivotal moment in our fight to end harmful seclusion and restraint practices in schools nationwide. This bill would help to create safer schools for students, teachers, and staff by banning dangerous mechanical, chemical, and life-threatening restraints while prohibiting seclusion outright in federally funded schools. The Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint supports this critical legislation to improve outcomes for students, teachers and staff.
Our Mission
Our mission is to inform changes in policy and practice to reduce and eliminate the use of punitive discipline and outdated behavioral management approaches and end the school-to-prison pipeline. (Learn more about our mission)
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools: What Parents and Caregivers Need to Know
We have just launched a new online course to help parents and caregivers who may be navigating issues related to the use of restraint and seclusion in schools. In this course, we discuss restraint and seclusion, strategies used in many schools worldwide. We address the risks of restraint and seclusion and discuss alternatives. We’ll discuss extensively what to do if your child is restrained or secluded. Learn more about the new course on our online training portal.
Below is a short excerpt from the course.
About seclusion and restraint
Restraint and seclusion are crisis management strategies that are used in many schools across the nation and the world. Physical Restraint is exactly what it sounds like; it is a personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a student to move his or her torso, arms, legs, or head freely. Seclusion is the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving. These interventions are dangerous and have led to serious injuries and even death in students, teachers, and staff.
According to federal guidance, restraint and/or seclusion should never be used except in situations where a child’s behavior poses an imminent danger of serious physical harm to self or others, and restraint and seclusion should be avoided to the greatest extent possible without endangering the safety of students and staff.
News and Stories
Read some of our latest news and stories. We publish stories every week from parents, caregivers, self-advocates, teachers, adminstrators, occupaytional therapist, social workers, school counselors, pyschologist and other related professionals.
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When Helping Hurts: How Broken Systems Turn Compassion into Defense
We recently shared the link to a Seattle Times investigation that found staff in medical settings have used spit hoods over the past decade to subdue or control psychiatric patients and risk psychological distress, suffocation, and even death in the process. The comments poured in. Many came from healthcare workers describing being bitten, kicked, and…
Time to read:
8–12 minutes -
Providing Public Comment: Raising the Alarm on Restraint and Seclusion in Pennsylvania Schools
At the January 22 meeting of Pennsylvania’s Special Education Advisory Panel (SEAP), which advises the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) on the education of children with disabilities, public comment highlighted the troubling rise in the use of restraint across the Commonwealth’s schools. The day before, PDE presented its 2024–25 annual report on physical restraint, revealing…
Time to read:
3–4 minutes -
An Invisible Storm: Why Extreme Weather Is Quietly Overloading Our Kids’ Nervous Systems
If you’ve ever stood in a classroom on a day when a massive storm is brewing, you know the feeling. There’s a kind of static in the air. Kids are vibrating at a different frequency. A pencil drop triggers a meltdown. A simple direction leads to a total shutdown. Adults usually shrug it off as…
Time to read:
5–7 minutes -
Maryland Shows You Can End Seclusion in Public Schools—But There Is More Work Ahead
In the first year, Maryland reported statewide data (2017–2018), schools reported 18,222 incidents of physical restraint and 7,325 incidents of seclusion, a total of 25,547 restraint and seclusion incidents across public and nonpublic schools. The next year, the numbers increased to 19,713 restraints and 9,532 seclusions, reaching a peak total of 29,245. In the most…
Time to read:
11–16 minutes -
Claimed Capacity, Missing Voices: How Policy Gaps Fail Students—and Why Families and Communities Must Be at the Table
Every child deserves to feel a sense of belonging at school. Yet for many students with disabilities or trauma histories, school becomes a place of stress rather than opportunity. Across the state, children with complex behavioral and emotional needs are being excluded from learning environments not because they lack potential, but because our systems are…
Time to read:
3–5 minutes -
Rules Feedback to the Colorado State Board of Education from the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint
First, we appreciate that the Colorado State Board of Education is focused on the important issue of the use of restraint and seclusion in schools across the state. We also value that the intent of these rules is related to protecting students from restraint and seclusion. We have supported many families in Colorado over the…
Time to read:
19–29 minutes
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Research
Read our latest research articles and news.
Make a Donation
Your contribution is more than just a donation; it helps us create safer schools for students, teachers, and staff. Your donation helps us promote a trauma-informed, neuroscience-aligned, relationship-driven approach to supporting all children. We can and must do better for our children.
