The United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights is seeking feedback on future civil rights data collection. The collection, use, and reporting of education data is an integral component of the mission of the U.S. Department of Education. The Department has collected civil rights data about the nation’s public schools via the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) since 1968. As with previous CRDC collections, the purpose of the 2025–26 and 2027–28 CRDCs is to obtain vital data related to the civil rights laws’ requirement that public local educational agencies (LEA) and elementary and secondary schools provide equal educational opportunity. The Department has analyzed the uses of many data elements collected in the 2020–21 CRDC and sought advice from experts across the Department to refine, improve, and where appropriate, add or remove data elements from the collection.
There is now an opportunity for interested parties to provide feedback on proposes changes to the 2025–26 and 2027–28 data collection. Interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before December 16, 2024.
Below is the feedback provided by the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint.
The Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint (AASR) is grateful for the opportunity to respond to the request for information regarding mandatory civil rights data collection (ED-2024-SCC-0128). AASR is a national nonprofit organization and a community of over 30,000 parents, caregivers, self-advocates, educators, related professionals, and others working together to influence change in supporting children whose behaviors are often misunderstood. Our mission is to inform changes in policy and practice to reduce and eliminate the use of exclusionary punitive discipline and outdated behavioral management approaches and end the school-to-prison pipeline.
The Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint strongly supports adding data elements related to reporting restraint and seclusion in non-LEA placements. Based on data analysis from individual states, we have seen that non-LEA placements often have the highest rates of restraint and seclusion use. Our data analysis shows that the use of restraint and seclusion increases as students move to more restrictive placements and segregated settings. When a child with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 plan is placed in a non-LEA setting by the Local Education Agency, they should be protected by all federal civil rights laws. We support the addition of all five proposed elements for future reporting. We know from existing data that restraint and seclusion practices disproportionately impact children with disabilities, Black and brown children, and children with a trauma history. Adding this data will allow the Office of Civil Rights to ensure that students placed through local education agencies into non-LEA settings are appropriately protected under the civil rights laws of the United States.
Children with disabilities are all too often removed from school illegally through informal removals. These informal removals both violate federal law and prevent children from accessing a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). We have heard stories from families that indicate that these informal and illegal removals are happening at increasing rates across the nation following the COVID-19 pandemic. These informal removals occur when a parent or caregiver receives a call from the school saying that they must come to the school to pick up their child immediately. These exclusionary practices not only negatively impact student success but can also significantly impact families. Children’s rights under IDEA are violated when informal removals take place. We believe the use of informal removals disproportionately affects children with disabilities, Black and brown children, and children with a trauma history. We must begin collecting data to understand the scope of the issue and to ensure the ability of the Office of Civil Rights to vigorously defend the civil rights of impacted children and families. The Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint supports the addition of data elements related to informal removals.
In addition to informal removals, we are hearing about a growing issue with the use of abeyance agreements. Data related to the use of abeyance agreements should be included in the mandatory civil rights data collection. While abeyance agreements are intended as an alternative to suspension and expulsion, the increase in use and the lack of accountability and oversight leave serious concerns. Parents and caregivers are losing rights and protections through these agreements, and children are losing access to free and appropriate public education. It has been suggested that these agreements enable school districts to circumvent requirements to report disciplinary data, a requirement intended to ensure schools’ disciplinary practices are fair and non-discriminatory. We request data elements related to abeyance agreements be added to future data reporting requirements.
Finally, it is incumbent upon the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights to ensure that all data collected under the Civil Rights Data Collection is accessible to the public in a useful and usable format. At the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint, we have relied on the OCR data website for many years. When the website was last redesigned, the data related to restraint and seclusion became less accessible. Critical instance data is now missing from the website. Users can no longer find restraint and seclusion instance data by district without using cumbersome Excel spreadsheet data files. This is a critical transparency issue that should be addressed.
We appreciate the vision and mission of the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. We appreciate the many dedicated civil servants who work tirelessly to protect children in schools nationwide. It is difficult work, but very important work. We realize that there are limitations to what OCR can do in its role to prevent discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, and disability. However, more needs to be done. Black, brown, and disabled children are having their civil and human rights violated in schools across the nation. The data shows that there is a crisis in American schools.
We thank you for considering our public comment. We invite you to reach out with any questions or opportunities to collaborate towards solutions.
Sincerely,
Guy Stephens
Founder & Executive Director
Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint
