Massachusetts changed its regulations governing seclusion, time-out, and physical restraint in schools on August 17, 2026.

The changes matter.

The new regulations reintroduced the use of seclusion, which had been previously prohibited, established a clearer distinction between time-out and seclusion, and reinforced that physical restraint is an emergency procedure of last resort. Massachusetts has also stated an explicit goal of reducing—and ultimately again eliminating—the use of seclusion. (603 CMR 46.02, 46.03, 46.07; DESE, Special Education Policy Memo SY2026-2027—1)

This was one step backward and one step forward.

However, a regulation is only as protective as the system responsible for putting it into practice.

And that raises a question that reaches far beyond our experience with our son:

What happens when the words used to describe an intervention do not match what a child actually experienced?

Our family knows that question is not theoretical.

We have experienced a restraint called an escort. We have experienced seclusion called time-out. We have experienced a child being considered “not alone” because an adult could watch through a window. And we have heard behavior that could have resulted in harm used to explain why an intervention was necessary—even when those things had not actually happened.

These experiences forced us to look beyond the words on an incident report and ask a much larger question:

Are we changing the way we protect children—or simply changing the words we use to describe what happens to them?

When the Label Doesn’t Match the Reality

In our family’s experience, the problem has not simply been what the regulations say. It has been how those words are interpreted after something happens to a child.

The label matters because the label can determine what happens next.

It can affect whether an intervention is documented as restraint or something else, whether it is reported, whether it is reviewed, what parents are told, and what ultimately becomes part of the record.

For families, that distinction is not merely semantic.

If an intervention is classified one way rather than another, that classification can affect the protections, documentation, notification, review, and oversight that follow.

The question is not simply what we call an intervention.

The question is whether the label accurately reflects what happened to the child.

When Seclusion Is Called “Time-Out”

Under Massachusetts’ regulations, time-out is a behavioral support strategy in which a student temporarily separates from learning activity or the classroom for calming. Under the regulations that governed our son, Jojo’s February 9, 2026 incident, time-out already required continuous observation by staff, staff to be with the student or immediately available, a clean, safe, sanitary, and appropriate space, and cessation as soon as the student calmed. The new regulations, effective August 17, 2026, retain those core requirements and expressly define time-out as occurring in an unlocked setting from which the student is permitted to leave. They also changed the definition of seclusion and added additional safeguards for time-out rooms and emergency seclusion. (603 CMR 46.02, 46.07)

That distinction sounds straightforward. But what happens when the school says it was time-out, while the child experienced confinement?

In Jojo’s case, what the school described as “time-out” occurred in what was, in reality, an empty retrofitted closet used as a time-out room. Jojo was placed inside, the door was closed, and staff held the door shut for nearly 30 minutes.

The school did not report this to us as seclusion. It was instead described as time-out.

And unfortunately, this was not an isolated occurrence. Because these incidents were characterized as time-out, rather than reported as seclusion, we were not notified about multiple instances in which this closet was used.

That distinction matters. Terminology does not simply determine how an incident is described. It can determine whether an event is documented, reported, reviewed, and brought to a parent’s attention at all.

As parents, we cannot advocate for our children when we do not know what is happening to them.

And when a term like “time-out” softens the reality of what a child actually experienced, parents may not even realize that what occurred warrants further questions.

What happens when the label hides the reality?

An Unlocked Door Does Not Necessarily Mean a Child Is Free

The new regulations expressly state that time-out must occur in an unlocked setting from which the student is permitted to leave. Importantly, the regulations in effect when Jojo’s February 9, 2026 incident occurred already required time-out to occur in an unlocked setting from which the student was permitted to leave. The August 17, 2026 amendments therefore did not create that protection from nothing; they retained it while revising the definitions and adding additional safeguards.

Earlier advocacy around these changes raised important questions about whether an unlocked-door requirement would be enough in practice. In 2026, our family experienced the kind of ambiguity that makes that concern more than a policy hypothetical.

But what does “permitted to leave” actually mean when a child is in crisis?

Imagine a child placed into an empty room, perhaps the size of a closet. The child is frightened and dysregulated. They may be in a fight-or-flight response. They may have been told they have done something wrong. How does that child know they are permitted to leave?

What is the standard for determining whether a child is asking to leave? What happens when the child approaches the door? What happens when the child tries the door, and it will not open because a staff member is physically holding it shut?

If the child asks to leave, are they then permitted to do so? Or can a staff member tell the child that they must remain there until they are calm—placing the decision about whether the child is “permitted” to leave entirely in the hands of the adult?

For children who are non-speaking, minimally verbal, developmentally delayed, or communicating distress in ways adults may not immediately understand, these questions become even more important.

“Unlocked” is a physical condition. “Permitted to leave” is a human interaction. Those are not necessarily the same thing.

In our experience, Jojo’s door did not need a mechanical lock for him to be unable to leave. He tried to open the door multiple times. Adults were physically holding the door closed.

Whatever the technical status of the lock, the practical reality was simple: He could not leave.

Who Decides Whether a Child Was Actually Free?

In our experience, the concern goes beyond whether the door had a mechanical lock.

DESE’s findings acknowledged that Jojo was placed in the school’s “quiet room”—the designated time-out space—by staff and remained there for 28 minutes. The findings state that Jojo remained dysregulated during that period, was continuously monitored by two staff members through a window, and that the door remained shut and was held closed by staff members. When Jojo calmed, the door was opened.

DESE concluded that the intervention did not constitute seclusion under the regulations then in effect. The Department specifically found that Jojo was continuously observed, that staff was immediately available, that the space was clean, safe, sanitary, and appropriate for calming, and that the time-out ceased when Jojo calmed. Based on those findings, DESE concluded that the District complied with its obligations regarding time-out on February 9, 2026.

But there is a critical question that deserves more attention:

What evidence was used to establish what actually happened during those 28 minutes? And how do we know it lasted only 28 minutes?

The PRS decision does not identify video footage documenting those 28 minutes in the time-out room. In our understanding of the room’s physical setup, there was no camera positioned to capture the closet or its interior. The Department’s findings describe the duration, Jojo’s dysregulation, the staff monitoring, and the door being held closed, but they do not identify independent video evidence establishing what occurred inside the room throughout that period. The decision therefore leaves an important evidentiary question: what objective evidence, if any, independently corroborated the written accounts used to characterize those 28 minutes?

That is significant because those same staff reports had already been used to characterize other physical interventions involving Jojo in ways that our family later disputed—and that were subsequently determined through the DESE complaint process to have constituted restraints.

When the classification of an intervention is itself in question, should the accounts used to establish what happened be accepted without independent corroboration?

There is another question that is even more basic.

DESE’s findings acknowledged that the door was held closed by staff members. That raises a difficult question: under the regulation in effect at the time, what significance did physical prevention from leaving have when determining whether an intervention was a permissible time-out rather than seclusion?

A lock is a mechanism that prevents a door from opening.

So is a person holding the door shut.

From a child’s perspective, the distinction may be meaningless. If a child attempts to leave and an adult physically prevents the door from opening, the child is not free to leave—regardless of whether the barrier is a lock, a latch, or an adult’s hand.

This question remains important under the new regulations. The amended definition of seclusion now focuses on involuntary confinement in a room or area from which the student is not permitted to leave, while the time-out definition expressly requires an unlocked setting from which the student is permitted to leave. The regulations therefore place the child’s actual ability to leave at the center of the distinction.

The question, therefore, cannot simply be:

“Was the door locked?”

It has to be:

“Was the child actually permitted to leave?”

And how do we know?

Was the child told they were permitted to leave?

Did the child understand that instruction?

Did the child attempt to leave?

If they attempted to leave, were they physically prevented from doing so?

And who independently verifies the answer?

Jojo had been taught to listen to his community helpers and follow rules. When staff told him that he had been bad and that being placed in the room was his punishment, he did not know that he could question the instruction or simply walk out. Would his attempts to open the door constitute a sign that he was asking to leave and therefore should have been permitted?

For a child in that situation, an unlocked door does not necessarily mean freedom.

An unlocked door is not enough if an adult is holding it shut.

The question is not simply whether a door is technically unlocked.

The question is whether the child was actually free to leave.

What Does “Alone” Actually Mean?

There is another question embedded in the definition of seclusion: what does it mean for a child to be “alone” in a room or area?

If an adult is standing outside a viewing window, is the child really not alone?

In Jojo’s case, an adult could observe him through a viewing window. The adult was not physically inside the room. Jojo remained isolated behind a barrier, without an adult physically accompanying or co-regulating with him.

From the perspective of the adult outside the window, the child may have been continuously observed.

From the perspective of the child inside the room, however, he was alone.

Watching a child through a window is not the same as being with a child.

Does the regulatory framework adequately distinguish between observation and accompaniment? And should it?

When a Restraint Isn’t Called a Restraint

The same problem can arise with physical interventions.

Massachusetts defines physical restraint as direct physical contact that prevents or significantly restricts a student’s freedom of movement. A physical escort, by contrast, involves temporary touching or holding without the use of force to induce an agitated student to walk to a safe location. (603 CMR 46.02)

The distinction matters because an escort is not treated as a restraint. Physical restraint triggers specific documentation, notification, review, and reporting requirements, while an escort does not carry those same requirements.

Because it was characterized as an escort, we were not notified that the intervention was being treated as a physical restraint, despite having been used multiple times.

We are not suggesting that every physical escort is a restraint. Massachusetts appropriately distinguishes between a brief, non-forceful escort and physical restraint.

Our concern is what happens when the school’s initial classification does not accurately reflect what happened to the child.

The reality of what happened must determine the classification—not the classification determine the reality.

The Label Should Never Matter More Than the Child’s Experience

A child does not experience an intervention according to the terminology used in an incident report.

A child who is physically prevented from leaving does not experience that confinement differently because adults call it “time-out.”

A child whose movement is significantly restricted through force does not experience it differently because adults call it an “escort.”

And a child sitting alone inside a room does not necessarily experience the presence of an adult behind a window as companionship.

The words used in an incident report should describe what happened to the child—not redefine it.

Who Decides What Is “Imminent”?

The regulations governing restraint and emergency seclusion use language involving a “threat of assault” or “imminent, serious, physical harm.” Physical restraint is an emergency procedure of last resort, and emergency seclusion is subject to an even narrower set of prerequisites. (603 CMR 46.03, 46.07)

But “imminent” requires judgment. And that judgment is being made by an adult in the middle of a crisis.

What establishes imminence? What behavior actually occurred? What evidence demonstrates the threat? How much is based on prediction, and how much is based on observable conduct?

Jojo was hiding underneath a table. A staff member decided to pull him out from underneath the table. He was restrained and physically dragged backward by two staff members to the “time-out” closet and secluded.

When we later asked what Jojo had actually been doing that caused the staff member to believe they were in danger, we were given multiple scenarios of what COULD have happened.

But those scenarios had not happened.

Possibility is not imminence.

A school crisis can be frightening, loud, and chaotic. Adults are making rapid decisions under pressure. Staff may feel fear, urgency, uncertainty, or a need to regain control. That is precisely why safeguards are necessary.

But what prevents an adult’s perception of danger from becoming the threshold for restraint or seclusion?

What If the Intervention Makes the Crisis Worse?

For some children, particularly children with trauma histories, autism, sensory differences, developmental disabilities, or other communication and support needs, physical restraint or confinement may increase distress rather than reduce it.

That resulting behavior can then be interpreted as further evidence that the child remains dangerous or that the intervention must continue.

At what point does the intervention itself become part of the crisis?

A child struggling against being restrained may purely be reacting to being restrained. A child screaming after being confined may be reacting to being confined. A child attempting to escape a room may be communicating that the room itself has become intolerable.

Resistance to restraint cannot automatically become proof that restraint was necessary.

Escalation inside confinement cannot automatically become proof that confinement needed to continue.

The intervention cannot become the evidence used to justify itself.

If It Is an Emergency, When Should Parents Be Told?

There is another question that deserves serious consideration: parental notification.

Massachusetts’ regulations recognize physical restraint as an emergency procedure of last resort. The new emergency-seclusion exception is even more narrowly defined and includes multiple prerequisites, including advance parental consent. (603 CMR 46.03, 46.07)

Yet once restraint or emergency seclusion occurs, the regulations do not require a parent to be notified while the intervention is taking place. For restraint, schools must make reasonable efforts to notify parents within 24 hours and provide written notification within three school working days. Emergency seclusion follows the same general notification timeline. (603 CMR 46.06, 46.07)

Notably, the parental-consent requirement for emergency seclusion is a separate safeguard from the later notification requirement. It is part of the new regulation and was not the standard that governed Jojo’s earlier incident.

In our son’s case, Jojo was physically restrained and then placed in seclusion for a reported approximately 30 minutes. We were not notified while the intervention was occurring.

We were not there to tell staff what might help him regulate. We were not there to explain what might be escalating his distress. We were not there to advocate for him while he was restrained or confined.

We were not given the opportunity to come to the school and help him de-escalate—or, if the school believed he remained a danger, to be part of determining what should happen next.

We learned afterward.

This is not an argument that staff should stop an emergency intervention to make a phone call. In a genuine emergency, protecting the immediate safety of the child, their classmates, and school staff must come first.

But once the immediate danger has been stabilized, why should notification wait until the end of the school day—or potentially until the following day?

If a situation is serious enough to require emergency restraint or seclusion, shouldn’t parents be considered part of the emergency response whenever contacting them can be done safely?

Act first if necessary. Notify promptly once it is safe to do so.

There is an additional concern in cases like Jojo’s. We were not simply notified late; we were not initially told that the physical intervention had been classified as restraint. The confinement was instead described to us as time-out. The classification itself affected what we were told.

That raises a larger systems question: What happens when the people responsible for deciding whether an emergency intervention occurred are also the people responsible for deciding what to call it and what to report to the parent?

How Many Children Are Missing From the Data?

We don’t know how many physical interventions may be misclassified in Massachusetts.

And that is precisely the problem: How would we know?

The system depends upon staff identifying an intervention, the school documenting it, administrators reviewing it, and restraint or seclusion data being reported through the required processes.

If a physical intervention is classified as an escort, it is not classified or reported as a physical restraint under the restraint reporting framework. If confinement is classified as time-out, it is not reported as seclusion.

How many children may be missing from the data because the intervention was given another name?

This is not a claim that we know the number. It is a question about whether the current oversight system is capable of determining the number.

Training Is Not Oversight

Massachusetts requires training. Training matters. The regulations require staff training on restraint prevention, de-escalation, alternatives, documentation, reporting, and the impact of restraint on students and families. (603 CMR 46.04)

But training tells someone what the rules are. It does not independently verify what they did.

A school can have trained personnel, written policies, forms, reporting procedures, administrators, and restraint reviews—and still have inaccurate data if the initial classification is wrong.

Compliance on paper is not the same thing as compliance in practice.

Who Watches the Watchers?

The system can be understood as a chain:

But where is Verify?

Who independently verifies the school’s classification?

Who determines whether an “escort” involved force?

Who determines whether a child was actually free to leave?

Who determines whether “imminent danger” was actually present?

Who reviews objective evidence when a family disputes the school’s account?

How often does DESE proactively audit classification practices? Are schools subject to random audits? Does DESE compare incident reports with other records? What happens when parents disagree?

A parent should not have to file a state complaint before the system recognizes that a restraint occurred.

What Happens When Parents Don’t Know?

Jojo’s experience also raises a question about the children whose parents do not have the knowledge, resources, evidence, or energy to challenge a school’s account.

Consider a family that does not know the regulations, does not know what constitutes restraint or seclusion, trusts the school’s explanation, does not know how to file a complaint, or simply does not have the time or financial resources to challenge a school system.

Consider families facing language barriers, their own disabilities, limited access to advocacy, or the understandable assumption that school professionals are accurately reporting what happened.

What happens to that child’s experience?

What happens to the data?

If the system depends upon families identifying discrepancies and challenging them, then the children with the least advocacy may be the least visible.

What Would Meaningful Oversight Look Like?

If Massachusetts is serious about reducing and ultimately eliminating seclusion and strengthening protections around restraint, the next step should be making the system more capable of determining what actually happened. We believe several additional safeguards are worth serious consideration.

First, the state should provide clearer guidance about what it means for a student to be “permitted to leave.” Schools should be required to establish how a child is told they may leave, how that information is communicated in a disability-appropriate way, how staff respond when a child approaches the exit, and whether attempts to leave are documented.

Second, the state should clarify the difference between observation and accompaniment. An adult outside a viewing window may be able to continuously observe a child, but observation is not necessarily the same as physical presence, relationship, or co-regulation.

Third, there should be objective monitoring around designated time-out and seclusion spaces. Cameras outside—not necessarily inside—could document entry, exit, door position, staff presence, attempts to leave, and duration. If the state is serious about eliminating seclusion, why shouldn’t there be an objective record of whether a child was actually free to leave?

Fourth, documentation of an “imminent” threat should be specific. Reports should identify what the child was actually doing, who was at risk, what made harm imminent, what less restrictive interventions were attempted, why they failed, and what changed immediately before the intervention.

Descriptions such as “unsafe,” “escalating,” “aggressive,” “unpredictable,” or “could have” should not stand alone as explanations for an emergency intervention.

Fifth, when parents dispute whether an intervention was an escort, physical guidance, restraint, time-out, or seclusion, there should be a standardized mechanism for independent review.

Sixth, objective evidence should be preserved whenever an incident involves restraint, seclusion, or a disputed physical intervention. That may include relevant video, incident reports, medical documentation, and related behavioral records.

Finally, DESE should consider auditing classification—not just reporting. The question should not only be, “How many restraints did you report?” It should also be, “How do you know the interventions you classified as something else were not restraints?”

Are We Changing the Rules—or Changing the Culture?

The goal is not simply fewer reports. The stated goal is ultimately the elimination of seclusion.

Achieving that goal requires more than learning new terminology. It requires prevention, early intervention, relationship-based practices, effective behavioral supports, trauma-informed approaches, understanding behavior as communication, and addressing sensory and communication needs.

Schools must change how they understand dysregulation. They must learn to recognize trauma and respond without adding to it. They must reconsider how they respond to autistic children and children with other disabilities.

Are schools preventing crisis rather than simply managing it once it erupts?

Are they taking the time to ask what a child is trying to communicate?

Are they creating environments in which children can regulate before behavior becomes a crisis?

Or are they simply learning how to comply with new terminology?

A Good Regulation Is Only the Beginning

Massachusetts deserves recognition for moving toward the reduction and ultimate elimination of seclusion and for strengthening protections surrounding restraint.

These changes matter.

But a good regulation is only the beginning.

The next step must be ensuring that those protections cannot be undermined through ambiguous terminology, inconsistent interpretation, inaccurate classification, or inadequate oversight.

The words on the page need to match the reality in the room.

The Child’s Experience Must Come First

Because ultimately, protecting children requires us to see not only what the paperwork says happened—but what actually happened to the child.

Now we need to make sure the culture, the oversight, and the systems enforcing those rules change with them.

The rules are changing.

And a system cannot provide meaningful accountability if the only people verifying what happened are the people who were involved in the intervention.

A label cannot change what a child experienced.

A viewing window is not the same as human connection.

Because an unlocked door is not enough.

Now we need to make sure the protections on the page become protections in the room.

Massachusetts has taken an important step.

And every child deserves a system that records what actually happened—not simply what someone chose to call it.

Every family deserves accurate information about what happened to their child.

Every child deserves protection—even when their parents aren’t lawyers, advocates, investigators, or special education experts.

That should not be the standard.

Most importantly, we learned that sometimes the system does not recognize what happened until a family has the ability, knowledge, evidence, and determination to challenge it.

And we learned that predicting what a child might do is not the same as documenting what the child was actually doing.

We learned that calling something an “escort” does not necessarily tell us whether force was used.

We learned that watching a child through a window is not necessarily the same as being with them.

We learned that an unlocked door does not necessarily mean a child is free to leave.

Our family did not set out to become advocates for changes to Massachusetts’ seclusion and restraint regulations. We became advocates because we learned what can happen when the official description of an intervention does not match the reality experienced by a child.