Where’s the Department of Child and Family Services when you need them? Hearing and reading various reports on a decision by the Farm Hill School in Middletown CT to place students with disciplinary problems into rooms that are no larger than a closet, that have no windows, that have nothing in them, for long periods of time should be deeply troubling to us all. According to one article, school officials say the rooms are “time-out rooms designed to calm troubled students down.” These are eight-year-old students and younger. How is this scenario that is nothing more than solitary confinement supposed to “calm them down?”
These are elementary students who are seven, eight years old; clearly, they are terrified. Their terror at being placed into solitary confinement is what probably has given these rooms the nick name of “scream rooms.” That terror is emphasized by Middletown’s school superintendent’s comments when he acknowledged that, “some students have banged their heads, urinated or had to be restrained in the room … but they never needed medical treatment.” Is this superintendent side-lining as a trained physician, capable of diagnosing a child who has spent some time in solitary confinement banging their head against the wall as having no injury — inside? Really.
Moreover, if a parent or guardian locked their child in such a room in their home, DCF would be called in and the parent most likely arrested and charged with risk of injury to a minor. The child would be removed from the home and interviewed by a trained specialist to determine if any emotional damage was sustained, and examined by a licensed doctor to determine if any physical injury occurred.
What I found equally disturbing is that parents do not seem to be aware of this practice. Unless rules have changed drastically from when my children were in elementary school, its standard practice to issue a list of “school rules” to parents at the beginning of the year. Or, if a new rule has been implemented, a notice is sent home to parents outlining the new rule. At a PTA meeting at Farm Hill last night, one parent said, “It shouldn’t be that you find out about this two years later.”
Time to Investigate and ask Real Questions
While school officials claim that changes are being made, a full investigation should be done by an outside party and not the school. I’d place emphasis on determining what “restraint” measures were used. Who determined no child sustained injury after banging his or her head against the wall? How long were children subjected to isolation that caused them to urinate on themselves? By the way, it takes no specialist to realize that terror in and of itself can cause someone — at any age — to urinate on themselves. How long was has this been going on? Who designed this practice and what did they, he or she base the value of same on? Why didn’t school officials tell parents about this practice? Why did school officials the many programs that are available to help troubled kids, parents and teachers? What other schools are implementing the same or similar practice?
We wouldn’t tolerate this kind of treatment of children in the home. Why should we tolerate it in our schools?
Every parent at the Farm Hill School should take their child out of the school until a full investigation is launched. Every parent in every school in Connecticut should find out whether such “timeout rooms” exist in their school. This is no joke and should not be treated lightly.
