Congress Reintroduces Bill to Curb Restraint and Seclusion in Schools

Every student deserves to be safe and supported at school. Students should feel a sense of belonging, find academic success attainable, and know their teachers and administrators will keep them safe from harm. Yet schools across the United States continue to use the harmful and deadly practices of seclusion and restraint every day. Seclusion places students in a room alone, involuntarily, that they cannot leave without assistance. Restraint can be physical (e.g., staff holding a student), mechanical (e.g., handcuffs, zip ties, tape), and chemical (e.g., drugs not prescribed or administered by a medical professional). These practices are legal in many states across the country and used thousands of times per school day, leading to thousands of injuries per year. Last week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced the Keeping All Students Safe Act to establish a consistent national framework for how any schools receiving federal funds approach these practices.

Unfortunately, these methods are used disproportionately on certain students. Although students with disabilities accounted for 14 percent of all students in the 2020-2021 school year, they comprised 81 percent of students who were subjected to physical restraint. While Black students comprised 18 percent of students with disabilities in the 2017-2018 school year, they accounted for 26 percent of students subject to physical restraint. Some children experience these interventions repeatedly, even hundreds of times within a single school year, and in some extreme situations have been kept in seclusion or restraint for hours. Restraints can involve holding a student facedown in ways that can restrict breathing or blood flow to the brain. In some cases, these practices have led to student death. Along with physical injuries, seclusion and restraint traumatizes many students and often causes physical and emotional harm to educators.

Despite the risks, there is currently no federal law governing the use of restraint or seclusion in schools. As a result, states have developed their own policies, resulting in significant variation in rules, oversight, and reporting requirements. A 2020 Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation found that at least 2,000 school districts, including some of the nation’s largest, reported zero incidents, despite subsequent findings that some districts underreported or misreported their data. These inconsistencies make it difficult to understand the true scope of how these practices are used.

The Keeping All Students Safe Act would appropriate $40 million per year for fiscal years 2026 through 2030 to carry out the following:

Establishing minimum safety standards. The act would prohibit seclusion, mechanical and chemical restraints, and any restraint that is life-threatening. Staff would be required to have certification in order to use physical restraint, and could not use it as a planned intervention. Schools would be required to notify parents promptly when physical restraint was used, and to conduct a follow-up meeting within five school days.

Supporting states with training and monitoring. The act would require states to create their own policies, procedures, monitoring systems, and enforcement plans within two years, and provide grants to do so. It would strengthen state and local capacity to analyze data and improve school climate and culture.

Increasing transparency and enforcement: The act would require states to collect and publicly report annual data on restraint and seclusion, including incident numbers, injuries, deaths, and demographic disaggregation.

Efforts to pass similar legislation date back to 2009, when several key reports highlighted the issue, including from the GAO documenting cases of death and abuse linked to restraint and seclusion. Since then, multiple versions of the bill have been introduced but have not advanced. Schools across the country continue to explore methods to reduce their reliance on restraint and seclusion. Many districts are adopting training and prevention models that focus on trauma-informed practices, collaborative problem-solving, and evidence-based strategies for addressing undesirable behavior. These approaches aim to improve school climate, reduce student and staff injuries, and limit the use of high-risk interventions.

The ongoing debate over restraint and seclusion reflects broader questions about safety, student support, civil rights, and the appropriate role of federal versus state oversight. As policymakers consider next steps, the central goal remains clear: ensuring that all students and staff are safe and supported at school.