Connecticut: Restraint/seclusion used on thousands of SPED students

May 8, 2025, Middletown Press (CT): Report: Use of restraints and seclusion in Middletown schools on the rise

In 2023-24, the district reported 231 incidents involving 24 students, while 204 incidents involving 26 students occurred the prior academic year.

Middletown Public Schools' director of pupil services and special education, Vacianna Spaulding, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The use of restraint and seclusion in other Connecticut districts, including Hamden and Clinton, rose sharply last year, part of a statewide trend in recent years.

During the 2019-20 school year, the most recent for which data is available, Connecticut schools recorded 41,887 instances of restraint or seclusion involving 3,481 special education students, amounting to more than 200 per day on average. 

Meanwhile, from 2011-12 to 2019-20, restraint and seclusion incidents in the state resulted in more than 3,200 reported student injuries, including at least 75 that required medical attention beyond first

Boys are typically about four times as likely to be restrained or secluded as girls, state numbers show, and elementary school students are more likely to be restrained or secluded than older children.

A national investigation published in 2022 by CT Insider and other Hearst Newspapers found children in schools across the country, particularly special education students, were physically restrained or secluded in locked rooms hundreds of thousands of times a year, resulting in thousands of injuries and dozens of deaths.