According to federal data, more than 100,000 students are physically restrained and secluded in locked rooms annually in U.S. schools. But a Twin City scholar on criminology and psychology said that’s an undercount.
Charles Bell is an associate professor of criminal justice sciences at Illinois State University. Bell focuses on school discipline; his latest research on school seclusion and restraint is captured in a new book, No Restraint.
Bell presented his findings and moderated a panel discussion Tuesday at the Normal Theater as part of an official book launch, with Democratic state Rep. Sharon Chung from Bloomington giving opening remarks.
The U.S. Department of Education enforces mandatory reporting for physical restraint, mechanical restraint and seclusion, but Bell said some schools purposely evade these requirements.
His interviews with educators and parents across 15 states concluded this disproportionately happens to disabled students.
“We know that students with disabilities make up 13% of the school age population, but they represent nearly 80% of the students who are restrained and secluded in public schools,” said Bell.
Bell said states like Texas have been caught underreporting how many students they’re restraining.
“In addition to Texas, 70% of large school districts across the country wrongfully marked zero, and they got caught doing this,” he said.
Other school districts mischaracterized seclusion rooms as “quiet rooms” or “calming rooms,” despite Bell finding evidence such rooms were more like solitary confinement cells. By calling them something else, instances involving isolation in these rooms was something schools did not have to report.
“But if you don’t want to lie—if you don’t want to falsify evidence—you do what states like New Jersey does,” he said. “You don’t provide any data whatsoever. Nothing.”
Bell’s research question before conducting interviews was to see, in their words, how parents of disabled children perceived school seclusion and restraint and how it harmed their families.
“I want you to imagine you dropped your kid off at school…you think they’re learning throughout the day and, unfortunately, someone sends you a photo of your child being dragged to the seclusion room,” he said. “I want you to imagine your child comes home, they’re favoring their sides. You lift their shirt up, as parents have done, and they sent me photos of students with bruises on their arms and legs and backs.”
Through his research, Bell found parents perceived the practices as harming their children, despite some having initially given permission. Schools had described what sounded like a calming space for when kids need a reset. It seemed therapeutic. Others said they'd specifically refused isolation tactics, only to find out later schools had done it anyway.
Parents reported their children with severe disabilities even harmed themselves while being secluded, including punching themselves, hitting their heads in the room and more. Bell was sent the photos by parents to use in his research. Some had metal doors. One had blood on the door and walls. Bell describes the setting as "criminalized."
“This is not a jail; this is not a prison. This is a public school," he said. "The entire room is illegal. And this was the first clue that I had to study not just the act of secluding kids, but the rooms themselves."
In his research, Bell looked at teacher training, to see what student teachers are learning about seclusion and restraint. He had difficulty finding evidence of any training in de-escalation or safe practices. He found several school districts were resistant to changing a culture of punishment, sometimes spending hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting lawsuits until parents exhausted their resources and gave up.
“Most programs offer no instruction on restraint and seclusion,” he said. “They expected teachers to learn about these things on the job or through conversations, which is highly problematic because we’ve learned about zero tolerance policies. We’ve learned that a culture is deeply rooted in some schools.”
Schools and districts saw these children as problems they didn’t want or know how deal with.
They wanted these kids out, he said. And for one parent who spoke on Tuesday’s panel, it worked.
Parent intervention
Cassie didn't have the option to sue. Her son Joel has autism, plus a neurological disorder and a chromosomal disorder.
Cassie, from Sparta, about three hours southwest of Bloomington-Normal, spoke about her experiences as part of a panel discussion at Tuesday's event. Investigative reporter Jodi Cohen, from ProPublica, also spoke about a 2019 investigation with the Chicago Tribune about seclusion and restraint in Illinois schools.
“Everything that the system wanted us to do for him, to prepare him for school, give him the best opportunities before he was even in school, we did,” she said. “We listened to the experts, always listened to the experts because they knew best. And I’m a single mom, first time mom, didn’t know any better.”
Joel made great progress in early childhood programs and was excited about kindergarten.
Cassie said Joel was restrained 36 times in the first two months of kindergarten. He was placed in isolation 24 times and suspended at least once. Joel started refusing to go to school, which started threatening Cassie with truancy complaints. She described mornings when he was little enough to fling over her shoulder to get him on the school bus. It was a constant struggle. Joel made it through his sophomore year in high school when Cassie finally called to say she was pulling him out.
"Not one person fought me about keeping my kid in school," she said, "because they didn’t want him."
She wasn't offered homeschooling resources.
"It was an hour conversation, and that was the end of my child’s school career.”
Legislation
During opening remarks, Rep. Chung said work Bell’s is important for her 91st Illinois House district, which includes three major higher education institutions.
“Information on how children with disabilities respond to different types of punishment is largely unstudied and therefore largely unregulated,” said Chung.
“And in Illinois, we have introduced a great deal legislation improving the livelihood and rights of people with disabilities, children with disabilities, and students with disabilities, but there hasn't been much legislation on the punishment of these children until somewhat recently.”
Chung said a bill signed into law in 2024 banned the use of corporal punishment in Illinois and said it was long awaited in the state.
“Harm should not be inflicted on a student by anyone, not a fellow student nor an educator or any school staff, and this ban is especially impactful to children with any kind of disability, who have historically been more likely to suffer punishments that could be detrimental to their mental health,” she said.
Another bill, HB 3772, would prohibit students in second grade and younger from being expelled. But Bell said such legislation can sometimes backfire. A law preventing expulsion from early elementary school in Illinois, for example, may have exacerbated the use of restraint and seclusion without adequate training for teachers and school counselors.
Then there’s the data, which isn’t just underreported; in the case of private schools, restraints and seclusions aren’t tracked at all.
Plus, the federal Office of Civil Rights—the office responsible for ensuring equal access to education—is effectively shuttered as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to wind down the Department of Education. Bell said the office itself is still there, but no one works there, complicating future efforts to continue his data collection.
