Tell Washington state legislators to provide funding to support professional development on student behavior crisis response and de-escalation.

House Bill 1479 takes common-sense steps to equip our education system with proven strategies and supports to address students who exhibit challenging behaviors. It also seeks to eliminate the harmful practice of isolating students in schools and makes the use of restraining students safer by eliminating both mechanical and chemical restraints in Washington schools. The use of isolation and restraint has shown no compelling evidence that Washington students benefit from these continued practices.

HB 1479 may not have made it this year, but legislators still have important work to do, to fund needed student supports recommended in the Crisis Response Legislative Workgroup Report. 
 
Legislators can use the money that would have funded this bill in the state biennial budget to start putting systems in schools and districts that build stronger mental health, social emotional, and behavioral supports for our most traumatized students. These systems provide professional development and technical assistance for educators, building administrators, district personnel, and even school boards.

This work reduces reliance on restraint and isolation, and that lowers related injury and trauma for students and staff. Having systems that prevent crises in schools fosters classrooms where students are calm instead of dysregulated, and have brain states primed for learning so they can make the most of their education. These evidence-based practices benefit all students, and they can help lower incidents of classroom crisis now, without waiting another year or more for legislation

Restraint and isolation are supposed to be rare practices, but they are not. Isolation rooms, found within many of Washington's public schools and educational institutions, and restraining students must only be used when a student’s behavior poses an “imminent likelihood of serious harm.” However, isolation and restraint of students are commonly used as classroom management tools to induce compliance or otherwise punish or discipline students for noncompliant behavior, in violation of state law.

Isolation and restraint in schools hurts our most vulnerable students. The overwhelming majority of students subject to restraint and isolation practices are elementary school (K-5) students. There are egregious disparities in the practices of restraint and isolation against Black students, multi-racial students, low-income students, unhoused students, students in foster care, and students with disabilities. Restraint and isolation are punitive and penal experiences for students and can have lasting harmful effects. 

What House Bill 1479 does:

• Provides professional development on de-escalation strategies and proven alternatives to restraint and isolation for paraeducators and educators in self-contained classrooms, and administrators.
• Protects the continued use of quiet spaces, calm-down rooms, and physically escorting a student.
• Preserves the use of physical restraint in instances of imminent likelihood of serious harm.
• Improves reporting requirements to increase oversight, target where resources are needed, and reduce incidences.
• Improves follow-up with staff, students, and families to review the incidents, improve planning, and provide for reflection and healing.
• Increases technical assistance, monitoring, and support for Local Education Agencies (school districts, charter public schools, and tribal compact schools).
• Improves School Board knowledge and oversight of the use of restraint and isolation in their schools.

Use this form to tell key members of the legislature to appropriate money previously linked to House Bill 1479 to build school systems that prevent crises in classrooms and provide targeted supports for students, staff, schools, and districts.

Learn more: Isolation & Restraint LEVinar, ACLU/DRW Report, OSPI Report, LEV Putting Students First podcast, Seattle Times March 2023 editorial on why we must end isolation and restraint practices