For more information and timeline details, click here.

The use of seclusion and restraint has been in use within ASD and Alaska for decades with Alaska State Statute 14.33.125 and Anchorage School Board Policy 5142.3. The Department of Justice settlement overrides these policies. From a District level, there will be changes to training and infrastructure, both of which ASD has already started implementing and seeing results.

“Physical Restraint” refers to a personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a student to move the student's arms, legs, or head freely. The term includes holding a student to compel or coerce the student to move to another location within the school. It does not include a temporary touching or holding of the hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, or back without applying pressure or force to prompt a student to walk to a safe location.

“Seclusion” refers to the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area that the student is physically prevented from leaving. It does not include a classroom time-out, supervised detention, or suspension from school if the student is not both alone and prevented from leaving. It includes the use of any room or area in which the student is alone and not free to leave regardless of its name.

• Multi-Sensory De-Escalation Rooms (MSDR)

  • A dedicated space for students to de-escalate and self-regulate

  • Safe, trauma-informed space that allows students to calm down and safely regain control of their behavior and emotions and to develop self-regulation skills through sensory activities.

  • These rooms include items such as fidget toys, noise-canceling headphones, bean bags, gym mats, punching bags, weighted blankets, vests, calming lights/colors, decor, calming music and vibrations, etc.

• Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is an evidence-based framework for supporting students’ behavioral, academic, social, emotional, and mental health. It is a way to create positive, predictable, and safe learning environments.

  • Tier 1 (preventive behavior intervention practices; the more proactive adults can be in supporting students who demonstrate behaviors that interfere with learning, the more successful they will be in helping students learn and maintain new skills to support learning)

    • Establish 3-5 positive school-wide expectations and define what that looks like for each school routine or setting

    • Align classroom expectations and plans to school-wide expectations

    • Explicitly teach behavioral expectations and skills for success

    • Encourage and acknowledge expected behavior

    • Provide positive, specific feedback

    • Reinforce accomplishments

    • De-escalation strategies

  • Tier 2 (small group interventions)

    • Additional instruction and practice for behavioral, social, and emotional skills

    • Check-in, Check-out

    • Small group social skill instruction

    • Increase adult support and supervision

    • Provide additional opportunities for positive reinforcement

    • Increase in prompts and reminders

    • Teach replacement skill which results in the desired outcome (for example, a student may be taught to request a break - replacement behavior - instead of screaming when asked to start their work. Both behaviors allow the student to get out of work (function) but asking for a break works faster, requires less energy and is more socially appropriate)

  • Tier 3 (wrap around supports to reduce the severity of behavior problems)

    • Functional behavioral assessment helps identify what might be causing the behavior to help develop positive behavior interventions.

    • Individualized, comprehensive and function-based support and plans

    • Safety routines

    • Individualized counseling from school psychologists/ counselors/social workers

    • Wrap around support from school-based community mental health clinicians and agencies

There has to be an imminent danger- harmful to themselves or others.

The Anchorage School District provides professional development training for our instructors in identifying and utilizing Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, allowing for intervention before escalation. Identifying triggers in a students' environment coupled with the correct de-escalation techniques limits the number of situations where restraint and seclusion would otherwise have been used.The Anchorage School District provides professional development training for our instructors in identifying and utilizing Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, allowing for intervention before escalation. Identifying triggers in a students' environment coupled with the correct de-escalation techniques limits the number of situations where restraint and seclusion would otherwise have been used.

Alaska Statutes 14.33.125 and 14.33.127 took effect on October 14, 2014. This legislation states that a school district shall provide crisis intervention training to a sufficient number of its employees to meet the needs of the school population. This required crisis intervention training must be part of a crisis intervention program that has been approved by EED.

EED has identified 6 evidence-based nationally recognized crisis intervention training programs that align with the requirements set forth under Statute 14.33.127 Crisis Intervention Training.

To meet the Restraint & Seclusion training requirements, designated school personnel must complete one of the six crisis intervention training programs below as well as complete CPR and First Aid training.

• Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) (ASD Approved Training)

• The Mandt System

• Right Response

• Safe Crisis Management

• Professional Crisis Management (PCMA)

• Professional Assault Crisis Training (Pro-ACT)

CPI is the institute that owns the Nonviolent Crisis Intervention (NCI) program. We retrain staff annually.

• The SBBS and Whaley sites have locked rooms with cameras that prevent a student from leaving the space. Lighting can also be adjusted to make for a more calming environment.

• Any space that has a door and a student is alone and prevented from leaving is a space that can be considered a seclusion room. These spaces are typically multi-use spaces in schools and rarely used as such.

In accordance with the settlement agreement, we have made a concerted effort to substantially decrease the use of seclusion by March 20, 2023, and seclusion will be prohibited beginning with the 2023-2024 school year. The District has already begun the process to invest in the training and infrastructure needed to affectively end the use of seclusion. 

Parents are notified as soon as possible. The principal/admin reaches out to parents and discusses next steps. 

Other steps:

• A debrief with staff is involved.

• At times, staff will convene an Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting. 

• It may lead to obtaining a consent for functional behavioral assessment where qualified staff member(s) observe the student in different environments to determine the cause of specific behaviors including the frequency, duration, and intensity. The team reconvenes to discuss the behaviors and the functions. If necessary, teams can implement a behavior intervention plan (BIP) to support de-escalation strategies in future scenarios. 

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) involves teaching and facilitating skills that students and adults need to be successful at home, at school, in the workplace, in life.

Working on SEL skills is a dynamic and individualized process. When students and adults have social and emotional skills, they are self and socially aware, and have the ability to manage themselves both independently and while interacting with others:

SEL teaches students that they can:

• Listen to the perspectives of others
• Use positive communication
• Be aware of cultural issues and differences
• Set and achieve goals
• Take personal responsibility for their learning.

Students being restrained/secluded are typically in the most restrictive environment they can be in. Often, these students have been identified with severe behavior concerns or are presenting imminent danger to themselves or others. We are learning there is a need to shift to practices like multi-sensory rooms to decompress and proactive or preventative strategies that will provide new insight into how to best deescalate situations and identify triggers that cause them.

4 AAC 06.172 -177 Reporting of school disciplinary and safety programs and incidents of R&S and crisis intervention programs

4 AAC 06.200-.270 Safe schools
4 AAC 06.250 Reporting
4 AAC 07.010-4 AAC 07.900 Student rights and responsibilities 

4 AAC 52.010-.990 Education for exceptional children