Restrained students still an issue for some St. Johns County parents

The Lisewski family lives in St. Johns County, a district with some of the most highly rated schools in the state, so they never saw themselves as a homeschooling family. But they felt they had no other option when their son Caden kept coming home saying school staff had "manhandled" him.

Caden Lisewski is on the autism spectrum. His dad, Kevin, says he was a model student in kindergarten at Palm Valley Academy in Nocatee. It wasn't until Caden started first grade that the Lisewskis started seeing some behavioral issues with their son. By second grade, the 2022-23 school year, Kevin says, "the wheels fell off."

Caden would act out. He would disrupt class, run away and break things. As a result, he was removed from class, sometimes by force.

"I can't speak for other people's experience, but I can say that Caden was restrained often," he says. "Last year he was in school, but those last three months, things escalated quickly. I mean, they were calling us every single day. They were putting their hands on him almost every single day."

Caden experienced what school districts call "restraint." It's the legal term for restricting a child's movement by holding them down, for example, or using restraints like handcuffs.

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights found that the St. Johns County School District reported "very high rates" of restraint for students with disabilities in the last decade. And while the district has greatly reduced its reported instances of restraining students, some parents still don't believe students with disabilities are treated equitably.

"They treat these kids with disabilities like they're criminals," Kevin Lisewski says.

Many of the recorded instances of restraint were performed against a repeat group of students with disabilities. The report found that one student was restrained 126 times during two school years, while another was restrained 120 times in that period. One student, the Office of Civil Rights found, was restrained "for nearly six hours in one incident."

But many of these instances took place during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years. Since then, the Office of Civil Rights found that St. Johns County Schools has greatly reduced its usage of restraint on students.

The school district touted a 92% decrease in reported incidents involving restraint since the heights of the 2018-19 school year.

With the conclusion of the Office of Civil Rights' investigation, the St. Johns County School District has committed to checking in on the current accommodations for the students who were restrained during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years, as well as providing better training to staff and revising its policies.

"We attribute our significant decrease in incidents of restraint to our continued focus on getting our students the individualized supports they need to be successful," Christina Upchurch, chief of community relations for St. Johns County Schools, tells Jacksonville Today.

The Office of Civil Rights intends to continue monitoring the district's progress in enforcing its policies and to ensure students with disabilities receive equitable treatment to all other students.

That doesn't mean the policy of restraining students is gone.

Under Florida Department of Education policy, restraints like "straight jackets, zip ties, handcuffs, or tie downs" can be employed when a student presents a threat to themselves or other students, but these techniques are not to be used on students until "all positive behavior interventions and support" have been attempted.

Using these kinds of tactics on his son, even if he was being disruptive and distracting, Kevin Lisewski says, created a pattern of Caden acting out and getting physically punished for it.

"Once they do that, he's never going to listen," he says. "So I don't know what other people's experience is, but our experience is, they're doing it, at least to our son, they're doing it pretty frequently."

The Lisewskis say their son's experience isn't unique. They believe that the district has too many other students to look after and that teachers aren't paid enough to properly enforce the individualized education program, or IEPs, that students with disabilities have.

Those plans lay out what accommodations a student with disabilities needs to receive a quality education.

Amanda Smith is another St. Johns County parent who was left disappointed by the school district's accommodations for her child. Her daughter Jessa is dyslexic. She also has trouble processing words the way others do. That means learning in a traditional school setting is hard for her.

Smith's daughter was never restrained, but Smith says the child still didn't get the help she needed to start her down a path toward effective learning until she had already lost a good chunk of first grade.

Whether it's restraint or not getting students the resources they need, Smith says she's seen the pattern in St. Johns County — students with disabilities, she says, or students who learn differently from their peers, often don't get the support they need.

Even if homeschooling is hard, Smith says she won't send her daughter back to a public school in St. Johns County.

"I know here, today, having a child that has needs that need to be met," Smith says, "as the situation is, her best shot isn't in public school."

The Lisewskis also are hesitant to send their son back to a public school in St. Johns County.

After their experience with administrators restraining their son, they sued the St. Johns County School District, arguing that their son's IEP was not being properly enforced.

They won, but the district appealed the case, and it is currently working its way through the courts.