District presents seclusion and restraint data; staff training and debriefing emphasized

Jenny McMahon, director of student services for the Stevens Point Area Public School District, presented the district’s annual seclusion and restraint report on Sept. 9 and outlined training and procedural changes intended to reduce use of restrictive practices.

McMahon told the board that seclusion and restraint are governed by state rules and the district’s board policies, and that the district files detailed incident reports with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). She provided district totals for the most recent reporting period: in regular education programming there were three seclusion incidents involving one student and 10 restraint incidents involving five students. In special education reporting the district recorded 209 seclusion incidents involving 33 students and 88 restraint incidents involving 25 students.

McMahon said the district is emphasizing in-person Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) training for staff new to the techniques, standardized training materials across trainers, stronger debriefing after incidents and more functional behavior assessments and behavior intervention planning. “We still need to talk about what do we know about the situation, how could we prevent this in the future,” McMahon said, summarizing the district’s debriefing focus.

Why it matters: Board members and administrators said seclusion and restraint are rare but serious events that can be traumatic for students, staff and other students in a classroom. McMahon noted that while some buildings showed higher incident counts, those counts typically reflect a small number of students with complex needs and the district is working on preventive supports.

Support and prevention work: McMahon described measures to reduce future incidents, including more in-person CPI sessions for staff in the first two years they use the techniques, standardized trainer materials, and targeted training for staff working with students with significant developmental disabilities (the presentation used the name “Ucareau” for one such training program). She also said the district is encouraging cross-building training so staff can share practices and reduce siloing.

State reporting and context: McMahon said the district submits annual incident data to DPI and noted that DPI classifies districts into risk levels; she said Stevens Point remains at level 1 under the DPI metric despite recent increases in incident counts. McMahon and board members said the district will continue to expand prevention, debriefing and individualized supports such as functional behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans.

Ending: The board did not take action on the report; members asked follow-up questions about building-level trends, supports for classmates who witness incidents, and next steps to reduce incidents through environment design and individualized programming.