Minnesota working group deadlocks on several seclusion safeguards, adopts expanded grades proposal

A Minnesota legislative working group met remotely Jan. 21 to continue drafting recommendations aimed at reducing and ultimately ending the use of seclusion in K–12 schools, but members split sharply on key safeguards and timelines.

Chair Seaburger opened the meeting by circulating five chair recommendations, labeled a through e, and said the group’s overarching goal remains "to completely end seclusion in all districts throughout Minnesota." The chair then proposed measurable benchmarks and asked members whether numerical targets were workable.

Some members pressed for a concrete end date. "MDE has recommended 09/01/2026," said Jessica Heizer, who asked for a specific date to build consensus. The chair responded that a hard ban could "hamstring districts" and advocated instead for attainable, staged benchmarks to measure progress.

The chair offered an illustrative metric during the discussion: "All districts will reduce the use of seclusion by 50% annually until seclusion is used less than 5% of the time in any school year." Several education‑sector members responded that percent‑of‑students metrics (rather than percent‑of‑time) might be clearer and easier for districts to measure.

School representatives described implementation challenges. Nicole Woodward said comparing Minnesota to other states is difficult because local mental‑health and county supports differ and cautioned that a date without technical assistance "is gonna get us more of what we've had," including shortened school days and increased use of physical holds. Other panelists cited Minnesota data showing increases in physical holds since the earlier K–3 ban, while advocates warned that correlation does not prove causation.

The group debated several statutory changes. Recommendation b would have amended Minnesota Statutes chapter 125A (proposed citation lines 1.26–2.13 of amendment double 0077) to require explicit, separate written parental consent (in parents’ primary language) for use of seclusion, trigger a new IEP meeting if seclusion occurred on two school days within 20 calendar days, and require MDE outreach and a streamlined complaint process. Supporters urged MDE to draft a standardized consent form and make the complaint line item visible on the MDE portal; opponents noted concerns about implementation burden.

On a roll call for recommendation b, the working group was evenly divided. Staff reported "6 ayes, 6 nos, and 4 absent," and the chair announced the tie prevented the recommendation from being included in the draft report.

Recommendation c proposed incorporating lines 6.2–6.24 of the amendment and expanding the scope from grades 1–6 to grades 1–12. Proponents said expanding procedural safeguards across the grade span would be administratively simpler and offer stronger protections. Opponents objected that changing the law could be construed as rolling back the existing K–3 ban. On the roll call, the motion to adopt c passed 7–5 and will be included in the draft report.

Two other chair recommendations failed on tie votes. Recommendation d (adding a requirement for an oral translation of the notice of procedural safeguards for parents of children with disabilities) produced a 6–6 vote and did not pass. Recommendation e (directing MDE or the legislature to evaluate whether elimination of seclusion correlated with increased use of restrictive physical holds, and proposing evaluation of student trauma) also failed on a 6–6 vote after members debated the meaning of "evaluate" and whether to specify who would perform trauma assessments.

Several members expressed regret about procedural errors in voting: one member said they had voted in error and sought to change their vote after the roll was closed but was unable to do so; another noted that a previously cast legislative vote in 2023 had produced outcomes that drove some of the current debate.

The working group set a final meeting for Jan. 28 at 2 p.m. in Senate Building 1150 to continue discussion of paragraph a (timelines and benchmarks) and to vote on the draft final report to the legislature.

What’s next: the group will return Jan. 28 to attempt consensus on benchmarks and finalize a report for the legislature; material adopted so far includes the expanded‑grades language in recommendation c but not the parental‑consent or evaluation provisions.

Quotes used in this article come from the working group transcript of the Jan. 21 meeting and are attributed to speakers listed in the working group record.