'More measured way:' Alberta government repeals ban on school seclusion rooms

Alberta's United Conservatives have repealed a ban on seclusion rooms in schools that was brought in by the previous NDP government over concerns the rooms were traumatizing students with developmental disabilities.

The ban on isolation rooms, which are meant to give disruptive students a place to settle down, was to take effect next week.

"After careful consideration and a lot of listening to those directly affected, I have decided to move forward together with our partners in a more measured way, which is the right thing to do for the right reason," Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said in a news release Thursday.

"School boards, teachers, administrators and parents clearly tell me that a full ban limits a school's ability to protect the safety of everyone."

LaGrange said new standards for the use of isolation rooms are to be in place by the end of October and interim guidelines should be followed until then.

Those guidelines say seclusion and physical restraint are only to be used when children's behaviour could be harmful to themselves or to others. They also say seclusion rooms are meant to handle a crisis, not to manage day-to-day behaviour.

The new rules will be finalized with input from a number of groups, including the Alberta Teachers' Association, the four school boards in the province's two largest cities and Inclusion Alberta, a family-based organization that works on behalf of children and adults with developmental disabilities.

Last week, the public and Catholic school boards in Edmonton and Calgary urged the province to bring back seclusion rooms before the school year started. The boards said the ability to isolate disruptive kids was an essential tool to ensure the safety of staff and students.

In March, then-education minister David Eggen brought in the ban, but said schools and parents would be able to request exemptions if they felt seclusion for a student with severe special needs was in the best interest. No school was to be allowed to put a student in an isolation room without a caregiver's permission.

Seclusion rooms made headlines last fall when parents Marcy Oakes and Warren Henschel said their 12-year-old autistic son had been locked naked in a room and later found covered in his own feces. Elk Island Public Schools denied the allegations.

A survey of 400 families done last year by Inclusion Alberta showed that 80 per cent of parents said the rooms left their children traumatized or in emotional distress. The survey indicated that more than half of children put in isolation were on the autism spectrum.

However, the advocacy group was not entirely happy with the ban and welcomed the government's change in direction.

"The previous ban on seclusion rooms allowed for exemptions to be approved for entire school districts, when exemptions should only be granted for specific and time-limited individual circumstances," Barb MacIntyre, president of Inclusion Alberta, said in the release.

"Standards must prohibit the use of locked or forced confinement and, as such, we welcome the opportunity to collaborate with Minister LaGrange in the development of new standards."

Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers' Association, stressed the importance of having "the necessary resources and supports for inclusion to work well for all students and staff.

"Some students may require interventions to regulate behaviour and ensure student safety," he said.