Is putting kids in a closet acceptable school discipline?

Betsy Shaw

posted: September 12, 2012, 9:41 am



Six years ago, journalist Bill Lichtenstein discovered his five-year-old daughter was being put in a seclusion room at her school, as a disciplinary measure, for up to an hour at a time.

The punishment apparently occurred daily, for months, before Lichtenstein and his wife found out.

They realized what had been happening when they were called by the school and told their daughter had taken all her clothes off. They arrived to discover she had taken her clothes off to relieve herself, in the mop closet where she had been isolated. Their daughter, Rose, had speech and language delays.


This happened at a public school in Lexington, Massachusetts. After pulling the girl out of the school and then pressing charges, the school agreed to pay for the girl’s therapy.

This father then did some research and learned that seclusion and physical restraint is more common than we know in public schools. According to Lichtenstein, Department of Education data apparently revealed that 40,000 students were restrained or isolated between 2009 and 2010. It also showed that the majority of those students subjected to this method of discipline had some sort of developmental, behavioral, or learning disorder.


These disciplinary practices are not new. They have long since been used to maintain order in psychiatric facilities. They’ve also been discovered to be largely ineffective and potentially damaging.

According to this video testimony, Greg Kutz, a managing director of forensic audits and special investigations for the Government Accountability Office, there are no federal laws restricting the use of seclusion and restraint in public and private schools. Laws very widely from state to state.

In California and Texas alone, again according to Kutz, there is no national data available, but it was reported that there were 33,000 instances of restraint, isolation, or other interventions during the 2008 school year. At least 20 cases of abusive use of restraint resulted in death.”

While I realize the abuse of disciplinary methods by school staff is generally limited to isolated incidents, the thought of teachers using such seemingly barbaric, potentially traumatizing and outdated methods on students is sickening to me.

I had a grade school teacher who emotionally abused a difficult student. Her desk was called her “hole” and she was often ordered to “get in her hole” as if she were a wild animal. While she was never physically harmed, it was horribly disturbing to all of us in that class.

What are your thoughts about schools and discipline?

Betsy Shaw


Read Betsy's full bio »

15 Responses to Is putting kids in a closet acceptable school discipline?

  1. Danny's Momma says:

    If a child is being THAT out of hand, why not send them to the office and have call a parent to pick them up?? Is that totally out of the question?? Stuffing them in a closet is not going to help the situation any. Didn’t they notice that their “discipline method” wasn’t working after the first time? That is absurd.

  2. Chrissy says:

    Here on Babycenter we start mommy wars over people choosing to turn their baby forward facing before age fifty (being facetious) which saves roughly the same number of children that DIED at the hands of teachers/administrators from restraint and seclusion.

    This is a serious issue. I am not faulting the teachers entirely. Like the strike in Chicago, these teachers are underfunded, under staffed, and have minimal training to manage the difficult behaviors of multiple students, especially those with disabilities. I am a case manager for people with developmental disabilities and I have seen so many teachers that are just at a loss of how to teach students with disabilities when behavior management takes the majority of their effort and there aren’t enough resources to actually provide education to these students. Instead they are just being warehoused until they reach 21 when they are moved into group homes and sheltered workshops where ehy are warehoused until they die. It is a scary world with shrinking resources for these teachers.

  3. Chrissy says:

    Danny’s Momma-This isn’t (typically) run of the mill general education students. These are students with autism and other disabilities that are required to be provided a Free and Appropriate Public Education. If everyday a student is having behavior like this that is directly related to their disability the school is required to accomodate that student and still provide education.

  4. Mrs. Ladybug says:

    This is outstanding! I completely agree with Chrissy that schools and teachers are not adequately prepared or provided the proper “tools” to handle those types of situations.

    However, I wonder if the possibility of an answer (not THE answer) could be in other students? Would it be so out of the box for a teacher to ask another, perhaps advanced student or one who is quick to get work done, to help the distracted student stay on task? I remember volunteering to do such a task in one of my middle school classes and the student I assisted with did better in that class than any other. The “helper student” doesn’t teach or discipline or anything of that sort. They are just there to help; remind their easily distracted classmate to listen, to focus on finishing their paperwork, to not make loud outbursts, to raise their hand, and such.

    Isolation in group settings like that only provide embarrassment to the isolated child. I think to better equip teachers to do the job they really want to do they need help from all around, from their teachers, from parents, from the government and other students. I’m not speaking negatively about teachers I am agreeing with them, they are right, they aren’t properly equiped and that needs to change.

  5. tricia says:

    I have worked in both public and private schools, and in the private school, there were designated “seclusion” rooms. It was a school that used restraint as a (small) part of the extensive behavior management. When properly used by trained staff, it is just another tool for teachers and staff to use when a student is violent to themselves or others.

    I seriously doubt that enough training in restraint and seclusion was given to staff in a public school, they have enough to do with development trainings based for children with regular ed needs.

    I totally think that restraint and seclusion has a place in schools, but only after staff has been sufficiently and extensively trained. I have seen it work, at the very least, to protect a student from hurting themselves or others. You have NO IDEA what it can be like to try to teach students with extreme mood disorders who will attack other students and teachers for no apparent reason. Or a schitophrenic child who hears voices telling them to stab themselves with a pencil. There are some very difficult children who need serious help, and sometimes it is what is needed to protect them.

    What concerns me about this case, is that 6 years ago, the parents decided to settle out of court on the condition that they not speak publicly about it. Why is he choosing to speak out, instead of at the time? And who would take a payout if they really thought this needed to be publisized?

    Just my two cents…

  6. Jenn says:

    When I was in jr high my English teacher mr. O was also the vice principle. I do not know if it was a closet but it was a little room off the classroom and there was his desk in there. Well it was also where students were brought for in school suspension. This happened when they were disrupting class. A teacher would bring the kid and they would sit there until mr. O could talk to them. We were sharing a school with the high school and way over crowded. Once we moved to a new school they had a special I.s.s. room in the office.
    Even in high school they had an I.S.S. room for when someone was causing trouble. There was a monitor that sat in there with the kids. It had a big glass window so anyone in the office could see who was in there.

  7. Darlene says:

    I would be furious if this happened to my child. This should never happen without the parents being notified. A teacher who would resort to locking children in a closet should find another profession. Like the little girl in the article said, they just didn’t understand about working with children.

  8. kmom says:

    Seems especially odd that the parents hadn’t been notifed earlier that their child was having difficulty behaving in school…..and I’d suspect it might show up as serious school aversion too..that’s a long time for that to go on!

    • Betsy Shaw says:

      I agree. Or that the child didn’t tell the parents.

  9. Maureen says:

    One more reason I am glad we choose to homeschool.

  10. Momof4 says:

    I don’t care how underfunded a school is or if the teacher is on minimum wage. If any teacher looks at this as something other than abuse, they should be let go. there is absolutely no excuse for this type of discipline in our public schools or private or in the home. they do not tolerate this in the home and should not tolerate it in a school. If teachers or schools are not equipped to deal with a child, the parents or other officials should be notified immediately for the removal of the child or care of the child isolation is abuse for any child.

  11. Ms.V says:

    There are some safe and effective isolation techniques that can be used for students who pose a danger to themselves or others, but putting a child in a closet (repeatedly!!) is neither safe nor effective. This is clearly abuse and is totally unacceptable.

  12. NV Advocate says:

    The majority of children being put in seclusion or isolation closets are children without the ability to talk. These are children who can be lost in the shuffle, or abused by teachers, aides or other students. When attempting to assert themselves in the only way they know how, they are locked in the closet. The average age is ten, but children as young as five have been subject to such treatment. There is no “safe” way to lock a child in a closet and in the mental health field they have studied the data and it simply does not work. PERIOD. Children don’t tell for two reason, little or no language, and because – here’s the heart breaker – they think parents know what is happening to them. When you settle a case, it is usually an end to a trauma for the entire family. You simply want it over. When the healing time passes, and the opportunity to support federal legislation happens, I guess you are in a different space, and so telling the story makes sense.

  13. Vancouver Mom says:

    Perhaps the adults should be kept in seclusion for an hour to calm down.

  14. Pingback: uggs cheap

Leave a Reply

Hot Topic


Our Bloggers


Melissa Willets


Full bio and recent posts »

Erin Lane


Full bio and recent posts »

Sara McGinnis


Full bio and recent posts »

Carolyn Robertson


Full bio and recent posts »

Our International Sites:
