Two years ago, a Pueblo police officer handcuffed a seventh-grade special-education student at Corwin Middle School to a desk and left the boy unsupervised for more than an hour.
A complaint about that action came before the state Board of Education on Thursday, amid concerns that school districts are not properly enforcing a 7-year-old law on how public agencies should deal with cases like the one in Pueblo.
The board voted unanimously to set forth ways in which such grievances can be heard. The process requires complainants to go up a chain of command from the teacher to the school district superintendent before being heard by the Department of Education.
But the move disappointed advocates who argue the department ought to make sweeping changes in the enforcement of the state Protection of Persons from Restraint Act, in addition to more individual accountability and uniform training of school staff in how to deal with troubled children.
“There are mental institutions that are held more accountable than school districts when it comes to physical restraint,” said Heidi Van Huysen, attorney with the Legal Center for People With Disabilities and Older People, a Denver-based organization.
Thursday’s school board action was not enough, said advocates for the disabled.
They argued that lawmakers ought to retool or amend the state protection act to set better guidelines for individual agencies in the state.
“The board’s action today doesn’t seem to have a lot of teeth to it,” said Aileen McGinley, executive director of the Arc of Denver, an advocacy group for people with disabilities.
State Assistant Attorney General Tony Dyl, who represents the state Board of Education, said the board’s action “clarified what different types of enforcement mechanisms were already out there, since there appeared to be some uncertainty.”
Van Huysen brought the complaint to the board on behalf of Timothy Ralston of Pueblo. Ralston’s family and District 60 officials would not comment on details of the incident. But district spokesman Greg Sinn did point out the handcuffs were used by a Pueblo police officer assigned to the school and used in order to protect the boy from harming himself.
“We used this as a safety measure for the student and other students, and it was absolutely the last resort,” Sinn said.
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com
