Mississippi District Agrees To Stop Handcuffing Students To Stationary Objects

The AP (5/25) reported that the school district in Jackson, Mississippi, has agreed to end the policy of allowing students to be handcuffed to stationary objects at an alternative school, and will train staff in "better methods of discipline," noting that the agreement was part of the settlement of a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The complaint alleged that school staff "routinely restrained students for hours for offenses as minor as dress code violations, forcing them to eat lunch while chained to a stair railing and to shout for help when they needed to go to the bathroom." The AP cites an ED report which "showed tens of thousands of students, 70 percent of them disabled, were strapped down or physically restrained in school in 2009-10. ... The US Department of Education says Mississippi is one of 13 states with no statewide rules governing restraints."