How 'the most violent' special education school ended restraint and seclusion

https://news.yahoo.com/most-violent-special-education-school-062615355.html

Sharon Lurye, The Teacher Project
,USA TODAY•July 26, 2020

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“It was the most violent school I’d ever been in,” said Michael George, the former director.

A man with blue eyes and a bushy white mustache, George stepped into the role of director in 1999. The year before, a population of only around 80 kids were physically restrained over 1,000 times. Students were dragged, kicking and screaming, to locked seclusion rooms.

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George and the school’s teachers realized the physical restraints were making student behavior worse. So they made it their mission to change the school’s culture. In 1999, Centennial went from 233 restraints in the first 40 days of school to just one restraint in the last 40 days of school. Within four years, restraints were down to zero. The school also saved money, according to a 2005 study, because it didn’t have to hire a huge crisis staff anymore.

During a visit to the school last year, the only noise was the murmur of kids chatting and teachers praising their work. The school is clean, with halls that smell like peppermint. Some classrooms have gentle blue overhead lights, for kids with light sensitivity. It feels like a zen spa for kindergarteners.

Centennial’s success, teachers believe, proves that restraint and seclusion is almost never necessary, even for kids struggling with the most serious behavior issues.

That belief stands in contrast with national trends.

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His success stems from the changes the school started to make in 1999. To radically reduce restraints, Centennial didn’t do anything particularly radical. It used techniques that were already well-supported in research.

The main technique the school used is known as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, or PBIS. In short, teachers focus less on punishing bad behavior and more on teaching kids what good behavior looks like. The school adopts three to five overarching behavioral expectations for the entire school, like “Be responsible” and “Be respectful.”

Teachers are trained to look for when kids are doing something right, not something wrong, and reward them with praise and points. Centennial shut down the seclusion room and turned it into a school store, where kids trade points for prizes. Kids can’t lose any points on their point sheet, only earn them. This is so students always feel like they have something to gain from behaving well.

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Teachers got at least three hours of professional development a week. Anything that worked in one classroom would then be codified into official school policy so everyone would be doing the same thing.

“[Bryce] had consistent expectations that were the same in every room, with every teacher,” said his mom, Kim Adair.

All this talk of praise and positivity may make it seem like the school coddles its students. But expectations are high. At Bryce Adair’s old school, if he wanted to get out of class, all he had to do was throw a fit and the staff would call his mother to come pick him up. That didn't work at Centennial.

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While teachers were strict, Adair said, they were also kind. He remembers sharing jokes with one of his favorite teachers, Emily Polefka, and watching Bob Ross painting videos together during break time. He began to behave better, not out of fear of punishment, but because he cared about what his peers and teachers thought about him.

"Once you start to know them, you don’t want to be making trouble for teachers either because you have a relationship," he said.

Polefka now works as a special education teacher at a public school. She said she still often thinks about Centennial's motto: "Nice matters." It means “being nice to kids, treating each day as it’s a clean slate,” she said. “Respecting them and being kind to them, even when it feels almost impossible to be kind because you're so tired or stressed or overwhelmed with the situation you're dealing with."

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