Federal investigation reveals St. Johns County schools restrained students with disabilities

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — The St. Johns County school district is under fire for restraining students with disabilities.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigated several schools and found some serious concerns.

OCR found some students were restrained more than a hundred times in a matter of two school years.

“There should be absolutely no reason for dozens of restraints on one child,” Autism Society of Florida President Stacey Hoaglund said.

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“That’s ridiculous,” a Beachside High School parent said. “I can’t believe they would do something like that to a kid.”

The federal investigation found about 950 restraints involved 132 students with disabilities between 2017-2018. The following year, there were more than 1700 restraints involving 153 students.

One student was restrained more than 120 times during that two-year time frame and another student was restrained for nearly six hours.

“St. Johns County has historically had a much larger number of restraints of children with disabilities,” Hoaglund said.

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Hoaglund said in 2021, the three biggest school districts with more than 39,000 students with disabilities combined used fewer restraints than St. Johns County, which only has about 7,000.

“In one year, 31 restraints in Miami-Dade, 45 in Broward, and in Palm Beach – 258, which was high. But in St. Johns County that same year, we had 696,” Hoaglund said.

She has been advocating for years for the removal of restraints from the classroom, and a bill was passed in 2021 to do just that.

“Prior to that bill, you could literally put kids in zip ties, handcuffs, straight jackets,” Hoaglund said.

A Beachside High School parent who did not want to show her face on camera said she has a child with disabilities and was stunned to hear about this investigation.

“That’s sad,” the parent said. “I would be hurt for my child if that was my child.”

Hoaglund said if the students have what they need to communicate their problems, a teacher should never have to restrain a student.

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“Maybe we need more adults in the classroom, maybe the students need a one-on-one, maybe the student needs an augmented communication device so they can let others know what they’re experiencing,” Hoaglund said.

Following the investigation, the district agreed to make several changes. They include reviewing all the students affected to see if they need to add more instruction or education because of missed school time from the restraints. It also includes revising the district’s policy and manuals, implementing a monitoring program, training staff, and developing a process for accurate reporting.

Action News Jax reached out to the school district, and a spokesperson said they won’t be commenting on this today.

But today’s letter from OCR said the district has agreed to take the necessary steps to protect the civil rights of students with disabilities.

The resolution letter to St. Johns County School District and the resolution agreement are available on the OCR website.

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