State slams JCPS, orders restraint review

The state's top education official has ordered a significant onsite management review triggered by concerns about how Jefferson County Public Schools conducts and documents physical restraints and seclusion of students in schools.

In a letter sent Wednesday to JCPS Superintendent Donna Hargens, state Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt called the restraint and seclusion data issue a "significant deficiency" and said he is deploying staff from his department to conduct an onsite review of JCPS' management practices.

The Courier-Journal in March reported that JCPS had significantly underreported to the state the number of times students were physically held down or confined to a room in schools and that the district knew it had underreported those numbers.

Last month, the newspaper reported that JCPS paid $1.75 million to the family of a 16-year-old disabled boy who suffered two shattered thigh bones after a teaching assistant restrained him at the Binet School.

Read more: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/education/2016/07/20/state-do-onsite-review-jcps-over-restraint-concerns/87345324/