Progress on student isolation & restraint

Plus Nguyễn moves up to run Commerce and some recommended reading

During the 2023-24 sessions, the House Education Committee devoted itself to building a bipartisan solution to ban the use of student isolation and chemical restraint in public schools. House Bill 1479 from Rep. Lisa Callan, D-Issaquah, passed the House with a bipartisan vote but died in the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee last year for a second time in the last biennium. 

Senators told The Observer that HB 1479 was too similar to the 2023 version and too expensive to implement. Education stakeholders continue to search for a solution that balances the need to mitigate harm to students in crisis while still giving teachers and school staff tools to manage student behavior. It’s an equity issue, too. Students with disabilities are more likely than any other student group to be isolated or restrained in public schools. 

Despite the blow to the legislative ban last session, money was divvied out to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to help school districts phase out the practice. The state operating budget allocated $2M in 2024 and $8M in 2025 to OSPI to help school districts build alternative practices and improvements have been made, according to a December presentation by Mikhail Cherniske of OSPI to the House Education Committee. 

A former isolation room at a Spokane public school is now being used for band practice. Image courtesy Disability Rights Washington.