Buckeye Ranch & use of restraints

CRISIS INTERVENTION TRAINING TAKING CHARGE OF CLASSROOM
Teachers learn how to manage children with emotional, behavioral problems
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 NEWS 01D
By Jennifer Smith Richards THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

In a matter of seconds, the teachers took Kayla Bolitho down. They rolled her onto her belly and, to keep her from flailing, secured her legs and upper body.

Gently, of course.

"I'm low enough that she can't kick me, but I'm not putting pressure on her leg," explained Mary Roach as she stretched across Bolitho's legs.

Normally, the move would be used to control children before they could hurt themselves or others.

But Bolitho, who teaches autistic children at Haugland Learning Center in Columbus, was just playing a role as she and other central Ohio educators learned how to handle a child in crisis.
The educators who were at Buckeye Ranch recently hope they won't need to restrain anyone. It is a last resort.

But more children are coming to school with severe emotional and behavioral problems, so more teachers are asking for training about what to do when a student loses control. South-Western schools send special-education teachers to crisis-intervention training at Buckeye Ranch each year.

"(Our students) tend to have learned very limited coping skills. They tend to have crises more often than the average student does," said Peggy Snow, principal at South-Western's Kingston School, which serves emotionally disturbed children. "Classroom teachers need this."

Other districts -- Columbus, Dublin, Westerville and Worthington among them -- say their teachers are getting training to handle difficult kids, too.

"We're doing all kinds of crisis training," said Columbus Superintendent Gene Harris. Children are learning misbehavior at home, she said, "and it's showing up in our classrooms."
Even in regular classrooms, teachers report a rise in angry children. School districts, by law, must try to teach special-needs students in regular classrooms. So those teachers, too, must learn to cope.
The question of how -- and when -- to restrain children has come up in central Ohio.
During the 2004-05 school year, a 7-year-old girl was restrained repeatedly at Worthington Estates Elementary. Her mother complained to the Ohio Department of Education, which concluded that the basket hold used was "potentially life-threatening" because it can restrict a child's breathing.

"Most teachers around the United States get no training in the area of behavior management in their college training," said Thomas McIntyre, an expert on behavior management at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

They should learn how to reward good behavior because "punishment and penalties do not teach," he said. "If the punishment is harsh enough, kids will fall into line. But it doesn't teach them a replacement behavior -- what they ought to be doing."

Ohio State University requires people in its teacher-training program to take a behavior-management course. But the state doesn't mandate that every teacher be trained in how to handle upset and potentially dangerous kids.

Columbus Public Schools just adopted a districtwide strategy that teaches children the correct way to behave rather than using punishment alone. Teachers started training this summer through a district program.

At the Buckeye Ranch, teachers already had learned how to help calm upset children without restraining them. Teachers can help students control their emotions, sometimes by going to a "time out" or quiet place. In some schools, teachers encourage kids to release energy by exercising.

Another technique: Get other children out of the room. They'll be safer, and the out-of-control child no longer has a crowd to play to.

"A lot of times, if you remove the audience, you won't need to restrain," said Lance McGarr, a crisis-intervention instructor at the ranch.

jsmithrichards@dispatch.com

Caption: ERIC ALBRECHT / DISPATCHElizabeth Goff, left, and Katie Bliss, kneeling center, practice a restraint move on Jane Snow, lying face down and portraying a disruptive student, as they listen to instructor Mary Roach, right, staff-development coordinator at Buckeye Ranch, at the Licking County Educational Service Center.