The Missing Data on Student Restraint and Seclusion

School districts have been vastly underreporting instances when some of their most vulnerable students are physically restrained or sent to seclusion rooms by campus staff — that’s the conclusion of a new report from the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency. Two reporters on opposite sides of the country were already deep into the reporting on this issue: Jenny Abamu of WAMU in Washington, D.C., and Rob Manning of Oregon Public Broadcasting. They discuss how they teamed up for a joint NPR Ed story, how local reporters can follow their lead in looking at restraint and seclusion issues in their own districts, and ideas for verifying numbers on these trends when official data is in short supply.

This episode of EWA Radio originally aired on June 25, 2019.