This week we’re devoting several days of the Daily Dawg to SB 712, to be codified at T.E.C. 37.0023. The law prohibits the use of certain “aversive techniques” and offers 13 (13!) examples of what is considered such a technique. Here’s a summary of the 13.
1. Anything that is “designed to or likely to cause physical pain” other than authorized corporal punishment.
2. Electric shocks, the use of “pressure points or joint locks.”
3. Spraying a noxious, toxic or unpleasant spray, mist or substance near the student’s face.
4. Denying a student adequate sleep, air, food, water, shelter, bedding, physical comfort, or access to the bathroom.
5. Ridiculing or demeaning a student in a manner that adversely affects or endangers the learning or mental health of the student, or constitutes verbal abuse.
6. Employing a device that simultaneously immobilizes all four extremities, including any procedure that results in what is known as prone or supine floor restraint.
7. Actions that impair breathing, including placing an object on or over the mouth or nose.
8. Restricting circulation.
9. Securing the student to a stationary object while the student is sitting or standing.
10. Inhibiting, reducing or hindering the student’s ability to communicate.
11. Chemical restraint.
12. Any “timeout” procedure that precludes the student from making educational progress, including isolating the student by use of physical barriers.
13. Depriving the student of the use of one or more senses. There is an exception for this one for techniques that a) do not cause pain; and b) are approved in the IEP or BIP. This looks to be about headphones.
Suggestion: get a group of your colleagues together and review this list. Which of these are teachers most likely to be accused of? Are you concerned about the subjectivity of some of the terms in the law?
Tomorrow, the Dawg will comment on one of these 13 techniques.
DAWG BONE: T.E.A. WILL PROVIDE FURTHER GUIDANCE, BUT THE LAW WILL BE IN EFFECT BEFORE WE GET THAT.
Tomorrow: A specific concern.