How I spotlighted the disturbing dependence on restraint and seclusion in Maine schools

Six years ago, when I was a local reporter, I got a tip from a former education technician who said he had quit his job after being asked to drag students down hallways and lock them in empty rooms as they screamed and cried. He said he did it multiple times a day. My first thought was: “How is this even legal?”

After looking into it over a few months, a pattern emerged. There was a school in Bangor, Maine where I lived, that had used these practices — known as restraint and seclusion — thousands of times without reporting them to the state, despite a legal requirement to do so.

That reporting was later used by disability rights advocates to help pass a law limiting the use of restraint and seclusion. But by the time that law passed, I had left the state. Since moving back to Maine last year, the question remained in my mind: If that was just one school using these practices so frequently, what was happening statewide?

Over the next several months, I conducted more than two dozen interviews, combed through roughly a million rows of data spanning a decade, and tried to fill in the many gaps left by official reporting. I spoke with advocates, parents, teachers, and ed techs. One thing quickly became clear: The law aimed at restricting these practices hadn’t really worked. The practices were still widespread, and the reporting had only gotten worse.

In a three-part investigative series for the Maine Morning Star, I examined how public schools across Maine use restraint and seclusion on students, often in violation of reporting requirements and with little accountability. The project was based on dozens of interviews, public records requests, and analysis of over a million rows of data. It revealed systemic failures in protecting vulnerable students, particularly those with disabilities, and showed how both families and educators are being traumatized by these practices. It also highlighted schools that have successfully reduced their reliance on restraint and seclusion, offering a roadmap to reform.

From 2019 to 2024, school districts steadily dropped off in their reporting to the state. There was no enforcement mechanism when they failed to report. Meanwhile, the families of children — often with disabilities — who were being restrained and secluded, and the school staff tasked with performing those actions, were left traumatized.

National data, although incomplete, still showed Maine ranking third or fourth per capita in its use of these practices. Some of the most frequent users weren’t even submitting data to the state.

Trauma reporting requires time and trust

I knew this project would require finding people — parents, teachers, administrators — willing to talk about some of the most confidential, sensitive topics schools must confront. It took months of trust-building to find two parents who were willing to share their stories with their names attached. Both described similar experiences in different districts: their children were repeatedly restrained or secluded, worsening their mental health to the point where they could no longer attend school in person. In both cases, school officials admitted the practices had been overused, but there had been no accountability.

As I reported, new legislation was introduced that aimed to loosen the restrictions on restraint and seclusion passed in 2021 — and it had the support of the Maine Education Association, which represents thousands of teachers. It then became even more important to find educators willing to talk about the emotional toll of these practices.

I eventually connected with an ed tech in a small northern district who was initially hesitant to go on the record. After she resigned, citing her concerns about restraint and seclusion, she allowed me to use her name and the district’s. I also found a veteran special education teacher who helped explain the long-term emotional impact that performing restraints had on him — even years later.

It took several more weeks to verify the stories I was told. Schools are required to document every restraint and seclusion incident, so I acquired these reports — some directly from districts, others from parents. Understandably, families were wary of sharing confidential records. But I found that explaining my intent clearly made all the difference. I told them that I wanted to portray what had happened to their children as accurately as possible — and that required details.

These records were also essential when I approached the districts for their side of the story.

Solutions journalism can reframe the debate

During our in-person training week at the start of the fellowship, we were told: Don’t just report the problems — look for the solutions. That stuck with me. And it turned out that when administrators made a concerted effort to reduce restraint and seclusion, they could. It required years of training, buy-in from staff, and leadership support, but it was possible.

My third story profiled a district that had done that. Their example helped prove an important point: Restraint and seclusion are not the only ways to handle challenging student behavior.

When data is missing, be transparent

The final — and arguably most difficult — piece of this project was the data. We knew schools were underreporting, but writing about what’s missing is uniquely tricky. You don’t know how the gaps might skew the narrative.

Here, I leaned on both my past data training and help from experts in Maine who’d worked with this dataset before. The data was messy, inconsistent, and in some cases inexplicably absent — and no one at the state level could clearly explain why. In the end, we used what we had: the most complete picture possible from available state records, public records requests, and individual district data obtained through FOIAs.

The throughline was clear: if schools face no consequences for not reporting how often they restrain and seclude students, they have no incentive to reduce those practices.

Final reflections

What I learned from this project will stay with me for a long time: both the technical data skills I honed trying to clean the messiest dataset of my career, and the emotional patience required to talk to people about traumatic experiences — and do it ethically. Without both, the story would have been incomplete.

Although this investigation is finished, the issue isn’t. A weakened version of the 2021 law is moving forward in the Maine legislature. There’s still more to explore, including the role of specialized schools that serve students with the highest needs — and that may be among the most frequent users of restraint and seclusion.

As one advocate and lawyer told me after reading the project: “This is the most complete and disturbing picture of restraint and seclusion we’ve seen in years.”