Every day in special education classrooms, teachers and aides oversee students whose emotional and behavioral disabilities can trigger violent confrontations. In some cases, teachers and aides wrestle students to the floor, pin them against classroom walls, or drag them into seclusion rooms.
During a class excursion in 2013, a nonverbal 5th-grader with autism, epilepsy and an IQ of 47 was repeatedly told to stop touching the wheel of his special stroller, but he didn’t. His teacher responded by holding him facedown on the floor for 12 minutes, according to a lawsuit.