Ga. Board Weighs New Restraint, Seclusion Rules

Used on unruly students, such controversial tactics have drawn wide concern.

The Georgia board of education is considering banning solitary confinement in schools and limiting the use of restraint tactics to calm misbehaving students, which would mark the first time the state has addressed the controversial practices.

If the policy is approved, it would move Georgia off a federal list of nearly 20 states that do not regulate seclusion and restraint in schools. And for the first time, it would require schools to notify parents when their children are restrained by teachers and other school officials.

For Don King, whose 13-year-old son, Jonathan, hanged himself in 2004 in a seclusion room where he had been locked up for hours a day at his Gainesville special education school, the proposed policy...