Anyone mystified by the poor results of our public education system despite ever increasing public funding needs look no further that the recent series in the Forecaster on school policies governing “physical restraint” of students who apparently cannot comport with behavior not requiring “physical restraint.” The apparent focus in the articles is the potential for choking for students with behaviors requiring physical restraint.

The real point, not addressed in the articles, is how in such an evolved, enlightened and educated society have we gotten to the point where there are so many students so frequently requiring “physical restraint” that we need such detailed policies and procedures. The real issue is why are students requiring “physical restraint” allowed to remain in our public schools to disrupt and impede the education of what I must assume are the vast majority of students who do not require physical restraint to behave? Apparently, it is not enough that teachers are required to engage in combat, they must also engage in combat without risking injury to the misbehaving student.

It seems no doubt we have gotten here by exalting the ever expanding rights of the misbehaving “victim,” with a recently defined “diagnosis,” to completely overrun the rights of the vast majority of non-disruptive students. The cost, in terms of dollars and in the lack of achievement to the majority, is incalculable. The question isn’t “how do we make the policy safer;” it is “why can’t we expel the students who can’t behave without physical restraint?”

Michael K. Martin

Cumberland

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