’Some children will be hurt’ CHICAGO ­ Ian Nogli is one of more than 100 students with mental, physical, and behavioral disabilities at the Byron School. Ian faces the possibility of being put into a solitary confinement room every day.

“They drag me. I hate when they drag,” he said.
The Byron School is a private school with a Chicago Board of Education contract to teach special-needs students. The school has five time-out rooms it uses daily.
“They’re stupid rooms. I hate rooms like that. That’s not good,” Ian said.
Ian’s mother said he had to urinate in the time-out room once after being locked up for hours, and had to use his shirt to clean it up.

“He kept saying he had to go to the washroom. They didn’t believe him,” said Joy Nogli. “They thought he was just using that as an excuse to get out of the room.”
Ian’s mother and grandmother agree that Ian has to be disciplined at times for his behavior. But they say there has to be a better way.
“They’re closets. They’re locking the children in closets,” said Gail Gerken, Ian’s grandmother.
The Byron School is one of many Illinois schools which have built their own time-out rooms. Unit 5 found allegations of time-out room abuses have surfaced in Pontiac, Monticello, Decatur, Normal, Rockford, Schaumburg, Ottawa, Centralia, Harrisburg, Effingham, and Moline.
A Unit 5 investigation in February exposed time-out room problems at a school in Ottawa, including a deadbolt lock on a door and a room which failed to meet Illinois Board of Education size guidelines. The state board and the Department of Children and Family Services are investigating.

ABUSE OR DISCIPLINE?
“I don’t doubt that most teachers are trying to do their best, and that most teachers wouldn’t abuse even these kinds of interventions,” said Benjamin Wolf, an attorney with the ACLU who has worked on time-out abuse cases. “But what we’ve learned is that without a lot more protection for these children, some people will abuse these interventions, and some children will be hurt.”
‘[W]hat we've learned is that without a lot more protection for these children, some people will abuse these interventions, and some children will be hurt.’ —Benjamin Wolf ACLU attorney
Wolf watched Unit 5’s undercover footage of the time-out room at Byron, which shows a girl being put in a room, a boy put into another room then taken out to make room for another student, and a fourth student screaming and banging so hard he shakes the door, which is being held shut by a monitor.
“You’re only supposed to use this thing if the child is a danger to himself or others,” said Wolf. “If he’s in there and he’s a danger to himself, and he’s pounding, you ought to be concerned.”
Another potential problem Unit 5 found at Byron is a time-out room that measures three-by-six feet, 18 square feet less than the state recommends. Even state prisoners in solitary confinement get a cell more than twice the size.
Byron Principal Susan Gardner said she is “not worried” about the size of the room.
“Smaller rooms can actually be beneficial,” she said.
Gardner would not talk about specific cases because of confidentiality. But she did say the school handles some of the most severely emotionally disturbed children in the area.
“These students can be very dangerous,” she told Unit 5.
Gardner said about three students go into confinement each day.
“These students have a right to be protected from the aggressive and assaultive urges they have not yet learned to have behavioral control over,” she said, adding that some students even ask to go into the room when they feel an outburst coming on.
Initially, school officials told Unit 5 one of the girls on our tape shown going into the room volunteered to do so. Then we showed Gardner our tape.
“Clearly this is not a student who has asked to go in,” she said.
After seeing Unit 5’s video, Gardner said her staff checked the time-out log books again, and they now say the girl was forced into time-out for being in “non-compliance.”
But what does that mean? What did she do wrong? The school didn’t have a specific answer.
Sue Gamm, head of special education services for the Chicago Board of Education, said there “would be improvements,” adding that Byron has a good reputation.
But Unit 5’s findings have led to an investigation, as well as changes in record keeping of who goes into Byron’s time-out rooms and why. Gamm also said the size of one of the time-out rooms in question is being doubled.
“It’s very clear that we can really use some expertise in this area,” said Gamm. “The fact that our staff did not pick it up initially makes me believe that we need some help.”

CHANGES AHEAD
The state Senate recently unanimously passed a bill which would, for the first time, make time-out room laws mandatory. The legislation is now in the hands of the state House.
Because of Unit 5’s investigation, the Chicago Board of Education has created a task force to study the use of time-out rooms citywide.
Unit 5 asked Byron officials to talk to the parents or guardians of the children on the videotape, but they did not provide us with those people. They did, however, pick two parents who defended the school, saying it has led to improvements in their children’s behavior.
But even those parents said they would like to see some regulations when it comes to time-out rooms.