Michigan schools secluded or physically restrained students nearly 18,000 times during the 2024 to 2025 school year, almost a decade after state lawmakers passed a package of laws intended to limit both practices to genuine emergencies. The vast majority of those instances involved students with disabilities.
The figure is down from the previous two school years, which is the one piece of good news in the data. It is also far from what the 2016 legislation was meant to produce, and it has prompted a new legislative push. State Senator Stephanie Chang, a Detroit Democrat, says she plans to introduce a bill this fall that would prohibit seclusion outright, require districts that restrain students excessively to write reduction plans, and mandate staff training.
For families, the relevant fact is not the total. It is that seclusion and restraint are documented at a scale most parents do not expect, that the children affected are overwhelmingly those with disabilities, and that in Michigan a parent generally learns their child was secluded only because the law requires the school to tell them.
What the Law Did and Did Not Do
Michigan adopted Public Acts 394 through 402 of 2016, restricting restraint and seclusion to situations where a student poses a danger to themselves or others. The State Board of Education adopted an implementing policy the following year, and districts were required to write corresponding local policies.
The laws also required reporting. Every use must be reported to parents and to the Michigan Department of Education, and school personnel must receive additional training on handling behavioral situations.
What advocates say the package lacks is enforcement. There are no penalties for improper use or for failing to report accurately, which is why they treat the reported figures as a floor rather than a count.
Cassie Atallah, chair of the advocacy group EndSaR, told Bridge Michigan that the group is a decade into implementation and that "additional safeguards are necessary to fully protect our students and staff."
Reporting on the state data has also identified concentration rather than even distribution. A small number of districts account for a disproportionate share of the totals. A Detroit Free Press investigation found that one small Montcalm County district isolated children about 4,000 times over five years, and that federal data from the 2020 to 2021 school year identified a school in that county as recording more exclusions of children with disabilities than any other school in the country. Many districts, meanwhile, record none at all, which either reflects genuinely different practice or reflects different reporting.
Where advocates and school officials diverge is on whether new legislation is the answer. The Michigan Department of Education has not taken a formal position on the draft bill, and a spokesman said the department has urged the Legislature to provide training funding and will work with lawmakers and districts. The department convened a task force between December 2024 and April 2025 that recommended aligning state and federal guidance and clarifying the law. At least one special education administrator has questioned whether more legislation is needed when training is already underway.
Why Health Reporters Cover This
Seclusion means confining a student alone in a room, often small and bare, with a window through which an adult supervises from outside. Restraint means an adult uses physical force to restrict a child's movement, ranging from holding an arm to a full-body hold. Both are physical interventions applied to children and carry documented risks. Michigan schools are now facing scrutiny over these practices, particularly their use on students with disabilities.
The clinical concerns are established rather than speculative. Physical restraint carries a risk of injury to the child and to staff, and, in rare cases, positional asphyxia when a child is held prone or with pressure on the torso. Seclusion of a child already in distress can escalate rather than de-escalate the crisis. Repeated use is associated with traumatic stress responses, and children with communication disabilities may be least able to describe what happened afterward.
There is also a substitution question. Behavior that leads to restraint is often a form of communication from a child who cannot regulate or express distress otherwise. Functional behavior assessment, individualized behavior intervention plans, sensory supports, and adequate staffing are the alternatives clinicians and special education researchers point to. Those require resources that many districts lack, which is part of why usage persists.
State data also has a limitation that matters clinically. It records the number of incidents but not how long a child was held or secluded, or what preceded the decision. Duration and antecedent are exactly what a clinician or behavior specialist would need to assess whether an intervention was proportionate.
Nothing here suggests that school staff act in bad faith. Staff frequently manage genuine safety situations without training or support, and both the child and the adult can be injured if the situation escalates.
What Parents in Michigan Can Do
Parents are entitled to be notified each time restraint or seclusion is used on their child. If notifications are arriving repeatedly, that pattern itself is information worth acting on.
The practical steps are concrete. Request the incident reports in writing and keep them. Request an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 plan meeting and ask for a functional behavior assessment, which is designed to identify what precedes the behavior. Ask specifically what de-escalation was attempted before the physical intervention and what the plan is to reduce future use. Bring a parent advocate if useful, and know that Michigan Alliance for Families, the state's federally funded parent information center, provides free support to families navigating special education.
A pediatrician should be told. Repeated seclusion or restraint belongs in a child's medical record alongside any changes in sleep, appetite, school refusal, regression in toileting or speech, new aggression, or withdrawal. Those changes warrant evaluation rather than being attributed to the disability itself.
Concerns about a specific district can be raised with the Michigan Department of Education, and families who believe a child's rights under federal disability law were violated can file a complaint with the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.
MedicalDaily has covered other areas where state-level averages hide local variation in school health data, and the same pattern applies here. A statewide total says very little about any individual building.
Key Questions Answered
What do the numbers show? Michigan schools secluded or restrained students nearly 18,000 times during the 2024-2025 school year, down from the previous two years. The vast majority of instances involved students with disabilities.
What did the 2016 law require? Public Acts 394 through 402 restricted the use of restraint and seclusion to emergencies in which a student endangers themselves or others, required reporting to parents and the state, and mandated staff training.
Why has usage stayed high? Advocates say the legislation included no penalties for improper use or for failing to report, and that the definition of what counts as an emergency is unclear.
What is being proposed now? A state senator plans to introduce a bill this fall that would ban seclusion, require districts that restrain students excessively to develop reduction plans, and mandate staff training. The state education department has not taken a formal position.
Are the reported numbers complete? Advocates and journalists who have examined the data treat the totals as an undercount because there are no consequences for underreporting.
What are the health concerns? Physical injury to children and staff, rare but serious risks from prone or torso restraint, escalation rather than de-escalation of a crisis, and traumatic stress responses with repeated use.
Where can families get help? Michigan Alliance for Families offers free support to families in special education. Complaints can be filed with the Michigan Department of Education or the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.
