Dive Brief:

• The Kansas Board of Education is considering more specific wording for a law that allows teachers or administrators to restrain disruptive students.  
• Under the current law, if a student poses a threat, a teacher or administrator can restrain him or her — but the board may further define "threat," changing the wording to "harming either themselves or other children." 
• Critics of the change are warning the board that any word changes may affect how families feel about trusting their children with the teacher.  

Dive Insight:

The board is hoping that changing the wording will give educators more clarification of when to act. Restraint and its negative effects have been cropping up across the media as public interest news site ProPublica pushes a campaign to tell more stories about restraint going awry in schools. The site even has a section telling journalists how to report on restraint.

As ProPublica writes, "Spurred by a rash of injuries, deaths and bad publicity, psychiatric facilities and other institutions serving children have worked for more than a decade to reduce the practices of physically restraining children or isolating them in rooms against their will to control them. Federal law and regulation demanded it. Yet, restraining or secluding children in public schools remains perfectly legal under federal law – and in most state laws and school districts."