Rosie Lenehan, a teacher-librarian at Amanda C. Rowe Elementary in Portland, does story time with a kindergarten class in March. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Only a few years after raising the threshold to physically restrain or seclude students in Maine schools, the Legislature is considering a bill to allow staff more latitude in dealing with student behavior.

School administrators say escalating student misbehavior cannot be properly handled under the current law, but disability advocates called the bill a step backward.

LD 1248 is sponsored by Rep. Holly Sargent, D-York, and would expand the situations in which teachers can use restraint and seclusion on students. Sargent told the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee at a public hearing Wednesday that she was inspired to file it after visiting four Maine elementary schools and hearing about instances of violence that teachers felt powerless to stop.

“I was struck by the behavior that I witnessed, by the weeping of students, of teachers, who sought me out to speak to individually regarding the fact that they were being bruised, they were being bitten, they were being attacked, they were being sworn at,” Sargent said. “They felt that there were no consequences, there was no way for them to get control.”

Her bill would lower the threshold for using restraint and seclusion on a student from an “imminent danger of serious physical injury” to just “imminent danger of injury.” It also makes a modification to allow teachers to escort students away involuntarily, and would expand the incidents schools are required to report to include minor injuries.

The bill has nine co-sponsors, mostly Democrats joined by one Republican and one independent.

In 2019, the advocacy group Disability Rights Maine sounded the alarm on a drastic increase in cases of seclusion and restraint in schools, which it said had jumped by 60% in four years. The group released a report that year that showed disabled students were disproportionately restrained and secluded, which led to the passage of a law in 2021 that raised the threshold for the use of those practices.

Ben Jones, director of legal and policy initiatives with the Freeport nonprofit Lives in the Balance, said the passage of this new bill would undo the work that happened in 2021 to reduce Maine’s use of restraint, which was the highest per-capita in the country at the time. He said what Maine educators need is better training on how to work with dysregulated students – those who are unable to control or regulate their emotional responses.

“It’s very difficult for me to understand why more restraint and seclusion would lead to greater safety for either party,” Jones testified.

But now, superintendents and education leaders are arguing those rules need to be revised again in order to make teachers’ work safer and easier.

Patricia Hopkins, superintendent of Maine School Administrative District 11 in Gardiner, recounted several cases of students in her district who have disruptive or dangerous behaviors that don’t meet the current threshold for restraint or seclusion.

When students with emotional and behavioral issues punch, spit, kick, pull hair and scream at others, it affects the entire school community, said Victoria Duguay, principal of River View Community School in MSAD 11.

“Over time this erodes the sense of psychological safety that is critical for all students to thrive and learn,” Duguay said. “When verbal interventions and environmental supports fail, a trained, calm and compassionate physical escort to a quiet and designated safe room allows staff to deescalate the student away from public view.”

Gorham Superintendent Heather Perry submitted written testimony in strong support of the bill. She said Gorham schools are seeing a rising number of student behavior issues, including many situations where staff feel they cannot safely intervene because of the current law.

“These changes are not about increasing restraint — they are about giving staff the practical tools they need to keep all students safe,” Perry said. “In Gorham, we always prioritize using the least restrictive approaches. But when those fail, it is essential that educators have the legal clarity and support to act in the moment to protect both the student in crisis and those around them.”

The Maine Education Association, the state’s teacher union, the Maine Principals’ Association, the group that oversees school sports, and the Maine School Management Association all supported the bill.

But disability advocates, and parents of students who have been restrained, said the bill is regressive and won’t improve conditions for teachers.

“Deleting the phrase ‘serious physical’ throughout the statute would effectively permit unbounded use of restraint throughout Maine,” said Jeanette Plourde, an attorney with Disability Rights Maine. She argued instead for the expansion of technical support for schools to implement the current law.

Ellsworth mother Krystal Emerson said that her son has been frequently restrained at school, an experience that has had long-term negative effects and amplified his anxiety and emotional dysregulation.

“Almost two years after that first incident he is still visibly shaken by these events. Just yesterday he recounted that he was scared after being restrained or secluded, that every day he worried that it would happen again,” Emerson said.