Sponsors (54)
The bill strengthens protections, training, transparency, and enforcement to reduce harmful seclusion and restraints and improve oversight, but does so by increasing costs, administrative burdens, and uneven implementation—particularly for underfunded or small districts—and leaves some children outside its reach.
Students (including those with disabilities) will face fewer instances of seclusion and dangerous physical restraints because the bill bans certain restraints and requires prevention policies, monitoring, and alternatives.
School staff, SROs, and security guards must complete state‑approved crisis intervention training (with renewal), improving de‑escalation skills and safer responses to behavioral incidents.
Parents, families, and communities gain much greater transparency and oversight through required prompt notifications, public reporting of restraint/seclusion incidents, and 24‑hour injury/death notifications.
Schools, districts, and Head Start agencies will incur significant costs for training, certification, recertification, recordkeeping, and reporting, which may divert funds from classroom instruction or require new local spending.
Rural, small, and underfunded districts may struggle to meet staffing, certification, monitoring, and grant application requirements, producing uneven implementation and potentially reducing program capacity in underserved areas.
Programs found noncompliant could lose federal payments or face enforcement actions, risking interruptions to services for enrolled children and families if funds are withheld.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Bans unlawful seclusion/restraint in federally supported schools and Head Start, requires training, state plans, reporting, protections, and authorizes $40M/year (FY2026–2030).
Official title: To prohibit and prevent seclusion, mechanical restraint, chemical restraint, and dangerous restraints that restrict breathing, and to prevent and reduce the use of physical restraint in schools, and for other purposes.
Introduced December 11, 2025 by Donald Sternoff Beyer · Last progress December 11, 2025
Prohibits unlawful seclusion and restraint of students in schools and Head Start programs that receive federal support, defines covered conduct and prohibited practices, and requires state plans, reporting, training, monitoring, and oversight. It creates a private right of action for affected students or parents, requires prompt notification and investigatory access for protection and advocacy systems, and authorizes federal funding to support implementation. It also directs a national assessment of effectiveness, sets training standards and recertification requirements for program personnel (including school resource officers and security guards), and requires regular state reporting and public comment processes to reduce use of aversive behavioral interventions.