BRIGHAM CITY, Utah — In his nightmares, Marcus Norton is alone at Mountain View Elementary School in the small, padded room with the gray metal door and the little window.
The 15-year-old said he mostly tries to avoid thinking about his experience in seclusionary time out — a behavioral intervention that’s allowed in schools across the state only in extreme circumstances when a student poses an imminent safety risk to themselves or others.
But he can’t always escape these “bad memories” when he falls asleep.
“Every time I try to leave or just walk away, she’ll grab me by the arms and hold me down,” he said of a teacher who appears in one recurring dream. “And she will hold my arms and drag me and put me in the thing – put me in the seclusionary [time-out room] – and I never went home for the day.”
Fellow ninth-grader Kody Breider was also repeatedly put in seclusion as a student at Mountain View in the Box Elder School District. He attributes his ongoing fear of “small, confined spaces” to those experiences in elementary school.
"It’s probably the worst feeling ever,” he said of being in isolation. “You can’t, like, get a breath of air. It’s scary. You don’t know what to do. Your adrenaline is going. Your heart is beating really fast.”
Like Marcus, Kody said he also has nightmares about being back in “the box.”
“I see the door and I just feel... I feel all the feelings at once I felt in, like, the course of two years,” he said. “It just all comes crashing down on me again.”
The students’ parents contacted the FOX 13 Investigates team after a series of recent stories spotlighted the use of seclusionary time-out in Utah’s districts and charter schools. The parents agreed to let their sons – both of whom have autism – sit down for interviews so they could describe the long-term emotional impacts they’ve faced from being put in isolation.
Both students acknowledged their behaviors weren’t perfect and said seclusion was sometimes warranted. Marcus said he used to “hit people” when he got angry, and documents Kody’s parents shared with FOX 13 News show there were times he was put in seclusion for charging at a teacher or kicking.
But records reveal — and the school district acknowledges — that the technique was also sometimes misused.
Handwritten notes from Kody’s teachers show, for example, that he was put in seclusion on several occasions for behaviors that didn’t rise to the level of imminent physical harm to himself or another person.
In one case, Kody was put in seclusion for running out into the school hallway. In another, he was taken to isolation for spraying hand sanitizer and refusing to sit at his desk. In that instance, the teacher said he would have to finish his time-out the next morning.
"Most of the time it happened there, it was unnecessary or overdone,” he said.
Some of the logs also show Kody was put in isolation for far longer than the 30 minutes the state allows. One day, documents say he was in “self containment” for more than three hours – from a few minutes before 9 a.m. to a little after noon.
In response to questions from FOX 13 News, Box Elder School District Superintendent Steve Carlsen acknowledged that, based on the teacher’s notes, Kody appeared to have been put in seclusion “for reasons that are outside the Emergency Safety Intervention guidelines, state board rule and our policy.”
The teacher who put Kody in seclusion “is no longer employed with our District,” he added in the email.
Asked whether the documents would prompt any reconsideration on the use of the seclusion in Box Elder Schools, Carlsen wrote that they do “raise questions about whether the training we have provided in the past was effective.”
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LIST: These Utah school districts and charter schools put children in seclusion
Since the time Kody and Marcus were put in seclusion, he said the district’s training on seclusion has become “more targeted and comprehensive” — including through instruction provided “by a special education lawyer” and the crisis prevention program Safety Care.
Training on seclusion emphasizes “de-escalation techniques and the appropriate use of seclusionary time-outs,” as well as “using seclusion as a last resort” and finding “alternative strategies and interventions to manage challenging behaviors,” he said.
Carlsen added that the school district plans to continue providing this training to staff “on an ongoing basis.”
"NOT FOR SMALL REASONS"
While lawmakers in states like Georgia, Hawaii, Nevada and Texas have either banned or severely limited the use of seclusion, the Utah State Board of Education allows it under narrow safety circumstances.
Under the board’s rules, students can only be put in seclusion – whether in a room designated for that purpose or elsewhere – if they pose an imminent safety risk to themselves or others. And the tactic should never be used to punish or discipline a child.
The state’s rules also limit seclusion to no more than 30 minutes at a time, require staff supervision of a student throughout and mandate that a teacher disclose every instance of seclusion to the student’s parents and school administrators.
“There’s a lot of documentation and a team that goes into having this conversation,” noted Kathleen Riebe, a state senator and elementary school teacher.
Overall, Utah school districts and charter schools reported using seclusion more than 1,300 times in the 2020-2021 school year, according to a FOX 13 News analysis of the most recent federal data available on the practice. The data shows most of those instances were among elementary school children and students with disabilities, like Marcus and Kody.
While opponents have raised concerns about the disproportionate use of seclusion on students with disabilities and the long-term emotional impacts on those who are put in isolation, schools say it’s a necessary tool to help ensure the safety of students and staff – especially as problematic behaviors have become increasingly common in classrooms since the pandemic.
WATCH: Kathleen Riebe explains why she thinks seclusion is a better alternative to restraint in violent situations
“Kids will pick computers up; they’ll rip wires off the wall,” Riebe said in an interview. “They’ll pull things off that are bolted to the wall. They’ll pick up desks. They’ll bite people. They’ll scratch people. It’s a very unique situation, and when these things happen, it’s kind of hard to imagine that this is coming out of a third grader or second grader or fifth grader.”
Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, said she’s never used seclusion but knows of colleagues who have had to in order to keep their classrooms safe.
"When it does happen,” she said, “it’s not for small reasons.”
While Riebe acknowledged that seclusion can be an invasive intervention and said it’s not something teachers are “excited to do,” she believes it can be a better alternative to physical restraint in violent situations.
"If a child is violent, experiencing self-harm, would you want them to be held in maybe a subjective way by somebody who has some anger or some fight or flight kind of reflexes?” she asked. “Or would you prefer to have your child in a room where there’s less stimulus and less ability to harm themselves? So I think about that, you know? Like, what would be the alternative to a kid who’s having a violent outburst?”
"NO ONE'S WATCHING THEM"
In statements previously provided to FOX 13 News, Utah districts and charter schools that have reported using seclusionary time-out stressed their compliance with the state’s rules around isolation, saying that the tactic is used as a last resort.
But Kody and Marcus’s parents say their experiences show it’s not always used that way.
While Marcus’s family doesn’t have the same level of documentation as Kody’s does, they believe he was also put in seclusion as a form of discipline rather than to maintain safety.
“They don’t use it as a last resort,” Marcus said, “because there’s no one really watching them — like the teachers — because they’re adults.”
Guy Stephens, executive director of the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint, told FOX 13 News previously that he’s aware of cases across the country where students should never have been put in seclusion.
“I know kids that have been restrained and secluded for taking off their shoes and refusing to put them back on,” he said. “I know a kid that was secluded and restrained for flipping a light switch on and off and not listening to the directive to stop doing it. I would say to you in my experience, the majority of situations where children are restrained and secluded did not meet that high bar.”
WATCH: Kody Breider and Kathleen Riebe discuss ways to help students de-escalate in schools
In its statement, the Box Elder School District stressed that it exercises “strict oversight over the use of seclusion through regular audits, reviews, and reporting requirements from each school.”
When a student is put in isolation, the staff member who uses the technique is supposed to fill out a form and send it to the district’s special education director for review, Carlsen said.
The district then reviews those forms “to ensure the intervention was used appropriately” and will explore adjustments to a student’s education plan “if we begin to see a pattern” of emergency safety interventions like seclusion.
“Occasionally, as we see here, a teacher does not always document the seclusionary timeout and the form is not filled out,” he continued. “We cannot review appropriate use of seclusionary timeouts when we do not know about them.”
Experts have long raised concerns about the quality of reporting and data collection on seclusion in schools across the country. The Government Accountability Office, a federal government watchdog, found in a 2020 report that “significant weaknesses” in data quality control have made it “impossible to accurately determine the frequency and prevalence of restraint and seclusion” across the country.
In cases when administrators are not made aware of issues, Carlsen said the Box Elder School District relies on reports from employees or parents. If an inappropriate use of seclusion comes to the district’s attention, he said the district will “work with that teacher to ensure correct understanding and/or take appropriate corrective action if necessary.”
Kody’s mother, Michelle Breider, told FOX 13 News that she complained several times about the way seclusion was being implemented in the school, including to officials who now work for the district. Carlsen did not respond to a request for clarification on whether the district was previously aware of the issues in Kody’s case.
" I JUST WANT THE BOX TO BE GONE"
Recognizing that there could be a need for more clarity for teachers who use seclusion, the Utah State Board of Education recently approved a few minor changes to the rules governing its use.
At a meeting earlier this month, the board redefined “immediate danger” to mean the “imminent risk of physical violence towards self or others, or other physical behaviors which are likely to cause imminent risk of substantial or serious bodily injury.” The definition previously included the phrase “aggression towards self or others,” which board member Joseph Kerry said he felt was too broad.
“I think that our obligation is to say, let’s be very careful with how these ultimate invasions into a student’s space are authorized,” he said during the meeting.
After reviewing the documents showing the reasons Kody was put in isolation, a representative with the Utah State Board of Education stressed that its staff “do their best to support districts and charter schools” around the use of seclusion.
The board provides training to schools on crisis management to promote de-escalation before teachers use seclusion. Schools are also required under board rules to have Emergency Safety Intervention Committees, which are meant to monitor the uses of seclusion and restraint and recommend additional training, if needed.
But at the end of the day, “it is a local education agency’s (LEA’s) responsibility to be in compliance with board rules and state law,” said Sharon Turner, the board’s director of public affairs.
Turner added that the state is currently working to develop a process “to more closely monitor the policies and procedures surrounding the use of seclusionary time out."
Kody and Marcus’ families say their experiences show there is a need for greater oversight of seclusion – or even a ban on the technique, as other states have implemented.
By speaking out, the boys told FOX 13 News that they hoped to ensure other kids don’t have to go through what they did.
“They shouldn’t have to lock up people just because they’re different,” Kody said through tears. “I just want the box to be gone. I don’t want no one to go through what I went through.”
NOTE: If you believe a school has violated state law related to students with disabilities, you have the right to Dispute Resolution Processes under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) – including “filing a state complaint, filing a request for a due process hearing, or requesting mediation,” according to the Utah State Board of Education. Additional information can be found on the board’s website here.