Wednesday, February 10, 2016

InterHab testimony for Seclusion and Restraint bill

February 10, 2016

TO: House Committee on Children and Seniors

FR: Tom Laing, Executive Director, InterHab

RE: Support for House Bill 2534 

We have appreciated the collaborative efforts of school officials and advocates in generating the language you are considering in HB 2534, as introduced, and we support that work product.  We know of only one issue* on which the stakeholder group could not agree, and that is the "sunset provision" that some are now promoting.

We oppose a sunset provision for this bill, and strongly urge that you NOT add it.

Sunset provisions are appropriate when statutes are written which are considered to be time-limited in need, or a "test run" of a new idea.  We understand some laws may later be deemed unneeded or impractical.  That is NOT the case in this instance. 

We believe that laws to create safer and more secure classrooms for our children are necessary. If anyone suggests it is somehow impractical to adhere to laws to assure a child's safety, that attitude in itself should be proof of the need for this law to become permanent.  

The push for a sunset provision comes from some of the same groups that opposed this law for a decade, and therefore our experience and yours should tell us that the sunset provision in this case is NOT a strategy to improve the law, but an effort to run the clock out on the law in hopes that it will not come back.  

The inappropriate use of seclusion and restraint would be considered an act of battery or worse, if the victim was an adult. Would we ever consider sun-setting laws against battery? Of course not.  Children's safety should be protected.  There should be no sunset on the right of a child to be safe. 

Please consider these thoughts, and act in accordance with the needs of our state's children, and please call if you have questions. 

Sincerely, 

Tom Laing, Executive Director, InterHab 

(NOTE: We have been advised that efforts are underway now to slow down the bill to add new regulatory language from the Department of Education. We believe that such language if important, should have already been offered, and in any case, can be added later, and should not slow down your consideration of the bill to which stakeholders had already agreed. Considering the accelerated pace of the legislature this year, delays to this bill may ultimately cause this bill to die. Do not let that happen.)

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