U.S. Department of Justice Finds Special School District of St. Louis County Violated Disability Rights
DOJ identifies “shocking overuse of seclusion and restraint”. One example: a second-grade student was secluded for one and a half hours for knocking over her teacher’s coffee.
February 23, 2026, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released findings of its investigation into the Special School District of St. Louis County (SSD), Missouri. DOJ concluded that SSD’s seclusion and restraint practices violated Title II of Americans with Disabilities Act. The investigation showed that SSD routinely confined and restrained students for non‑dangerous behaviors and often kept them isolated for hours.
“Shocking Overuse of Seclusion and Restraint”
DOJ found that SSD abused restraint and seclusion, using it as a routine response to student behavior. For example, “In one incident, a second-grade student was secluded for one and a half hours for knocking over her teacher’s coffee. In another, a seclusion was used because a second-grade student refused to go into music class. Another student was secluded for three and a half hours for drawing on her chair, cursing, and “being disrespectful.””
During the 2022‑23 and 2023‑24 school years, SSD secluded over 300 students almost 4,000 times. At Litzsinger School (which had fewer than 100 students), 91% of students were secluded and the school used seclusion 1,667 times.
SSD restrained nearly 150 students 777 times. One student at Northview High School was restrained 372 times over two years.
Children as young as first and second grade were secluded dozens of times, resulting in hundreds of hours of lost instructional time: “Ackerman secluded a first grader 49 times for over 20 hours total. The District secluded four second graders more than 40 times each. These five students experienced a combined total of 308 reported seclusions for a total of 111 hours of lost instructional time.”
