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In a recent shocking expose CNN described the suicide of a 13-year-old boy in Georgia in a “seclusion room.” These 3′ by 4′ prison-like rooms are used across the United States, with little state guidelines for their use. Innocuous sounding titles are used like “chill room” and “time out room” but they are really solitary confinement cells “used for punishing unruly children.” Even elementary school children are not exempt.

These are the same type of solitary confinement cells that inmates in prison are put into when they disbehave, but they are adults, not little school children. The irony is that if any parent were to lock their child inside a small closet, they would be considered by the state’s Child Protective Services to be abusing the child, but not so the schools.

The practice of isolating students in maximum-security like cells is increasingly, but not exclusively, used for special education and disabled students. Many are completely traumatized by this experience, as would any adult. Instead of calming practices, employing de-escalation measures or sending them to a counselor, teachers and administrators excuse themselves by saying this is a “last resort,” but the evidence does not support that assertion.