On August 2, 2023, the New York Board of Regents adopted 8 NYCRR § 19.5. The regulation banned seclusion, prone restraint, corporal punishment, and aversive interventions in NY schools.
Beginning with the 2024-25 school year, every public school district, BOCES, charter, state-operated and private residential school must file an annual report to the State Education Department. The reports cover physical restraint, timeout, and substantiated and unsubstantiated allegations of corporal punishment, mechanical restraint, prone restraint, aversive interventions, and seclusion.
The first NYC dataset is being submitted now. It will be the first time New York has district-level restraint and seclusion data that can be examined directly.
The reason the new state requirement matters is what came before it. NYC’s prior federal reporting was so incomplete that the U.S. Department of Education placed the district on an Action Plan for the 2017-18 Civil Rights Data Collection. The restraint and seclusion module was effectively zeroed out due to large amounts of missing data. For the better part of a decade, the federal dataset that should have answered the question of how often NYC schools restrain or seclude students did not answer it.
What the New Regulation Requires
8 NYCRR § 19.5 applies to all schools serving NY students. It permits physical restraint only when immediate intervention is necessary to prevent imminent danger of serious physical harm. The intervention must be the least restrictive option, must not restrict breathing or communication, and must be performed by trained staff. Seclusion is prohibited outright. Prone restraint is prohibited outright. Corporal punishment and aversive interventions are prohibited outright.
8 NYCRR § 200.22 applies specifically to students with disabilities. It requires schools to conduct functional behavioral assessments, develop and implement behavior intervention plans, and notify parents before timeout is used.
The reporting requirement that took effect in 2024-25 covers seven categories.
| Reporting Category | Status |
|---|---|
| Physical restraint | Permitted in narrow circumstances; reportable when used |
| Timeout | Permitted under conditions; reportable |
| Corporal punishment | Prohibited; allegations reportable, substantiated and unsubstantiated |
| Mechanical restraint | Prohibited; allegations reportable |
| Prone restraint | Prohibited; allegations reportable |
| Aversive interventions | Prohibited; allegations reportable |
| Seclusion | Prohibited; allegations reportable |
For each event, schools must report the location, the duration, the reason for the intervention, and the type of training the staff involved had received. Submissions go through the Student Information Repository System (SIRS) using the eScholar Student Restraint Event template. The frequency was upgraded from semiannual to annual starting 2024-25.
The National Pattern
What NY is now requiring schools to report has been documented at the federal level for more than a decade. The numbers establish the baseline against which NYC’s first state report should be read.
The Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education has required restraint and seclusion counts since the 2009-10 Civil Rights Data Collection. The most recently published cycle is 2020-21, released in 2023-24. National figures published by Brookings in its analysis of the CRDC data show three patterns that have held across multiple collection cycles.
Students with disabilities make up 13% of US public school enrollment but account for more than 75% of all restraint and seclusion incidents. Black students make up 15% of US public school enrollment but account for 35% of students subjected to seclusion and 34% of students subjected to mechanical restraint. The 2017-18 cycle nationally reported 101,990 students restrained or secluded. The 2020-21 cycle dropped to 52,800 students, a decline most analysts attribute to the COVID period of remote instruction rather than a structural reduction in the practice.
The federal data also has a quality problem. Roughly 70% of districts report zero incidents in CRDC submissions despite documented parent complaints, and the Government Accountability Office has criticized OCR data quality on these elements. NYC’s Action Plan placement in 2017-18 is the most consequential example of that data quality problem.
What NYC Has Already Paid
While the restraint and seclusion data has been missing, NYC has been paying for school-based abuse on a different track.
The Child Victims Act opened a one-year revival window for time-barred childhood sexual abuse claims that ran from August 14, 2019 through August 14, 2021. More than 10,000 claims were filed during the window. Per the Child USA Institute, roughly 13.4% named a public or non-public school as defendant.
NYC paid more than $160 million in CVA settlements through October 2024 according to City & State NY’s analysis. Of 161 NYC settlements, 135 were against the DOE or former DOE staff. The average DOE CVA settlement was approximately $994,000. Less than 13% of NYC CVA cases had moved past discovery at the time of that report, meaning the settlement total continues to grow.
Specific named DOE settlements include $4.5 million across two cases involving Russell Bracher (a former band instructor); $2.4 million in 2022 involving Nicholas Auriti (a former PE teacher at Bay Academy); $1.25 million involving Frank Mickens (a former principal, deceased); and $1.25 million involving Reginald Landeau Jr. (a former principal).
The Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District (SCI) is the independent agency that investigates serious misconduct in NYC schools. SCI’s CY 2024 annual report documented a record 11,874 complaints received. The office initiated 484 investigations and substantiated 171, finding 252 people or entities in violation. SCI specifically conducted 146 investigations into inappropriate or sexual misconduct by DOE staff or vendors, with 43 substantiated.
These are not restraint and seclusion numbers. They are the numbers from a parallel accountability track that has been running for years. The new NYSED reporting requirement adds the missing track.
The Federal Enforcement Template
The same month that NYC’s first 2024-25 NYSED submissions came due, two federal-style enforcement actions landed within weeks of each other.
On February 12, 2026, NY Attorney General Letitia James announced a settlement with Buffalo Public Schools. The four-year agreement requires an independent monitor, a Discipline Ombudsperson, revisions to the Code of Conduct, and implementation of restorative practices. The AG’s findings cited substantially higher suspension rates for students with disabilities and lost instructional time. Black students in Buffalo were six times more likely than white peers to receive out-of-school suspensions. Latino students were approximately four times more likely.
In the same month, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division concluded that Special School District of St. Louis County had secluded more than 300 students nearly 4,000 times and restrained more than 150 students more than 770 times. The DOJ findings document the federal template that can be applied to any district where the underlying data shows similar patterns.
The legal vehicles in both cases were Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Disparate-impact disability discrimination is the federal hook. The state and federal evidence are now both available for NY districts in a way they were not three years ago.
The Legal Framework for Families
When a NYC student is restrained, secluded, or otherwise injured at school, several legal vehicles are available. The procedural deadlines and elements differ.
General Municipal Law § 50-e Notice of Claim
42 U.S.C. § 1983
Federal civil rights claims for constitutional violations. Excessive restraint can support a Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure claim. State-created danger and conscience-shocking conduct can support a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim. has a three-year statute of limitations in NY (borrowed from the personal injury statute) and does not require a Notice of Claim.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
Federal disability discrimination statute applicable to recipients of federal funding (which includes NYC public schools). The vehicle for disparate-impact and intentional-discrimination claims based on disability.
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act
Federal disability discrimination statute applicable to public entities. Often pleaded together with Section 504 in school cases.
The IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1400
When restraint substitutes for a properly developed and implemented behavior intervention plan, the result is a denial of free appropriate public education. IDEA claims must generally be exhausted through impartial hearings before federal court. The L.V. v. NYC DOE consent decree in the Southern District of NY (Judge Loretta Preska) is the systemic vehicle for impartial hearing implementation. As of August 2025, only 9.5% of nearly 3,400 NYC special-ed service orders were implemented within the 35-day window required by the consent decree, and only 1% of nearly 5,300 payment orders were fulfilled on time.
Common Law Negligence, Negligent Supervision, Negligent Hiring and Retention
Standard NY tort claims, subject to the 50-e Notice of Claim requirement.
The combination of state and federal claims is the standard architecture in serious cases. The state claims compensate. The federal claims drive systemic reform.
What to Watch
Two specific signals to watch as the 2024-25 NYSED data lands.
District 75 is the NYC DOE’s specialized district serving students with significant disabilities. Its restraint and seclusion numbers will be the most consequential figures in the dataset. National CRDC data establishes that students with disabilities are restrained at more than five times the rate of nondisabled peers. District 75 serves the population most likely to appear in the data.
The disability disproportionality ratio in the NYC report. The federal pattern is 13% disability share of enrollment producing 75%+ share of restraint and seclusion incidents. Whether NYC’s 2024-25 numbers are at, above, or below the federal pattern will determine whether the AG and the DOJ have the predicate evidence for action under Section 504 and Title II of the ADA, which is the federal template that took down Buffalo and St. Louis SSD in February 2026.
The data will land. What happens next depends on what the data shows.
