It was drawn in pencil and crayon on an 8 x 11” paper. Her 10-year-old son Cooper told her it was a drawing of his school.  But Nicole Miller was puzzled when she saw that he had drawn bars over the front door.  “Mommy, why do they, why do they force me to go to the room?” Miller recalls him asking her. He was describing his former school, North Ridge Elementary in Commack, New York. The room, seen in pictures that Miller shared, is known as a de-escalation room, seclusion room or time-out room.  Often used as a tool to help special needs students, like Cooper, calm down. Nicole says the school required it as an option for Cooper because of his behavioral issues. “They told me, you know, he’s very behavioral. Like he will rip up his papers or they were concerned about him being a danger to himself or to other kids,” explained Miller. “They said he has to stay in the room until he regulates and calms down. I didn’t know any better at the time. I listened to what they said.” According to state law, time out rooms should “only be used in a situation that poses an immediate concern for the physical safety of the student or others.” Children must be monitored and the doors cannot be locked, according to the law. “These seclusion rooms should be utilized as a last resort,” said Susan Deedy, a special education attorney. “Most importantly these rooms cannot be used as a punitive measure.” Deedy represents represents families of special-needs students. She says too often, schools put kids into time-out rooms without trying other interventions first. “For educators, it’s an easy way to address behaviors and it becomes sort of an answer,” said Deedy. “The law is very vague when it comes to really putting requirements on the schools districts but there’s a lot of room for error in my opinion.”  Deedy says there are better choices if a student is acting out. “Giving the student choices, visuals, redirection. sometimes there’s you know, ignoring, planned ignoring, or give the student a job.” Current law stipulates that rooms “shall not be used as discipline or punishment…or as a substitute for positive, proactive intervention strategies….” And Miller says she didn’t really know what type of room Cooper was being placed in. “I was under the impression that they took him to a separate classroom, a sensory room. Maybe there’s a beanbag.”  But while visiting the school one day, Miller says she asked to see the time out room. “A jail cell. It looked like a jail cell and I felt so betrayed by the system.” Commack Schools declined an interview but sent a statement saying in part “these interventions are outlined in the behavior improvement plan which is crafted by a team and discussed with a parent…” and “when a student is in the space for a more extended period of time, it is because the student has requested to remain in that place, working with a known and trusted adult.” The district also provided NBC New York with updated photos of the time out rooms, which they say comply with state regulations. Records obtained by the I-Team reveal time out rooms were used 199 times by the Commack School District in an 8-month period.  “The descriptions are often for things like non-compliance or screaming or yelling or tantrums, noted Michael Wilson, director of the Education Discipline and Justice Group, “it doesn’t constitute a youth in crisis.” Wilson who focuses on education rights, reviewed the data obtained by the I-team. In some cases students were in seclusion for more than an hour. Wilson says time spent in the seclusion room, matters. “The seclusion essentially exacerbates the issues that bring kids to the point where someone is trying to seclude them and then it further causes anxieties and traumatic responses.” Miller believes that’s what happened with her son.  “He would have nightmares that he was in a building and all the windows were boarded and mommy was outside and he couldn’t get to mommy,” she recalled. “He was being sent to time out and once, he bit his teacher.” Cooper is now in a different public school district where time out rooms are not used. “These seclusion rooms are an antiquated response to handling students behavior,” said Deedy.  It’s not clear how many districts in New York use seclusion rooms because the reporting requirements only became law this year. More data should be made available by the end of this academic year.