Allison Ross, and Deborah Yetter

The Courier-Journal

The state's education commissioner has ordered Kentucky public school superintendents to immediately stop using a form of Aikido training to restrain students.

The letter, sent Tuesday, came in response to concerns that staff at Jefferson County Public Schools and at some other school districts had been using a method called Aikido Control Training to physically restrain students.

It also follows concerns recently raised by members of a state oversight panel on child abuse that the method can result in injuries including broken bones.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt said he understands that only five school districts have had staff members trained in the Aikido method, but said the cease-and-desist letter was sent to all school districts as a precaution.

"We must do all that we can to ensure that our students are treated with the highest level of dignity, respect and care," Pruitt's letter said.

Pruitt said the Kentucky Department of Education's main concern with the training was that it includes prone or supine restraint techniques. A prone restraint is where a student is held in a face-down position and pressure is applied to the body to keep the student in that position; a supine restraint is the same thing, but with the student lying in a face-up position.

Some have suggested that the use of prone and supine restraint techniques increase the risk of harm to those being restrained, in part because inadvertent pressure could cause breathing or other issues. Several states, including Kentucky, have banned the use of such techniques in schools.

Todd Allen, an attorney with the department of education, said the department also has information that some of the techniques taught could inflict some level of pain on students, which he said the department found concerning.

Pruitt's letter said that all employees who are trained to utilize prone or supine restraint or have been trained through Aikido Control Training are prohibited from being involved in any physical restraints of students until they are trained through a different program.

In addition, the department is requiring all school districts to submit the names of all restraint training vendors they use, the contact information of all certified instructors and a copy of districts' current policies regarding restraint and seclusion.

JCPS has contracted with Ronald G. Boyd of Richmond, Ky., to provide Aikido Control Training for some school staff since 2012.

Boyd said he has trained staff in Aikido Control Training at school districts including Jefferson, Barren and Pulaski counties. He said he also trains workers at Kentucky’s juvenile justice residential centers which house juvenile offenders.

Boyd said his training does include prone and supine holds but that those are just optional.

JCPS has said that some of its employees, notably at the alternative schools Buechel Metropolitan High and Breckinridge Metropolitan High, have been trained in Aikido Control.

Records show JCPS paid Boyd’s company $17,000 over the five-year period for the training.

But JCPS spokeswoman Jennifer Brislin said that the use of Aikido Control ended for Buechel when its campus became Minor Daniels Academy. She said that Breckinridge also opted to phase the use of Aikido out of its schools for this school year.

"We had already voluntarily phased the Aikido out of our school system (before Pruitt's letter)," Brislin said.

Theresa Whitlow, a former official with JCPS who oversaw Safe Crisis Management, the main method the school system uses to restrain students, said she objected when officials proposed introducing the Aikido method at Buechel and Breckinridge alternative schools and possibly at Binet, a school for disabled children.

Whitlow said in an interview she objected because the method relies on causing pain to students to get them to submit to the adult trying to control them.

“We didn’t want it used because it’s pain compliance and that goes against the law,” she said.

But Whitlow, who retired in April as student response team coordinator, said she was overruled and school officials permitted the training and use of the Aikido method.

Boyd said he trained staff at the two JCPS alternative schools but not at Binet.

Boyd said the Aikido method, properly used, does not cause pain and does not result in injuries.

“We’ve had no reports of injuries whatsoever,” he said.

But Dr. Melissa Currie, head of Pediatric Forensic Medicine at the University of Louisville, who reviews cases of injuries to children from suspected abuse, said her office has examined several cases of injuries, primarily broken bones, that she said resulted from the use of Aikido Control Training in Jefferson County schools.

“The majority of restraint injuries we’ve been consulted on are Aikido-based maneuvers,” she said.

Currie said Thursday she was pleased to learn state education officials have ordered a halt to the method.

Currie voiced her objections to Aikido at last month’s meeting of the Child Fatality and Near Fatality Review Panel, which was discussing injuries to students from restraints including Brennan Long, who suffered two fractured femurs in a restraint at Binet in 2014.

School officials have said Brennan was restrained with an approved Safe Crisis Management hold which, when properly applied, should not have resulted in any injuries.

Brian Long, Brennan's father, spoke at length to Kentucky Board of Education members about his concerns about the use of restraint in schools, including the use of Aikido.

He noted that, in the 2014-2015 school year, JCPS said it restrained students more than 4,000 times, and that there were 80 student injuries during those restraints. JCPS has said that many of those injuries were minor. But Long said the data “suggests there is a very real relationship between restraints, minor and major or near-fatal injuries.”

“Who would want to work or go to school in an environment where someone was going to be injured 80 times a year from 4,400 high risk tasks performed?” Long said.

State Board of Education member Roger Marcum said he had not heard about the use of Aikido until Long brought it up Thursday. He said the use of restraint should be a last resort, and said he was proud of Pruitt's decisions to immediately call for the stop of the use of the Aikido technique and also his decision to conduct a management review in JCPS.

Pruitt last month ordered a significant onsite management review of JCPS triggered by concerns about how the district conducts and documents physical restraints and seclusions of students in schools. Pruitt said department staff are still working out the logistics of that review, but that it should begin soon.

Pruitt applauded Long for sharing his story and his thoughts with the board of education.

"As a dad, my heart goes out to him," Pruitt said. "It's a horrifying thing to think of a child being hurt. He's shown courage for being willing to be the voice for his child. ... Parents should feel emboldened to speak up on behalf of children."

Reporter Allison Ross can be reached at (502) 582-4241. Follow the Courier-Journal's education team at Facebook.com/SchooledCJ.