UPDATE: School Superintendent to Address Public on 'Time-Out' Rooms

UPDATE: Middletown Superintendent of Schools Michael Frechette will hold a press conference Friday at 3 p.m.

Earlier version:

Parents of students faced off against school administrators Thursday night, demanding answers about why the school uses so-called “time-out rooms,” which students are placed in them and what goes on in them.

Other parents faced administrators in tears, demanding to know if autistic or special needs students are ever placed in the room.

School officials said no students with disabilities are placed in the time-out rooms.

The controversy over what students and parents call “scream rooms” erupted this week when parents went before the Board of Education seeking information about the rooms.

Some parents at Thursday night’s meeting questioned why the rooms exist at all and said they believe behavioral problems at the school have escalated since a redistricting that occurred there several years ago.

“What happened to this school… that it’s gotten to the point where we’re ashamed to say our children go to school here?” one parent said.

Pat Girard, Farm Hill’s principal, said that before the controversy erupted this week only three parents had raised questions about the time-out rooms. She said communication is key to solving problems going forward, but “I need communication from you, too.”

Two 10-year-old Farm Hill students also addressed the board, saying they feel frightened when they come to school and have difficulty concentrating on their work.

Other parents said the rooms are now known only as “scream rooms” to Farm Hill’s young students, who will suffer psychological effects for years from the prospect of screaming children being confined in the rooms.

The meeting drew a standing-room only crowd of about 150 people to Farm Hill’s gymnasium, with dozens of parents grilling school administrators about the rooms and how the school intends to address parental concerns about them.

School Superintendent Michael Frechette led off the meeting by assuring the crowd that no students who were kept in the rooms were ever in serious danger, to themselves or others.

He acknowledged, however, that since the school started using the rooms nine students have been taken away by ambulance after being confined in one of the rooms, six for attention of a medical problem and three for behavioral issues.

He also sought to dispel rumors that have circulated about the rooms and what goes on in them, including speculation that blood inside one of the rooms was the result of a student banging his head against a wall. He said that on one occasion a student with a cut finger was confined to the room and while there, wiped his finger across a wall, smearing blood on it.  At three other times, he said, students kept in the room urinated in it.

“The rumors are scary, the accusations are unfounded,” Girard said. For instance, a student has never been left alone while in the room; a school staff member is always able to see or hear the student. And students are unable to lock themselves inside the room.

The rooms, she added, were first put into use in September of 2010, she said.

Although school administrators established a process by which parents could ask questions during the meeting, outbursts from the crowd were frequent and often emotional.

In fact, a handful of parents ended up facing off against one another during the meeting after one parent suggested students in need of frequent “time out” in the special isolation rooms instead be taken away from the school to limit trauma on other students. That brought an outcry from another parent who began shouting that she believes some parents are targeting certain children, including her’s.

“Why would you do that, why would you take him away? Why would you take him out of the school?”

After becoming visibly upset she left the room with a friend.

When another parent called out that no specific students are being singled out, yet another shouted “It sure feels that way.”

Girard sought to de-escalate the mounting tensions.

“This is raw, this is right at the surface. Let’s move on and get this solved.”

Frechette laid out three main issues school officials must address to fix the problems at Farm Hill School; communication, student management and improving the school’s climate, or overall tone.

The biggest issue, he said, is the breakdown in communication that has occurred among administrators and parents.

“It’s gone on too long. It should have never gotten to this point. Communication was lacking and we are fixing it.”

When one parent took Frechette to task for failing to respond to an email she sent him several weeks ago, the room broke out into applause and cheers. Frechette apologized for not responding directly to the email and another parent called out “How we can expect you to fix the problem then?”

Other parents who addressed the school officials said the time-out rooms have traumatized other children who have heard the screams of schoolmates being kept in the rooms.

Frechette said school administrators are putting together a plan to improve Farm Hill, a school that serves children in grades kindergarten through five.

“We will not stop until this is solved, this is a promise to you,” said Gene P. Nocera, the school board’s chairman.