Sending kids from school to ER

SALISBURY, Md. - Three times a week, on average, a police car pulls up to a school in Wicomico County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A student is brought out, handcuffed and placed inside for transport to a hospital emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation. 

In the last eight years, the process has been used at least 750 times on students. Some are as young as 5. 

Maryland law allows for these removals, known as petitions for emergency evaluation. It is meant to be limited to people with severe mental illness, who are endangering their lives or safety or someone else. It’s the first step toward getting someone involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. 

But advocates say schools across the country are sending children to ERs for psychiatric evaluations in response to behaviors prompted by bullying or frustrations. 

The ER trips, they say, follow months or years of their needs not being met. 

Black students are more frequently subjected to these removals than their peers, according to available data. 

Advocates point to students with disabilities also being removed at higher rates. “Schools focus on keeping kids out rather than on keeping kids in,” said Dan Stewart, managing attorney at the National Disability Rights Network. “I think that’s the fundamental crux of things. 

The practice isn’t just happening in Wicomico. 

Recent data shows NYC schools still call police to take children in emotional distress to the emergency room despite a 2014 legal settlement in which they agreed to stop the practice. 

A Kentucky school district was found to have used a psychiatric assessment on kids more than 1,000 times in a year. In Florida, thousands of school-aged children have been subjected to the Baker Act, the state’s involuntary commitment statute. 

In a settlement with the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, the Stockton Unified School District in California agreed to protocols that require other interventions before referring students with disabilities for psychiatric evaluation. 

Baltimore City, for example, last year had 271 emergency petitions from schools, compared with Wicomico’s at least 117, according to data obtained from law enforcement. But Baltimore’s student population is five times as large. 

By law, certain classroom removals must be recorded with documented indicators of racial disparities in discipline. Schools are required by law to publicly report the data. which often triggers oversight and investigations.

With the exceptions of Florida and New York City, most places do not routinely collect information on removals from school for psychiatric assessments.

Without that data, there is no way to hold schools accountable, said Daniel Losen of the National Center for Youth Law. 

Other measures of exclusionary discipline remained high, including school arrests. In 2021-22, more than 75% of children arrested were Black and 80% were students with disabilities. 

Studies have found Black and Latino children who have a teacher of the same race have fewer suspensions and higher test scores. (The AP 12/04/23) Schools are sending kids with disabilities to ER for psych evaluations | AP News