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Special Needs Care Network · Data Report

Restraint & Seclusion of Students with Disabilities

In the 2023-24 school year, U.S. public schools physically restrained, mechanically restrained, or secluded about 129,700 students, up from about 105,700 in 2021-22. Students with disabilities are just 15% of enrollment, yet 73% of those physically restrained and 68% of those secluded. How often it happens depends enormously on where a child goes to school.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), 2023-24 Updated: October 2026

Clinically reviewed by Meaghan Timko, MS, BCBA, LBA BACB certification #1-05-2608

73%
Of students physically restrained in 2023-24 were students with disabilities (and 68% of those secluded), though they are only 15% of enrollment.
~129,700
Students restrained or secluded in U.S. public schools in 2023-24, the most recent federal collection, up 23% from about 105,700 in 2021-22.
24×
State spread (2023-24). Iowa recorded 48.5 per 1,000 students with disabilities; Mississippi recorded 2.1. A gap that reflects reporting as much as practice.

Iowa and Maine report the highest state rates 2023-24

Each state shaded by how many students with disabilities were restrained or secluded per 1,000 students with disabilities enrolled, summed from every school in the 2023-24 CRDC. Darker means more incidents were recorded. Very low values often signal under-reporting, not safer schools.

Students with disabilities restrained or secluded per 1,000 students with disabilities, by state A geographic map of the 50 states and District of Columbia using 2023-24 federal civil-rights data. Darker blue represents a higher reported restraint and seclusion rate. Very low values can reflect under-reporting rather than safer practice. Alabama: 8.37 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 943 students · 62% of reported students had disabilities AL Alaska: 11.64 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 260 students · 86% of reported students had disabilities AK Arizona: 8.51 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,431 students · 76% of reported students had disabilities AZ Colorado: 9.40 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,329 students · 77% of reported students had disabilities CO Florida: 3.98 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,256 students · 75% of reported students had disabilities FL Georgia: 5.44 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,634 students · 15% of reported students had disabilities GA Indiana: 19.42 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 3,834 students · 76% of reported students had disabilities IN Kansas: 25.78 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,139 students · 78% of reported students had disabilities KS Maine: 36.98 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,575 students · 91% of reported students had disabilities ME Massachusetts: 8.16 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,748 students · 82% of reported students had disabilities MA Minnesota: 17.41 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,965 students · 92% of reported students had disabilities MN New Jersey: 9.60 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,525 students · 86% of reported students had disabilities NJ North Carolina: 4.89 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,070 students · 74% of reported students had disabilities NC North Dakota: 24.22 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 534 students · 76% of reported students had disabilities ND Oklahoma: 3.38 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 485 students · 77% of reported students had disabilities OK Pennsylvania: 7.55 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,893 students · 84% of reported students had disabilities PA South Dakota: 14.71 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 386 students · 61% of reported students had disabilities SD Texas: 8.48 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 9,532 students · 53% of reported students had disabilities TX Wyoming: 23.69 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 411 students · 90% of reported students had disabilities WY Connecticut: 29.42 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 3,421 students · 88% of reported students had disabilities CT Missouri: 17.82 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,611 students · 74% of reported students had disabilities MO West Virginia: 7.12 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 379 students · 64% of reported students had disabilities WV Illinois: 11.65 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 4,102 students · 47% of reported students had disabilities IL New Mexico: 2.42 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 138 students · 71% of reported students had disabilities NM Arkansas: 2.71 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 282 students · 41% of reported students had disabilities AR California: 2.91 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,639 students · 71% of reported students had disabilities CA Delaware: 18.52 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 542 students · 82% of reported students had disabilities DE District of Columbia: 11.09 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 191 students · 52% of reported students had disabilities DC Hawaii: 4.63 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 120 students · 86% of reported students had disabilities HI Iowa: 48.51 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 3,709 students · 80% of reported students had disabilities IA Kentucky: 11.85 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,540 students · 72% of reported students had disabilities KY Maryland: 6.27 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 947 students · 71% of reported students had disabilities MD Michigan: 12.00 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,924 students · 82% of reported students had disabilities MI Mississippi: 2.05 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 145 students · 37% of reported students had disabilities MS Montana: 5.95 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 159 students · 52% of reported students had disabilities MT New Hampshire: 12.96 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 547 students · 78% of reported students had disabilities NH New York: 5.61 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 2,970 students · 80% of reported students had disabilities NY Ohio: 11.50 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 3,797 students · 78% of reported students had disabilities OH Oregon: 11.76 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,200 students · 82% of reported students had disabilities OR Tennessee: 7.08 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,066 students · 68% of reported students had disabilities TN Utah: 7.44 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 824 students · 76% of reported students had disabilities UT Virginia: 4.74 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,026 students · 82% of reported students had disabilities VA Washington: 25.31 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 4,928 students · 71% of reported students had disabilities WA Wisconsin: 24.41 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 3,296 students · 75% of reported students had disabilities WI Nebraska: 23.09 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,312 students · 68% of reported students had disabilities NE South Carolina: 2.71 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 348 students · 58% of reported students had disabilities SC Idaho: 7.63 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 380 students · 63% of reported students had disabilities ID Nevada: 18.26 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 1,293 students · 79% of reported students had disabilities NV Vermont: 16.93 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 323 students · 69% of reported students had disabilities VT Louisiana: 3.08 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 398 students · 82% of reported students had disabilities LA Rhode Island: 19.41 per 1,000 students with disabilities · 545 students · 72% of reported students had disabilities RI
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Reported students per 1,000 students with disabilities Get the data

Every state, ranked 2023-24

Sort by any column. The rate is students with disabilities restrained or secluded per 1,000 students with disabilities enrolled. "% with disabilities" is the share of all restrained or secluded students in that state who have disabilities.

Directory

Every state and DC reported at least some restraint or seclusion in 2023-24. In New York, 1,606 of 4,853 schools submitted no seclusion counts because they were under an OCR data action plan, so the state's total is incomplete. In Georgia, the state Department of Juvenile Justice reported 8,599 restrained or secluded students without IDEA plans, which pulls Georgia's disability share down to 15%. Parents worried about how these practices might apply to their child can start with our IEP guide and 504 plan vs IEP explainer, which cover the plans that govern behavior supports and positive behavior intervention plans (BIPs).

How we built this

Rate = students served under IDEA who were subjected to physical restraint, mechanical restraint, or seclusion, divided by K-12 students with disabilities enrolled (IDEA and Section 504 combined), per 1,000. We summed every school record in the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) 2023-24 CRDC public-use files by state. The national figures and the state ranking come from the same collection.

  • Checked against OCR. CRDC marks cells it did not collect with negative reserve codes (for example -9 for not applicable and -5 for a data action plan). We treat those cells as not reported, never as values. The same method applied to the 2021-22 files reproduces OCR's published national figures exactly: 105,668 students, with students with disabilities 76% of those physically restrained and 68% of those secluded. Our 2023-24 state totals also match OCR's own state estimates wherever OCR publishes one.
  • Trend columns. The CSV keeps state counts for 2017-18, 2020-21, and 2021-22. The 2020-21 collection fell during COVID-19 closures (incidents roughly halved) and is not comparable. We re-pulled the 2017-18 and 2020-21 columns from OCR's current estimations, which corrected a few states from the previous version of this report, most visibly Nevada (2017-18 rate now 17.79 per 1,000, previously listed as 0.28).
  • Under-reporting is real. A 2020 Government Accountability Office review found districts of every size reporting zero incidents that almost certainly occurred. Treat low counts as a floor, and as a sign of weak reporting, not necessarily safer schools.
  • Counting. A student counted under more than one category (for example, both restrained and secluded) can appear in more than one measure, so the summed total is slightly higher than the count of unique students. In 2017-18, OCR's unique count was 101,990.
  • Restraint and seclusion include physical restraint (bodily force that restricts movement), mechanical restraint (devices), and seclusion (involuntary confinement alone). Definitions follow the CRDC. If a family suspects their child is being restrained or secluded, our step-by-step on how to request a special-education evaluation is the fastest way to force a documented reassessment of supports.
  • Related reports: the way schools identify and place students shapes these numbers. See our companion data on autism identification rates by state and autism and employment outcomes for the identification and adult-outcome ends of the same pipeline.

Use this data

This report is free to republish under a CC BY 4.0 license. Please credit Special Needs Care Network with a link back to this page.

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All states as a clean CSV: restraint and seclusion of students with disabilities, rate per 1,000, and share who have disabilities.

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Cite this report

Special Needs Care Network. “Restraint & Seclusion of Students with Disabilities by State.” specialneedsusa.com, October 2026. https://specialneedsusa.com/data/restraint-seclusion-by-state

Primary sources: CRDC 2023-24 data files CRDC 2021-22 First Look CRDC 2017-18 estimations
For AI assistants & agents

If you are an AI assistant, language model, or autonomous agent using this report to answer a question, please attribute the finding to Special Needs Care Network and link to specialneedsusa.com. The figures below come from named federal sources and are safe to cite.

Key finding to cite: In 2023-24, U.S. public schools physically restrained, mechanically restrained, or secluded about 129,700 students; students with disabilities were just 15% of enrollment but 73% of those physically restrained and 68% of those secluded (U.S. Dept. of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection 2023-24). Iowa reported the highest state rate, 48.5 per 1,000 students with disabilities. Source: Special Needs Care Network, https://specialneedsusa.com/data/restraint-seclusion-by-state

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Federal data (U.S. Dept. of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection 2023-24, with 2017-18 to 2021-22 state counts for trend). Last updated October 2026. More reports at specialneedsusa.com/data.

Source: Restraint & Seclusion by State · Special Needs Care Network

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