A statement published to the school district’s social media on Monday attributed to Superintendent Stanley Harper said the box depicted in the photos had not been used at St. Regis school and that the district had previously decided not to use that specific device.
“Oh, the giant wooden crate clearly photographed inside a classroom? That one? Ya, we thought about using it, but never did. No kids ever went inside that massive, unfinished pine containment chamber that we put right next to the whiteboard.”
It should be mentioned that this was brought to light when a teacher that had just resigned sent pictures to parents. Hats off to that teacher for sounding the alarm, even though they knew it meant the end for them.
He said they hadn't used that specific one in the photos, which to me implies they have used other ones instead. Maybe they thought this one was too big and comfortable to use. A chokey is supposed to have barely enough room to stand in without getting poked by the rusty nails sticking out of the sides after all.
There's also the fact that it being there is using it. Torture isn't just physical, it's the mental aspect too. Yelling at some one to do something takes on a different meaning when you're holding a gun and yelling at a student is different when you're standing next to a torture box.
When I was in middle school, the vice principle had a wooden paddle hanging on the wall behind his desk. No one had ever heard of him actually using it.
I live about an hour away from this school. Went there to compete in a couple different sports while in high school and my niece in on their hockey team (but attends a different school) and it’s a very small district in the middle of nowhere. The biggest population nearby are those who live on the Mohawk Reservation and they are super fucking pissed. This is the sort of thing that happened to kids in the Residential School Native American children were forced to attend where thousands were abused and murdered.
So the school district may be screwed for having this box on site? I can hear the stamped of lawyers rushing to be the one to file lawsuit and collect a fat cut of the lawsuit.
Honestly seeing the outrage as someone who lives super close. Lawsuits are probably the least of the worries someone's gonna get hurt. And I say this as an outsider looking in but the rage is real.
That was my first thought as well. This reeks of Residential School energy. What on God’s Green Earth was the school board thinking? Read the room people.
its extreme in its nature, but my kiddos school also has "time out" stuff, but its an entire room with stuff in it, a bathroom, water fountain, ect. its where they can go for a quiet time if they are disrupting other students, and its monitored by staff. They also don't get to stop learning, as in the quite room they must continue what they were working on in class. when done properly, it works well. this school obviously heard about "time out", and figured they would just put them in penalty box...
Having a separate room would also be a good accommodation for Autistic students. A nice, quiet room without ticking clocks or humming lights. Dim the lights, have a box of sensory fidgets nearby. If an Autistic student becomes overwhelmed, they can recuperate there.
honestly that's where I assume it comes from. like how some people say "expresso" instead of espresso, "heighth" instead of "height" (like they're combining "height" and "width"), and "orangutang" instead of "orangutan."
I think it stems from those not being common consonant patterns in english and people subconsciously "correcting" the word to make it match the other english patterns they know
that actually really reminds me of the element potassium (K). the symbol K is for kalium (kay-lee-um), "kalium" comes from "Kali-" which is an Arabic-originated root for "plant ashes." "potassium" is just a bastardized and "elementized" name that originated as "pot-ash-ium"!! they're the same name from different languages! they both just effectively call it the "pot ash element," since that's where they first found it!
sort of similar to sodium (Na)! the symbol "Na" is short for "natrium" (nay-tree-um). the root word is "natron" coming from a "Latinized" version of an Egyptian word referring to sodium carbonate! we call it "Sodium" as an "elementized" name of "soda," originating from caustic soda, which was what it was first isolated from!
etymology is so much fun. I wish school made learning more exciting instead of making it a chore. a single outstanding teacher can have a profound impact on your life trajectory.
This has been a thing in this region for many years, if you read the article it's obvious they have installed these at multiple schools and they seem to be used for kids that are otherwise uncontrollable, i.e. if the teachers are out of ideas and a kid is continuing to disrupt the class, then they go in the box until they've 'calmed down'.
This is victorian-era thinking about child psychology, but there's plenty of parents and schools where these strict disciplinarian ideas still flourish. Particularly in religious schools.
But to me it seems like this is an area that doesn't have the budget to properly deal with neurodivergent kids, so they are dealt with like this. Instead of having the staff and facilities to properly help these kids keep up with the 'normal' kids, they just punish them until they stop being a hassle.
Nearly every elementary school I went to had one of these in the "structured learning center" program. It's easier to throw a kid, literally in some cases, into a padded room than to deal with them. Most didn't have actual locks; I know at least one did have a real lock, which wasn't legal.
My last job we did IT for a reservation school. The “town” it’s in is like a 3rd world country, the kids have behavioral issues like you wouldn’t believe, and between the garbage pay and even worse place to live it has the worst teachers and admin staff I’ve ever seen; they’ve passed the “scraping the bottom of the barrel” stage and are on “do they have a pulse” for hiring.
They keep hiring people that just fraud the school and tribe out of money, have no interest or skill in actually teaching the kids anything, or just outright felons who wouldn’t be allowed to work there if the background checks were ever actually done. And I suspect that last part is on purpose, since the nepotism on hiring is crazy and they’re so desperate for warm bodies they intentionally “forget” to send in the background checks and let the person work until they become an issue or the board doesn’t like them. Then they can suddenly find the check and use the felonies as reason to fire the person.
And it all comes down to it’s an incredibly impoverished area with all the problems that come with it, except more self-control over the schooling so there’s fewer checks above the school to try to keep things under control.
We had to tell them that putting cameras in the bathrooms to catch kids vaping was in fact illegal and a gross violation of privacy and who in their right fucking mind would ever think that was a good idea?
Yeah, I doubt most of them have training or education beyond some basic organizations and task management stuff. Most people aren’t educated on handling difficult children. It’s rarely a natural skillset too. Hence why day care is so expensive and hard to find people.
Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, near Cornwall, Ont., straddles the Ontario, Quebec and New York state border. St. Regis Mohawk School is a kindergarten to Grade 5 school on the U.S. side, and is one of four schools in the Salmon River Central School District.
The statement said the district had launched an independent investigation and that it was co-operating with a New York State Department of Education (NYSDE) investigation.
“It says St. Regis Mohawk School on that building but there's nothing Mohawk about that place," Jacobs told CBC Indigenous.
"The only reason why we send our kids there is because that's the school on the American portion of the reserve. That's what we have."
I assume this would make more sense for locals, who are clearly the audience of this article, but I’m truly confused as to who has jurisdiction, who staffs the school, and who has oversight.
Is it on tribal lands but not administered by tribal members?
the school is on tribal lands but is part of the Salmon River district. the school is comprised of indigenous students but the district is in charge of staffing. there’s a strong indigenous presence within the entire school district
yup, plenty of representation within the entire system. the principal is from the reserve as well as the teacher who blew the whistle on the box in the classroom.
So then this doesn’t seem like the historical issue of non-indigenous peoples treating indigenous people heinously in schools. Which I feel like the article, intentionally or not, invokes quite a bit.
It seems like a quagmire of a small, likely poorly funded, rural school on tribal lands with integrated normal and divergent students (one parent quoted in the article refers to their child as partly non-verbal). In better resourced districts it’s not unusual to have a type of resource room for misbehaving students to settle and sooth in if the teacher or aid/helper can’t resolve the situation.
This seems like a poorly implemented attempt at parity that ended up unfortunately being parody.
well, whether it’s warranted or not, any incident like this on the reserve will bring up serious resentment because of past treatment to indigenous students. also, the author of the article is indigenous so her writing will come through that lens.
personally, I think the school had the right intentions but it was poorly implemented because the school is run by idiots. the school I work at has similar spaces for students with sensory issues but they are part of the room, not boxes like this one is. and we’re underfunded compared to the Salmon River district so it’s not a funding issue, it’s an incompetence issue.
The administrative faculty and staff, per the other commenter, is comprised of, and lead by, indigenous peoples. It is also reported that multiple of these units were made and deployed.
So it’s not one non-indigenous teacher that purchased the lumber, snuck in over the weekend, and secretly built the box. It also isn’t particularly discrete, so anyone entering the classroom would see it. Multiple people had to be involved with these choices.
Edit: it also does happen in normal school districts. Except there the common practice is to make a time-out room out of a supply closet/office/classroom space. Thats the entire issue here.
I was thinking more of a ghost legend that inhabits the swamp of some far away land. But then again, my trying to have a thought is usually a bad idea.
Seeing a literal wooden box for timeouts in a classroom in 2025 feels like we stepped back a century, schools should be calming and safe not primitive isolation chambers
Fun fact, the teachers dont talk to each other about you pooping... Sooooo, you can do it once a class period every day, and no one will be the wiser. Block scheduling means 4 time-outs a day to chill... or if you are on the old 6-7 periods a day thats a lot of chillaxing.
I have a "take a break" chair in my classroom (non punitive, I don't tell kids to go there, they go there when they want to) but because of my classroom layout it unfortunately is right near the door. Terrible location.
For students who I know this would bother, I quietly let them know that the bathroom across the hall is always an option. They don't get the cool "calling fidgets" and they have to bring a buddy, but for some it's better than being right next to the door
When I was in elementary school, we had a box like that. Kids would scream and beat on the walls begging to be let out. In retrospect, it is a bit terrifying that it was just accepted in the 90's.
This is literally a box. They put a child in a box. How is this not being treated as a criminal confinement issue? 'Time out box' makes it sound gentle. This is isolation in a container.
According the article it was in the class of a partially non verbal autistic kid. So it's probably in the special ed classroom on top of being a native school district.
The problem is they saw “time out” as a punishment rather than a time for the child to calm down and compose herself. If they had cut a very large window in the box (or maybe left off the door completely), so the kids didn’t feel trapped, and put stuffed animals, books, and pillows inside, it could have been a place for students to self-soothe. Some kids need a break from the stimulation of the classroom.
I subbed in a school a while ago that had a box like this, but it had no top and the inside was covered in thick gym type mats. I never saw a kid in there, but I assume it was for the violent ones and was used instead of restraint.
Having have spent a decent amount of time around there upstate (Akwesane is where I bought my weed lmao) this tracks. You travel far enough north into the North Country and you somehow end up below the Mason Dixon line.
Facts. I try to tell this to people and no one believes me. For some reason they can't comprehend that there are people in the North that would side with the Confederacy of they could.
It was insane how many confederate flags I saw on a daily basis. We worked outside and multiple people would come up and go "I thought you was Mexicans! Gotta watch out for those illegals!"
A pillow and few blankets and you’d never get me out of there except for the bathroom or to get a new book as long as there was light to read by. But I’m weird and school sucked for me.
This seriously messed up for the purpose they designed it for; time to fire some people.
Same. I think I would have misbehaved solely to ensure box time. I’ve tucked myself in my wardrobe a few times in the past when I was really overwhelmed.
This may be extremely regional specific, but when I was in elementary school in the deep south of Georgia the detention room was literally these giant cubicle boxes that completely cut you off and isolated you with only a desk inside and they shut so it was four total tower walls. They'd basically shut you in there for however long your detention was, I got put in once because I accidentally did that thing where spit comes out while talking to another kid and he told a teacher I spit on him on purpose. Spent an afternoon locked in the cube and never wanted to go back in it. Insane to see similar shit still happening in this day and age!
I would have been in there a lot, I was in the corner a lot. Those teachers probably died 10 years ago, my facility didn’t have functional water fountains. Thirst is pain.
I mean, it’s pretty typical to install a sensory room in schools where I’m from. Basically a smallish room with soft surfaces and soft lighting so kids who are overstimulated can calm down. This glorified dog crate is just sadistic.
So I assumed from the thumbnail this was being overblown cause the thing is unfinished on the outside. Separating disruptive students is a normal thing, and maybe this school lacks space. There’s probably a desk and lights to continue doing work while the staff can monitor them. It’s Defs weird but probably dealing with weird space/cost problems in a poor district.
Then I open the article and it’s a literal 3X3 padded cell with dark walls and no lights. It’s a literal isolation cell from a prison… what on earth??? Who thought this was a good idea??
I have to imagine recurrent issues with a very troubled child had to be what led to this things creation cause… idk how anybody could think this makes sense for anyone, let alone young children. Totally insane.
My oldest son (22 years) has severe autism. I pulled him out of school about 15 months ago or so after I learned that they were using his stroller (meant to be used when they had to walk a long way or on field trips, etc) as a restraint chair. I noticed a few times that he was coming home soiled, where it had obviously been a while since he had been changed). I complained, much changed. I finally learned that they were locking him in his stroller, even using shoulder harnesses, so he couldn’t move at all, putting him in an isolation room, and then just leaving him there for hours at a time. He was not even allowed to use the restroom.
Most schools had these until about 2015. Not boxes per se, but rooms that size, with a window and padded mats. There were to be used in extreme situations. An adult needed to monitor from the window at all times. The purpose was so a VIOLENT dysregulated child wouldn’t hurt themselves or someone else. These rooms were misused by a tiniest of a fraction (somewhere in Canada), now no one is allowed to use them, unless insane amounts of paperwork/phonecalls are made. Now, instead, we are to TRY not to let them hurt themselves, others, and destroy a full room )hands off approach). If a school has space, they likely have a “sensory room”, meaning large classroom with some bean bags, dimmer lights, and fidgets where the child can tantrum to their heart’s content. Now getting a large kid to a sensory room with a hand’s off approach, is a whole other story. I get the bad optics, but I’m going to guess this was built out of desperation (should’ve included a window/light, air circulation, and no way to lock the door though).
Too many parents with special needs children don’t a) parent properly or b) medicate their children for appropriate diagnoses. They then send them to school and it’s a shit show, especially when the only placement available is a regular classroom. These violent kids hurt your kids (unless it’s severe, we can’t tell you). Your kids are traumatized having front row seats to 24/7 tantrums and meltdowns. Your kids’ learning time is severely affected. Your child’s teacher is very frustrated, and may develop emotional problems from the constant stress and meltdowns limiting their ability to teach (not to mention their safety). Despite the best IEP’s and BIp’s, when a special needs child dominates the classroom, violence is a common occurrence.
Back when I was in first grade in the mid 70s, my teacher had what she called a “cry box” where she would put kids who missed behaved and they’d have to sit and stare at the back of it. At the time, schools where allowed to use corporal punishment if parents consented. Mine did. So I got placed it for some reason.
It pissed little me off and after I got out I was sent to the principal’s office and my parents were contacted. Really don’t remember much after that.
For me, as a 5-9 year old.... The worst time about the time out closet was having to to go to the bathroom and no one coming let you out because you made noise to let them know you had to pee... but because you made noise, you have to stay locked in there for another 20 minutes of silence....
Seclusion is this last bad choice to manage behavior. I used it in the 70s in a special school setting and cringe when I think about it.
Effective behavior management takes lots of resources schools either don’t have or won’t use.
Remove or exclude is a choice many make when a student is a danger to self or others.
Until resources and training are fully supported things like this will continue.
There is a better way!
If I ever found out my six or seven year old got put into solitary confinement at school the headmaster would be getting shoved into the trunk of a car for a 3 hour off road drive.
Alberta was going to ban them in 2019, but has regulated thier use. School boards are phasing them out because the regulations make them essentially useless and they're being replaced with rooms designed to calm people and they can leave freely.
Key Rules and Standards
Emergency Only: Use is prohibited for punishment, discipline, or as a response to property damage or non-compliance.
Supervision: A staff member must continuously and visually monitor the individual throughout the entire period of seclusion.
Safety Requirements: Rooms must be well-lit, ventilated, at a suitable temperature, and meet all fire and building codes. They cannot contain items that could cause harm.
Parental Rights (Schools): School authorities must obtain parental consent for seclusion to be part of a student’s behavior plan. Parents must be notified of any seclusion incident as soon as possible, typically on the same day.
Termination: Seclusion must end immediately once the person no longer poses an imminent safety risk.
Whoever thought it was okay to degrade, humiliate, and traumatize a kid like this should have thier license revoked
This is too draconian but I don't know what they're supposed to do. From all accounts violent psycho kids have complete run of the classrooms and no one can do anything about it
It looks bad, but with the way kids are misbehaving nowadays and you're a solitary teacher, what are your options when a child is causing chaos and doesn't want to listen?
Then again, having an entire box is a bit too much. But the article DOES talk about that some kids became physically aggressive.... what to do then?
As an educator… this is horrific. Giving a kid who is disregulated a break in a quiet space to get it together is one thing. Locking them in a box is insane.
You know, when I saw the phrase "time out box", I thought the parents were probably overreacting. I was picturing kind of like a cubicle or maybe a little spot with partial walls (so the kid could stand up and look around, or sit down and not be seen). This is absolutely ridiculous.
You don't throw a kid in a tiny box and ignore them because they're being "problematic". As another person said, a time-out space should be comfortable, to let the kid calm down and redirect their attention. Or at the very least, it should be somewhere a child feels safe to let out their frustration without damaging anything or causing harm. Adults have enough life experience that we'd be okay with standing there grumbling for a while, but a little kid could be seriously distressed by it.
We had a timeout playhouse in preschool, it was a plastic little castle they sat in the corner of the room you had to go sit in with the door closed if you were misbehaving.
Maybe they should have made it out of colorful plastic?
We had those in elementary school. spent plenty of time locked in them. I have adhd, so did most of the other kids in the class, so it was used to contain us when we couldn't control ourselves.
I'm old but my HS had a few of these. They only had them in the ISS room, which was the classroom next to the metal shop hidden away in the basement level. High windows, and a failure from the NFL watching everyone because size and CTE are a great combo when looking after delinquents like myself. They'd wrap your desk in one for talking, or getting caught not working when the jailer/football coach looked at you. I liked not having people throw shit at me while reading so I'd ask him where his superbowl ring was to get the box when I was there.
“Oh, the giant wooden crate clearly photographed inside a classroom? That one? Ya, we thought about using it, but never did. No kids ever went inside that massive, unfinished pine containment chamber that we put right next to the whiteboard.”
I’m surprised they didn’t go with the Shaggy defense. “It wasn’t me!”
I assume the blame game comes next- X teacher wasn’t following established protocols, etc., but for now, they’re starting with “nuh-uh”.
It should be mentioned that this was brought to light when a teacher that had just resigned sent pictures to parents. Hats off to that teacher for sounding the alarm, even though they knew it meant the end for them.
Very presidential!
He said they hadn't used that specific one in the photos, which to me implies they have used other ones instead. Maybe they thought this one was too big and comfortable to use. A chokey is supposed to have barely enough room to stand in without getting poked by the rusty nails sticking out of the sides after all.
Yeah, I’m getting some “we did not use that specific child crate” vibes from that statement.
There's also the fact that it being there is using it. Torture isn't just physical, it's the mental aspect too. Yelling at some one to do something takes on a different meaning when you're holding a gun and yelling at a student is different when you're standing next to a torture box.
And later they say it was only used twice, liars
The inside looks pretty much used for something that wasn't used...
"School board finds that cattle prods and fire hoses were more effective".
Oh the kid box? No, we just call it that but there were no kids in the box.
That would be locked from the outside in case of a fire
When I was in middle school, the vice principle had a wooden paddle hanging on the wall behind his desk. No one had ever heard of him actually using it.
lot of wear and tear for something that didn't get used.
These mfers saw the chokey from Matilda and thought it was a good idea.
That was my exact thought. Mother fuckers built a chokey
The boo box from Hook
I just learned recently that the "man" they throw in the box was Glenn Close.
They locked him up and Closed the box.
I saw this Reddit factoid too recently!
I was thinking of the Box from Cool Hand Luke.
I wonder if any of these people were too.
Any child caught smoking in the prone position.... spends a night in the box.
There's a place you are sent if you haven't been good...
seriously, wtf
I wonder if this school is the place where Agatha Trunchbull fled to at the end of the novel.
"Early Thursday, Salmon River Central School District Board of Education notified parents of a switch to remote learning for the rest of the week."
you know you fucked up when you need to send the kids home to keep them safe.
I live about an hour away from this school. Went there to compete in a couple different sports while in high school and my niece in on their hockey team (but attends a different school) and it’s a very small district in the middle of nowhere. The biggest population nearby are those who live on the Mohawk Reservation and they are super fucking pissed. This is the sort of thing that happened to kids in the Residential School Native American children were forced to attend where thousands were abused and murdered.
So the school district may be screwed for having this box on site? I can hear the stamped of lawyers rushing to be the one to file lawsuit and collect a fat cut of the lawsuit.
Honestly seeing the outrage as someone who lives super close. Lawsuits are probably the least of the worries someone's gonna get hurt. And I say this as an outsider looking in but the rage is real.
That was my first thought as well. This reeks of Residential School energy. What on God’s Green Earth was the school board thinking? Read the room people.
multiple people signed off on this as a good idea.
its extreme in its nature, but my kiddos school also has "time out" stuff, but its an entire room with stuff in it, a bathroom, water fountain, ect. its where they can go for a quiet time if they are disrupting other students, and its monitored by staff. They also don't get to stop learning, as in the quite room they must continue what they were working on in class. when done properly, it works well. this school obviously heard about "time out", and figured they would just put them in penalty box...
Yes, that’s absolutely reasonable method.
This… this is something you see on a news report from an “homeschooling gone wrong in Arkansas” story or something.
Having a separate room would also be a good accommodation for Autistic students. A nice, quiet room without ticking clocks or humming lights. Dim the lights, have a box of sensory fidgets nearby. If an Autistic student becomes overwhelmed, they can recuperate there.
You need another teacher or aide for that.
yup, which is why the school has several dedicated for just that.
etc. not ect.
it’s short for the Latin phrase “et cetera,” which means “and the rest”
et cetera -> et c -> etc.
“et” just means “and,” so it’s also written as “&c.” in some older texts
I've seen this mistake way too many times lately to think it's just a typo.
Do you suppose it makes sense to folks who pronounce it “excetra?”
honestly that's where I assume it comes from. like how some people say "expresso" instead of espresso, "heighth" instead of "height" (like they're combining "height" and "width"), and "orangutang" instead of "orangutan."
I think it stems from those not being common consonant patterns in english and people subconsciously "correcting" the word to make it match the other english patterns they know
Living in Switzerland, this drives me up the wall. In the German speaking part "expresso" and "two expressos" are completely accepted as right.
Guys... we have Ticino as part of the country!! One Espresso, Two Espressi.
You missed their misspelling of quite for the word quiet. That one drives me crazy.
Thank you! I keep seeing people using ect more and more. Don’t understand how etc became ect 😀 Thanks for sharing the explanation.
And ampersand (&) means “and per se and”.
oh that's really cool! I never put that together!
that actually really reminds me of the element potassium (K). the symbol K is for kalium (kay-lee-um), "kalium" comes from "Kali-" which is an Arabic-originated root for "plant ashes." "potassium" is just a bastardized and "elementized" name that originated as "pot-ash-ium"!! they're the same name from different languages! they both just effectively call it the "pot ash element," since that's where they first found it!
sort of similar to sodium (Na)! the symbol "Na" is short for "natrium" (nay-tree-um). the root word is "natron" coming from a "Latinized" version of an Egyptian word referring to sodium carbonate! we call it "Sodium" as an "elementized" name of "soda," originating from caustic soda, which was what it was first isolated from!
etymology is so much fun. I wish school made learning more exciting instead of making it a chore. a single outstanding teacher can have a profound impact on your life trajectory.
That makes a lot of sense. The whole point of time out is to just give the kid a break from the situation and environment which has them ramped up.
For you, perhaps. For others it's part of a punishment regime. Optionally including beating the autism out of them.
We have one of these at our school. It's non punitive and supposed to be for students to ask for a break BEFORE they get dysregulated.
Unfortunately the students who need it most are not the ones using it
This has been a thing in this region for many years, if you read the article it's obvious they have installed these at multiple schools and they seem to be used for kids that are otherwise uncontrollable, i.e. if the teachers are out of ideas and a kid is continuing to disrupt the class, then they go in the box until they've 'calmed down'.
This is victorian-era thinking about child psychology, but there's plenty of parents and schools where these strict disciplinarian ideas still flourish. Particularly in religious schools.
But to me it seems like this is an area that doesn't have the budget to properly deal with neurodivergent kids, so they are dealt with like this. Instead of having the staff and facilities to properly help these kids keep up with the 'normal' kids, they just punish them until they stop being a hassle.
It's awful and completely unsurprising.
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I spent plenty of time in one of these.
Nearly every elementary school I went to had one of these in the "structured learning center" program. It's easier to throw a kid, literally in some cases, into a padded room than to deal with them. Most didn't have actual locks; I know at least one did have a real lock, which wasn't legal.
they don't have the budget because they voters have chosen not to put enough money aside. Doesn't mean they should lock a child in a shipping crate
The school is on a reservation. Ever seen what those are like?
My last job we did IT for a reservation school. The “town” it’s in is like a 3rd world country, the kids have behavioral issues like you wouldn’t believe, and between the garbage pay and even worse place to live it has the worst teachers and admin staff I’ve ever seen; they’ve passed the “scraping the bottom of the barrel” stage and are on “do they have a pulse” for hiring.
They keep hiring people that just fraud the school and tribe out of money, have no interest or skill in actually teaching the kids anything, or just outright felons who wouldn’t be allowed to work there if the background checks were ever actually done. And I suspect that last part is on purpose, since the nepotism on hiring is crazy and they’re so desperate for warm bodies they intentionally “forget” to send in the background checks and let the person work until they become an issue or the board doesn’t like them. Then they can suddenly find the check and use the felonies as reason to fire the person.
And it all comes down to it’s an incredibly impoverished area with all the problems that come with it, except more self-control over the schooling so there’s fewer checks above the school to try to keep things under control.
We had to tell them that putting cameras in the bathrooms to catch kids vaping was in fact illegal and a gross violation of privacy and who in their right fucking mind would ever think that was a good idea?
Yeah, I doubt most of them have training or education beyond some basic organizations and task management stuff. Most people aren’t educated on handling difficult children. It’s rarely a natural skillset too. Hence why day care is so expensive and hard to find people.
Exactly as the people in their district want.
Shaking my head that some contractor probably got paid tens of thousands of tax payer dollars to manufacture a wooden box and sell it to the school
Our teacher would send us outside to sit on the portable steps in the winter. One time she forgot a kid out there for like an hour in -15.
why were the steps portable?
Asking the real questions. I also want to know about these steps.
I assume this would make more sense for locals, who are clearly the audience of this article, but I’m truly confused as to who has jurisdiction, who staffs the school, and who has oversight.
Is it on tribal lands but not administered by tribal members?
the school is on tribal lands but is part of the Salmon River district. the school is comprised of indigenous students but the district is in charge of staffing. there’s a strong indigenous presence within the entire school district
If you don’t mind a follow up, I assumed strong indigenous population of students and parents, but also staff and faculty?
yup, plenty of representation within the entire system. the principal is from the reserve as well as the teacher who blew the whistle on the box in the classroom.
Understood, thank you.
So then this doesn’t seem like the historical issue of non-indigenous peoples treating indigenous people heinously in schools. Which I feel like the article, intentionally or not, invokes quite a bit.
It seems like a quagmire of a small, likely poorly funded, rural school on tribal lands with integrated normal and divergent students (one parent quoted in the article refers to their child as partly non-verbal). In better resourced districts it’s not unusual to have a type of resource room for misbehaving students to settle and sooth in if the teacher or aid/helper can’t resolve the situation.
This seems like a poorly implemented attempt at parity that ended up unfortunately being parody.
well, whether it’s warranted or not, any incident like this on the reserve will bring up serious resentment because of past treatment to indigenous students. also, the author of the article is indigenous so her writing will come through that lens.
personally, I think the school had the right intentions but it was poorly implemented because the school is run by idiots. the school I work at has similar spaces for students with sensory issues but they are part of the room, not boxes like this one is. and we’re underfunded compared to the Salmon River district so it’s not a funding issue, it’s an incompetence issue.
how is that not what happened? the teacher who used the box isn't indigenous and this would never happen at a normal school.
The administrative faculty and staff, per the other commenter, is comprised of, and lead by, indigenous peoples. It is also reported that multiple of these units were made and deployed.
So it’s not one non-indigenous teacher that purchased the lumber, snuck in over the weekend, and secretly built the box. It also isn’t particularly discrete, so anyone entering the classroom would see it. Multiple people had to be involved with these choices.
Edit: it also does happen in normal school districts. Except there the common practice is to make a time-out room out of a supply closet/office/classroom space. Thats the entire issue here.
One person who is not directly responsible is indigenous.
This does not happen at normal schools. Detention rooms in 2025 have windows and desks.
Is The Trenchbull principal here?
I'm a 43-year-old man and for some reason every time I make a chocolate cake I look over my shoulder to make sure Miss Trunchbull doesn't know.
That you, Bruce, all grown up?
Just call me the everlasting bogtrotter
an everlasting bogtrotter sounds like a euphemism for a bad case of diarrhea
I was thinking more of a ghost legend that inhabits the swamp of some far away land. But then again, my trying to have a thought is usually a bad idea.
Naughty children get put in the
pear wigglertime out box.Seeing a literal wooden box for timeouts in a classroom in 2025 feels like we stepped back a century, schools should be calming and safe not primitive isolation chambers
My buddy's kid's kindergarten class has a 'Calming Tent' where kids can elect to go into if they need a minute.
Still seems wild to me after going to school in the 80s and 90s though.
It's one thing if it's voluntary. I'm autistic and would sometimes go to the bathroom to decompress during class.
Fun fact, the teachers dont talk to each other about you pooping... Sooooo, you can do it once a class period every day, and no one will be the wiser. Block scheduling means 4 time-outs a day to chill... or if you are on the old 6-7 periods a day thats a lot of chillaxing.
I have a "take a break" chair in my classroom (non punitive, I don't tell kids to go there, they go there when they want to) but because of my classroom layout it unfortunately is right near the door. Terrible location.
For students who I know this would bother, I quietly let them know that the bathroom across the hall is always an option. They don't get the cool "calling fidgets" and they have to bring a buddy, but for some it's better than being right next to the door
We’ve taken so many steps backwards.
When I was in elementary school, we had a box like that. Kids would scream and beat on the walls begging to be let out. In retrospect, it is a bit terrifying that it was just accepted in the 90's.
This is literally a box. They put a child in a box. How is this not being treated as a criminal confinement issue? 'Time out box' makes it sound gentle. This is isolation in a container.
This is solitary confinement in a casket. For children in kindergarten - 5th grade.
Gotta get em used to it while they're young.
Yeah when I read "time out box" I was envisioning like, an area painted on the floor. This is a solitary confinement prison cell.
The splinter box.
The chokey
Oh. They are doing this to native children so they think they can get away with it.
According the article it was in the class of a partially non verbal autistic kid. So it's probably in the special ed classroom on top of being a native school district.
The problem is they saw “time out” as a punishment rather than a time for the child to calm down and compose herself. If they had cut a very large window in the box (or maybe left off the door completely), so the kids didn’t feel trapped, and put stuffed animals, books, and pillows inside, it could have been a place for students to self-soothe. Some kids need a break from the stimulation of the classroom.
I subbed in a school a while ago that had a box like this, but it had no top and the inside was covered in thick gym type mats. I never saw a kid in there, but I assume it was for the violent ones and was used instead of restraint.
The one in the article has gym mats inside and an open top (I presume the 2x4s are simply structural reinforcement)
Having have spent a decent amount of time around there upstate (Akwesane is where I bought my weed lmao) this tracks. You travel far enough north into the North Country and you somehow end up below the Mason Dixon line.
Facts. I try to tell this to people and no one believes me. For some reason they can't comprehend that there are people in the North that would side with the Confederacy of they could.
It was insane how many confederate flags I saw on a daily basis. We worked outside and multiple people would come up and go "I thought you was Mexicans! Gotta watch out for those illegals!"
There are people in fucking Canada flying that flag. It's fucking weird.
A pillow and few blankets and you’d never get me out of there except for the bathroom or to get a new book as long as there was light to read by. But I’m weird and school sucked for me.
This seriously messed up for the purpose they designed it for; time to fire some people.
Same here. I was always seeking quiet places away from people.
I learned by 3rd grade if I talked a lot at first I’d be moved to the corner and spent 3 happy-ish years sitting by myself. 😉
Same. I think I would have misbehaved solely to ensure box time. I’ve tucked myself in my wardrobe a few times in the past when I was really overwhelmed.
Hope they are fired and criminally charged
This may be extremely regional specific, but when I was in elementary school in the deep south of Georgia the detention room was literally these giant cubicle boxes that completely cut you off and isolated you with only a desk inside and they shut so it was four total tower walls. They'd basically shut you in there for however long your detention was, I got put in once because I accidentally did that thing where spit comes out while talking to another kid and he told a teacher I spit on him on purpose. Spent an afternoon locked in the cube and never wanted to go back in it. Insane to see similar shit still happening in this day and age!
Ah so we’re at the stage where we throw kids in the chokey
I would have been in there a lot, I was in the corner a lot. Those teachers probably died 10 years ago, my facility didn’t have functional water fountains. Thirst is pain.
how many hours did that take to build ? and the whole time it never dawned on anyone that maybe it wouldn’t be a great idea?
If my daughter told me her teacher had put her in a box, he'd be getting a very personal visit from me.
Despite all our rage they a still putting a child in a cage.
What in the actual fuck
I mean, it’s pretty typical to install a sensory room in schools where I’m from. Basically a smallish room with soft surfaces and soft lighting so kids who are overstimulated can calm down. This glorified dog crate is just sadistic.
So I assumed from the thumbnail this was being overblown cause the thing is unfinished on the outside. Separating disruptive students is a normal thing, and maybe this school lacks space. There’s probably a desk and lights to continue doing work while the staff can monitor them. It’s Defs weird but probably dealing with weird space/cost problems in a poor district.
Then I open the article and it’s a literal 3X3 padded cell with dark walls and no lights. It’s a literal isolation cell from a prison… what on earth??? Who thought this was a good idea??
I have to imagine recurrent issues with a very troubled child had to be what led to this things creation cause… idk how anybody could think this makes sense for anyone, let alone young children. Totally insane.
Right? I thought "probably has pillows and stuffed animals and some books" nope
My goal is to work a job/career that allows me to homeschool my future kids cause these mfs have lost their damn minds.
We had one in our middle school in the vps office. I remember being sent there a few times until parents found out and it disappeared the next year.
How did the Trunchabull find a new job?
WTF is wrong with these people
If you think this is fine, you should report for sterilization immediately.
I remember my Kindergarten teacher doing this to a student using a big rolling closet that looked a lot like this one. This was in New Jersey though
I would have loved that when I was a kid.
My oldest son (22 years) has severe autism. I pulled him out of school about 15 months ago or so after I learned that they were using his stroller (meant to be used when they had to walk a long way or on field trips, etc) as a restraint chair. I noticed a few times that he was coming home soiled, where it had obviously been a while since he had been changed). I complained, much changed. I finally learned that they were locking him in his stroller, even using shoulder harnesses, so he couldn’t move at all, putting him in an isolation room, and then just leaving him there for hours at a time. He was not even allowed to use the restroom.
In Arizona?
Most schools had these until about 2015. Not boxes per se, but rooms that size, with a window and padded mats. There were to be used in extreme situations. An adult needed to monitor from the window at all times. The purpose was so a VIOLENT dysregulated child wouldn’t hurt themselves or someone else. These rooms were misused by a tiniest of a fraction (somewhere in Canada), now no one is allowed to use them, unless insane amounts of paperwork/phonecalls are made. Now, instead, we are to TRY not to let them hurt themselves, others, and destroy a full room )hands off approach). If a school has space, they likely have a “sensory room”, meaning large classroom with some bean bags, dimmer lights, and fidgets where the child can tantrum to their heart’s content. Now getting a large kid to a sensory room with a hand’s off approach, is a whole other story. I get the bad optics, but I’m going to guess this was built out of desperation (should’ve included a window/light, air circulation, and no way to lock the door though).
Too many parents with special needs children don’t a) parent properly or b) medicate their children for appropriate diagnoses. They then send them to school and it’s a shit show, especially when the only placement available is a regular classroom. These violent kids hurt your kids (unless it’s severe, we can’t tell you). Your kids are traumatized having front row seats to 24/7 tantrums and meltdowns. Your kids’ learning time is severely affected. Your child’s teacher is very frustrated, and may develop emotional problems from the constant stress and meltdowns limiting their ability to teach (not to mention their safety). Despite the best IEP’s and BIp’s, when a special needs child dominates the classroom, violence is a common occurrence.
It kills me that whoever built this box put stuff 6 inches on center... Like you really need it that fortified?
Back when I was in first grade in the mid 70s, my teacher had what she called a “cry box” where she would put kids who missed behaved and they’d have to sit and stare at the back of it. At the time, schools where allowed to use corporal punishment if parents consented. Mine did. So I got placed it for some reason.
It pissed little me off and after I got out I was sent to the principal’s office and my parents were contacted. Really don’t remember much after that.
What we have here is a failure to communicate
For me, as a 5-9 year old.... The worst time about the time out closet was having to to go to the bathroom and no one coming let you out because you made noise to let them know you had to pee... but because you made noise, you have to stay locked in there for another 20 minutes of silence....
Children yearn for the mine type of box lol
Juxtaposed by the bluey stickers, you can almost taste the irony.
“Fun box, oh fun box It's small and square and dark Fun box, oh fun box Check out these cool fun locks! Yay!”
That’s a Texas hot box.
Seclusion is this last bad choice to manage behavior. I used it in the 70s in a special school setting and cringe when I think about it. Effective behavior management takes lots of resources schools either don’t have or won’t use.
Remove or exclude is a choice many make when a student is a danger to self or others. Until resources and training are fully supported things like this will continue. There is a better way!
What the hell kind of Matilda-level child abuse is this? Is this Miss Trunchbull's classroom?!
If I ever found out my six or seven year old got put into solitary confinement at school the headmaster would be getting shoved into the trunk of a car for a 3 hour off road drive.
Alberta was going to ban them in 2019, but has regulated thier use. School boards are phasing them out because the regulations make them essentially useless and they're being replaced with rooms designed to calm people and they can leave freely.
Key Rules and Standards
Emergency Only: Use is prohibited for punishment, discipline, or as a response to property damage or non-compliance.
Supervision: A staff member must continuously and visually monitor the individual throughout the entire period of seclusion.
Safety Requirements: Rooms must be well-lit, ventilated, at a suitable temperature, and meet all fire and building codes. They cannot contain items that could cause harm.
Parental Rights (Schools): School authorities must obtain parental consent for seclusion to be part of a student’s behavior plan. Parents must be notified of any seclusion incident as soon as possible, typically on the same day.
Termination: Seclusion must end immediately once the person no longer poses an imminent safety risk.
Whoever thought it was okay to degrade, humiliate, and traumatize a kid like this should have thier license revoked
This is some Matilda, Ms. Trunchbull type shit. Are they trying to make mental health issues worse in children, because this is how you do it.
This is too draconian but I don't know what they're supposed to do. From all accounts violent psycho kids have complete run of the classrooms and no one can do anything about it
It looks bad, but with the way kids are misbehaving nowadays and you're a solitary teacher, what are your options when a child is causing chaos and doesn't want to listen?
Then again, having an entire box is a bit too much. But the article DOES talk about that some kids became physically aggressive.... what to do then?
Reminds me of this
As an educator… this is horrific. Giving a kid who is disregulated a break in a quiet space to get it together is one thing. Locking them in a box is insane.
You know, when I saw the phrase "time out box", I thought the parents were probably overreacting. I was picturing kind of like a cubicle or maybe a little spot with partial walls (so the kid could stand up and look around, or sit down and not be seen). This is absolutely ridiculous.
You don't throw a kid in a tiny box and ignore them because they're being "problematic". As another person said, a time-out space should be comfortable, to let the kid calm down and redirect their attention. Or at the very least, it should be somewhere a child feels safe to let out their frustration without damaging anything or causing harm. Adults have enough life experience that we'd be okay with standing there grumbling for a while, but a little kid could be seriously distressed by it.
Tbh I would have loved chilling in there as a kid. I loved taking naps in the closet.
Ahh yes solitary confinement, such a proven positive discipline technique with no lasting mental health issues
I wouldn't even do this to an animal. I hope people get fired and blacklisted from working with children.
At first I was like, isnt she a comedian
No way this is fucked.
I went to two separate schools in the Midwest that both did this to children. The shocking part of me is that it's wood and not masonry or steel.
If they aren't using it, can I have it to give myself timeout's from the rest of the world?
How bad could it be? Bluey and bingo seem to like it
more like time in box lmao
Meanwhile, I'm looking closer at the construction thinking of building one with a lock on the inside while the kids are home from school.
You put my child in a box, I'm putting you in a smaller one.
I mean, if it’s an average American, you may need one with a comparable volume…
We had a timeout playhouse in preschool, it was a plastic little castle they sat in the corner of the room you had to go sit in with the door closed if you were misbehaving.
Maybe they should have made it out of colorful plastic?
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This is upstate new york
We had those in elementary school. spent plenty of time locked in them. I have adhd, so did most of the other kids in the class, so it was used to contain us when we couldn't control ourselves.
Freaking solitary confinement, otherwise known as torture.
I'm old but my HS had a few of these. They only had them in the ISS room, which was the classroom next to the metal shop hidden away in the basement level. High windows, and a failure from the NFL watching everyone because size and CTE are a great combo when looking after delinquents like myself. They'd wrap your desk in one for talking, or getting caught not working when the jailer/football coach looked at you. I liked not having people throw shit at me while reading so I'd ask him where his superbowl ring was to get the box when I was there.
HS is much different than k-5 kids
Obviously, just more to the point that it's been around a long time and in more places than just that school.
It’s weird how archaic certain parts of America vs others.
This is in canada, read the article