At a special meeting Tuesday, Unalaska’s school board approved a policy they hope they never have to use -- one that tells teachers what to do if a student becomes violent or out of control.

A state bill passed this year bans schools from using most types of “restraint and seclusion,” and requires districts to train teachers on using other methods in crisis situations. 

The bill was proposed by Anchorage Republican Rep. Charisse Millett. She says in her sponsor statement that Alaska has never had a clear policy on what to do when a student poses a threat to themselves or others.

School boards have to put a policy in place by Oct. 14. The Association of Alaska School Boards worked with the Lower Kuskokwim School District to draft one -- and that's what Unalaska will be using.

Unalaska City School District Superintendent John Conwell says it's always been Unalaska's informal policy to prohibit teachers from using things like handcuffs or drugs to subdue a student who posed a threat. And he says Unalaska's teachers have always been trained on using physical contact in an emergency -- such as holding onto a child who was about to run into the road or hurt someone.

Conwell says he doesn't recall the issue "ever coming up" in his 18 years in Unalaska. But he says the state's new policy makes the rules clear: 

"It's basically telling us we can’t physically restrain a student with a device," he says, like handcuffs or a drug used for discipline. "Or they can’t lock them in a room and leave them there without observing them. And, again, it’s something we have never allowed here."

The school board's new policy explicitly bans those tactics. And it gives specific guidelines for when teachers can intervene in a situation using physical contact.

School board chairman Abner Hoage says the policy is similar to how teachers decide what kind of supervision and discipline a student needs.

"But it has to do with gaining control of the situation -- so the least intrusive manner of gaining control of the situation, versus higher methods," he says, adding that the policy is designed “to limit those higher methods to, these are the times when they’re okay. Similar to a police ‘use of force’ policy, or any of those sorts of things."

Superintendent Conwell says the policy would apply largely to for special education students. They make up about 7 percent of Unalaska’s nearly 400 students, one of the lowest percentages in the state. And Conwell says to his knowledge, as with the rest of the district's students, none of Unalaska's special education students have ever created situations that required restraint.

Either way, he doesn’t know yet what training teachers will actually need to comply with the new policy. The state board of education’s criteria for those trainings is currently out for public comment.

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, a previous verison of this story incorrectly described tactics that teachers can use to restrain students in crisis situations and which students might be subject to those tactics. In fact, the school district has always banned mechanical and pharmaceutical restraints -- and has now formalized those rules in a new policy, as required by state law. The policy applies to all students and is not geared toward special education students, as originally reported. KUCB regrets any confusion this error may have caused.