Former student at school in Mayo, Yukon, files lawsuit alleging holds, seclusion

A former student of the J.V. Clark School in Mayo, Yukon, has filed a lawsuit alleging staff put them in unnecessary holds and would lock them in the school's boot roomfor hours at a time.

The lawsuit is the third alleging the improper use of holds and seclusion against students and in particular, those with learning disabilities at a Yukon school.

A statement of claim filed to the Yukon Supreme Court on July 22 alleges the unnamed former student, who's identified as a Yukon First Nation citizen and as having a disability, was subjected to the measures from 2007 until 2010.

Both the Yukon department of Education and the J.V. Clark school council are named as defendants.

Neither have filed a statement of defence yet.

Department spokesperson Clarissa Wall wrote in an email that the department was reviewing the statement of claim with the department of Justice.

"The safety and protection of students is the top priority for the department of Education," her email also said.

"We will follow the processes established by the Safer Schools Action Plan."

Similar to the other lawsuits, the statement of claim alleges staff would place the student in holds where adults use their own bodies to restrict a child's movement when they didn't follow instructions or became "emotionally heightened, dysregulated and/or upset" even though they didn't pose a risk of harm to themselves or others. The holds would sometimes last for hours, the lawsuit claims, or be "physically dangerous and injurious," and some staff members were "regularly assigned" to respond to requests to put the student in a hold.

The lawsuit also alleges staff would lock the student alone in a boot room next to the school's main entrance, using a "horseshoe-shaped wooden door latch" on the door leading to the lobby and a padlock and chain on the door that led outside. Staffgave the room thenickname "Crystal Palace," the lawsuit alleges, because it had a number of large windows in the walls and doors "through which anyone who entered the school could observe the plaintiff locked inside in emotionally heightened and dysregulated states."

The student would sometimes be placed in the room for the entire school day, including through lunch and recess, the lawsuit claims, and a phone in the room was also allegedly disconnected while the student was locked inside.

The student's guardians were not informed about the full extent of what was happening, the lawsuit claims.

James Tucker, one of the lawyers representing the former student, said that while they're now an adult, their alleged treatment at the school "still has an impact on them in their daily lives."

"They've described to us that they're not comfortable being in confined spaces, rooms with closed doors, that kind of thing," he said.

Tucker's law firm is also behind the two other lawsuits over the alleged use of hold and restraints on students at Whitehorse's Jack Hulland Elementary School and Haines Junction's St. Elias Community School.

"The similarity is striking and ...it's shocking every time we hear of such incidents, it's just terrible that children describe that they were subjected to these types of experiences," Tucker said.

None of the lawsuits have been tested at trial.