Educators this week dismissed rumours Government was planning to set up padded cells for disruptive students in middle schools.

Drawings for the middle school to be set up at Dellwood Primary on Angle Street in September showed an "isolation room'' located on the second floor of the school next to a counselling room.

And one concerned parent told that she did not "like the sounds of an `isolation room'''.

But Senior Education Officer of Student Services Joeann Smith explained the room -- which she preferred to call a "time-out'' room -- will be just one of several options to help teachers deal with students with "behavioural disorders''.

Stressing the room would not be padded -- merely carpeted and furnished with soft items -- and only used on "rare'' occasions, Mrs. Smith said: "We're faced with working with issues in school which we were not before, children with behaviour disorders or who are acting up.

"In the last two years we have tried to build in a continuum of services for all kinds of children so that principals in schools will have a number of options that they can use when dealing with children with behavioural disorders.'' She noted that the room -- which "will eventually be in all middle schools and in senior schools'' -- was important because children with severe behaviour disorders usually needed an opportunity and place to calm down when they were upset.

"They need a place where they are on their own, where they can be monitored and there is nothing in there that they can hurt themselves with,'' Mrs. Smith said, explaining that the room will be carpeted and may be furnished with soft couches, chairs, and balls so that they could not harm themselves.

While such rooms were not mentioned in the recently-released Code of Conduct, Mrs. Smith stressed: "That room is there for those rare occasions when a child is out of control and needs an opportunity to calm down before they return to their classroom or whatever.'' Mrs. Smith also pointed out that staff would be able to monitor the "time-out'' rooms by camera at all times.

Government behavioural specialist Judith Bartley noted the counsellor could monitor the child and eventually enter the room and talk with the child or wait for the child to calm down. Dr. Bartley explained corporal punishment on children with behavioural disorders was counter-productive.

"When you're dealing with a child with behaviour disorders, you're looking at child with a disability,'' she said. "Therefore measures such as corporal punishment are not appropriate. Often times these children have no control over their impulses. They don't know why they're doing what they're doing. The time-out or cooling off period is definitely an opportunity for the child to collect him or herself and come back to the group.'' "It is also an opportunity for the child to be intervened with privately,'' Dr. Bartley added. "Often times children with behavioural disorders, if they are addressed in a public classroom setting, it has a negative impact. They get embarrassed.'' Isolation rooms From Page 1 Mrs. Smith said this was true especially at the middle school level where young people -- between the ages of 11 and 14 -- were trying to establish their own identity.

Mrs. Smith pointed out that the "time-out'' method needed to be viewed as a part of a whole behavioural management process.

Education Minister Jerome Dill echoed the sentiments.

"This represents a series of developments which we are particularly proud of because we now have the ability to offer a continuum of services,'' he said.

However, he said, "time will tell'' whether the services can alleviate the necessity for an alternative school as promised by former Education Minister Clarence Terceira.