A school board in upstate New York has launched a formal investigation and placed several officials on leave following deeply troubling allegations that elementary school students, particularly those with disabilities, may have been confined inside wooden "timeout" boxes.
Images Spark Outrage and Investigation
Photographs of the small, padded wooden structures first circulated on social media last week. The images were shared by a former member of the Salmon River Central School District board, who accused officials of constructing the boxes to seclude children with special educational needs.
The revelation caused immediate anger within the district, which serves approximately 1,300 students near the New York-Canada border. In response, the board of education announced last Thursday that it had placed three officials, including an elementary school teacher, on administrative leave.
The district's superintendent has been reassigned to "home duties" while the inquiry proceeds. The board is also cooperating with a separate investigation being conducted by the New York State Department of Education.
Conflicting Accounts and Community Trauma
While the superintendent acknowledged that three such wooden crates had been installed at two elementary schools, he insisted they were removed and that no child was ever placed inside them. This claim was directly contested by parents at a tense community meeting covered by the Times Union newspaper.
Multiple parents expressed suspicions that their children had been subjected to the boxes. One parent of a minimally verbal child recounted his son saying, "If you are happy or if you are sad, this is the place you have to go to calm down."
The controversy carries a profound historical weight for the community, where over 60% of students are Native American. For many, the boxes evoked painful memories of the abusive federal residential school system, which forcibly assimilated Indigenous children. Sarah Konwahahawi Herne, whose first-grader attends a school where a box was present, told the Times Union, "Sixteen of my family members, at least, have gone to residential schools... This is not history. This is contemporary times in our family."
Official Condemnation and Apology
New York's Democratic Governor, Kathy Hochul, has labelled the allegations "highly disturbing." In a weekend statement, she asserted, "School should be a place where every child is safe, respected and supported. These allegations are alarming and entirely unacceptable." She demanded swift action from the state's education department.
The school board has issued a profuse apology. Jason Brockway, the board president, stated, "We recognize the pain, concern, and distress these events have caused, and we are truly sorry for the harm and trauma this has resulted for our community. We want to be clear: the circumstances surrounding these allegations do not reflect the values and standards of care that guide this district."
The district superintendent's office did not immediately respond to a request for further comment as the investigations continue.
