WASHINGTON (May 20, 2009)--After a day of testimony from witnesses that included the foster mother of a 14-year-old Killeen middle school student who died in 2002 after a 230-pound special education teacher pinned him to the floor, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a congressional panel Wednesday he intends to monitor how states use seclusion and restraint in public schools.

Duncan said Wednesday he also plans to make sure all states have clear policies in place from the coming academic year on seclusion, restraint and other physical measures that are used in schools.

“Children’s safety has to be our number one concern before we begin to think about educating them and doing other things,” Duncan said.

“And as we go into the summer and prepare for next school year I want to make sure that as we go into next school year that every state has a real clear plan as to how to do this in a way that makes sense. And doesn’t jeopardize, doesn’t endanger children.”

The announcement comes a day after the release of a Government Accountability Office investigation was released during the committee hearing that uncovered hundreds of allegations of abusive uses of such practices on schoolchildren over the last two decades, resulting in the deaths of at least 20 children including Cedric Napoleon of Killeen, whose foster mother, Toni Price, testified Tuesday.

She told the panel Napoleon tried to leave the classroom after being denied lunch and was forced into a chair and restrained.

“Cedric struggled as he was being held in his chair, so the teacher put him in a face down, or in a prone restraint, and sat on him. He struggled and said repeatedly: ‘I can’t breathe,’” she said.

But Price says the teacher responded, “If you can speak, you can breathe.”

“Shortly after that, he stopped speaking and he stopped struggling,” she said.

The teacher and an aide put the teenager back in the chair, Price said, but he slumped over and slipped out.

“Precious minutes passed by before a nurse was called,” she said.

“I received a call at work that Cedric was not breathing and that an ambulance had been called. I rushed up to the school, not completely clear what was going on or what had happened,” she said.

“When I got to the school, my son was lying on the floor with a paramedic beside him. I knelt down and said, ‘Cedric, get up. You’re not going to be in any trouble.’ but Cedric didn’t move, and instead, the paramedic stood me up. My son was dead.”

The death was ruled a homicide, but a grand jury did not indict the teacher who now works at a public high school in Loudoun County, Va.

The GAO has referred the case to the Virginia Department of Education and the American Association of School Administrators said the school district where the teacher works is now investigating the case and the teacher has been placed on leave.