Incidents of seclusion -- when a student is alone and prevented from leaving an enclosed space -- more than doubled last year in Wake County schools, new data shows.

Wake County Public School System schools reported 447 incidents of a student being held alone in a room last year, up from 174 incidents the year before. That's less than 1% of students but hundreds who need help, school board members said on Tuesday during a presentation of the data.

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The school board wants to reduce these numbers in light of lawsuits over seclusion and restraint. That includes a lawsuit that led to the school system needing to report these numbers to the board every six months.

"This is not really new data. We are constantly seeing this," Board Member Christina Gordon said. "What are we planning to do differently?"

The school system plans to expand training on working with children in crisis or with behavioral challenges. The district is working with the Autism Society of North Carolina to provide behavioral specialists to work with children.

Officials have been visiting schools to see how things are working, and they've already learned some things.

They toured schools earlier this year and found some schools were mixing up calming spaces and seclusion rooms, said Lisa Allred, district assistant superintendent over special education services.

Allred said very few schools have actually have approved seclusion rooms -- just 11 schools. She said "seclusion rooms" are specific environments that can only be used when a student with a disability has them included in their individualized education program, whereas a "calming room" could be a space in the back of a classroom with fidget tools to help a student relax.

School board members recommended the district have a formal process -- perhaps in school board-approved policy -- for when a school wants to create a seclusion room. That way, the board isn't implicated in lawsuits when a principal starts a seclusion room that a family eventually sues over the use of.

Seclusion restraint are last resort, Allred said, and should only be used when both students and adults are in danger.

Restraint is when a student's ability to move have been physically restricted.

According to data presented to the board on Tuesday, students in Wake County were restrained 1,309 times last year, up from 1,106 times the year before. A total of 544 students were either restrained or secluded last year, indicating that some of the students were restrained or secluded multiple times.

The data also found more Black students and students with disabilities are restrained and secluded than other student groups, and boys are restrained or secluded about three times as often as girls.

Those disparities are also something school board members want to fix.

Board Member Toshiba Rice doubted that the students were always to blame.

"Someone needs to check the lake water," she said.

Allred said the district needs to identify what triggered the behavioral issues for all of those students and to be more proactive to prevent them.

"The goal would be de-escalation strategies and relationship-building," Allred said. "Those are really the key there."

That's helped in other schools without as many issues, she said.

"I look forward to holding us to that," Rice said.