A New York school district locked Akwesasne Mohawk children with disabilities in boxes. No one got fired.

Over a century and a half, at least 3,100 Native American children died as the U.S. government forced them into boarding schools where their languages and traditions were violently repressed, according to the Washington Post.

Today, the collective memory of that horror feels fresh as residents of a small network of upstate New York communities, which includes parts of the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, tell NPR of a disturbing disciplinary practice inflicting similar institutional harm against Native children, who were confined in wooden boxes called “calming stations.”

The Salmon River Central School District, where roughly two-thirds of students are Mohawk, confirmed that special education staff constructed and used wooden boxes to confine disabled elementary students during November and December of 2025.

“It was so unfathomable that our children were seeing these boxes and hearing children screaming in these boxes,” said Sarah Konwahahawi Herne, a parent and member of the tribal community.

Children were placed inside the boxes, with the door held shut, for a “timeout.” The scandal broke following a post on social media, since school officials did not notify parents — further violating state regulations against corporal punishment and isolation.

“None of us could believe initially that was true,” St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Chief Michael Conners said. “It was verified that it was and it was defended as legal. Nobody could believe it was legal to have that in our schools, with the intent of using that box on our children.”

New York’s state education department has since issued a compliance order requiring sweeping reforms in the district. Its investigation confirmed that at least five elementary-age students with disabilities had been confined to the boxes.

The May 8 order, obtained by NPR, prohibited school staff from using “corporal punishment, aversive interventions, and seclusion.”

Full details of the compliance order have not been made public, though it did not require the dismissal of staff involved in creating or carrying out the practice. The state education department says that personnel decisions remain a matter of local control.

Further compounding the community’s pain, several employees involved in the illegal aversive action are members of the Akwesasne Mohawk community — as are a majority of the local school board members.

“The fact that these were our own people working in these schools, hurting our children, allowing this to happen, it was so frustrating, so angering,” said Chrystalynn Jock, a parent and tribal member whose child attends the St. Regis Mohawk School.

Since news became public, the district has made several major staffing changes: Two interim superintendents quickly departed before a third, Ben Barkley, was appointed in March.

A teacher who had been placed on administrative leave was arrested by state police in May on charges of endangering the welfare of a student, though it’s unclear whether that case is directly connected to the confinement boxes. A permanent head of special education was hired to implement reforms mandated by both the local and state investigations.

“Nothing like this will happen in Salmon River again,” Barkley said. “We will be in full compliance with the state education department.”

But parents and tribal members like Herne feel less than optimistic, saying that the announced reforms don’t go far enough. The district has refused to issue a formal apology.

“I’m not trying to be on a witch hunt,” she said. “I’m just trying to hold people accountable and make a safer place. If they have to stand up and admit they were wrong, that’s what they need to do. That helps us all heal.”