PORTLAND, Tenn. -- If a parent routinely put his or her unruly child in a closet they might expect a visit from the Department of Children's Services, so what’s happening at a local school could come as a surprise.

Video: Lawmakers, Parents Question Use Of Seclusion Rooms

Seclusion rooms, nicknamed for a room used for punishing unruly children, are for kids who are acting up and posing a threat to themselves or others.

But the use of them is getting the attention of parents and legislators.

In Sumner County, there are 16 seclusion rooms. The county’s alternative school has three.

The county has a long and detailed policy about the use of the rooms. The list indicates how long a child can spend inside one of the rooms, and it also states that a parent must approve the use of these rooms.

One parent said she had no idea what her child was getting into.

“I agreed to it not knowing the environment they were placing my son in,” said the mother. She requested that her identity be kept anonymous.

The woman said she enrolled her 11-year-old son into Portland’s Clyde Riggs Elementary knowing that his many behavioral disorders could be a distraction to class. She said she had no idea that the punishment was so severe.

“I was in shock,” she said.

The room is about the size of a small closet at 4 feet by 3 ½ feet across. The room was brought to the attention of the Disability Law and Advocacy Center.

There are no current state regulations on seclusion rooms, according to the center’s spokesman.

“It’s regulated in all our mental health facilities and our prisons,” the mother said.

Sumner County Schools’ spokesman Steve Doremus said the students are never locked in. He said the schools use a gravity lock. He said a trained professional stands outside the door to monitor the student.

There are concerns that the gravity latches don’t work all the time.

The mother said one day her son ate lunch inside the room.

“If a child is calm enough to eat his lunch, he should not be in a seclusion room,” she said.

“We have some rooms that we’re not too comfortable with their size, and we’re actually enlarging a few of our rooms during the summer,” Doremus said.

He said the rooms at Clyde Riggs are among the ones set to be improved.

The mother said her son now has more anxiety issues as a result of the time he spent in the room.

She said he will now home school him since his behavior has taken a turn for the worse.

“If I as a parent were to put my child in a place like that in my home, I would be arrested, and my child would be taken away from me,” she said.

She said she has filed complaints with the school and the state.

There was a bill introduced on Capitol Hill that would have regulated the use of the rooms, but the bill was voted into a study committee for the summer. The bill’s sponsor said she had heard complaints about the rooms all over the state.

According to the Sumner County School system, they used the seclusion rooms 163 times last year.

Metro Schools have one seclusion room in the Nashville school system.