What I understand now, and what I have said to three separate rooms of people since, is this.

A fifteen-year-old who is being excluded every day by a hundred and ninety people will always say do not escalate.

Always.

There is no version of that child who says anything else, because the only leverage he has left is being invisible, and an intervention takes that away.

So asking him is fine.

Asking him is correct.

Treating his answer as a decision is not.

Ophelia Nakagawa said something at the end of that meeting.