The QLD school locking special needs children in a "jail-like" room.

“Nobody should be put in a small, scary room with a big door covered with locks.”

There’s a tiny room at Kawangun State School in Queensland that’s supposed to be a “time-out” area for problematic students.

But it’s more like a frightening jail cell used to sequester away special needs children, according to outraged parents from the Hervey Bay school.

The so-called “withdrawal room” is dark, two metres square, secured by at least two locks and contains minimal furniture.

Now, a number of concerned parents have told their story to A Current Affair — and they are variously calling for an apology, and for criminal charges to be laid.

Kelly-Ann Brooks’ son Tate was locked in the room regularly for minor behavioural infractions.

According to the school’s records, Tate — who has autism — sometimes banged the walls and screamed during his “time out” in the small room.

When Ms Brooks went to Tate’s classroom one evening after school to collect one of his toys, she finally had the chance to see the room with her own two eyes — and was disgusted at what she found.

“I had to unlock the top lock, I had to unlock the bottom lock and then open the door handle to go in,” she told A Current Affair.

“Children with disabilities shouldn’t be treated like this,” she said.

“Nobody should be put in a small, scary room with a big door covered with locks and locked in there to calm down. It’s totally outrageous.”

Fearing nobody would believe what the space really looked like, she took photos of the “withdrawal room” and allowed them to be broadcast by the Channel Nine program.

The images show a dark space with a threadbare mattress and a few cushions strewn across the floor. The single window appears to be boarded up, and there are no toys or learning materials visible.

Ms Brooks not the only parent who’s concerned about the withdrawal room: Another mother from the school, Julie Conner, told A Current Affair her son was also placed there as a punishment.

In a visibly emotional interview, Ms Conner told A Current Affair her son Beau came home with “red marks up his arms” from being restrained “by the teachers holding his arm, dragging him”.

She also claims to have been accidentally locked in the room herself while collecting her son from the school one day in March.

Describing that scary ordeal, she claimed she “couldn’t open the door from the inside” and “sat there bashing on the door and calling out”.

She said she later reported the room to authorities, to no avail.

“I rang the Education Department and told them what had happened and she said someone would ring you back and we still have not received a phone call,” she said.

Both Ms Brooks and Ms Conner have now taken their boys out of Kawangun State School and are demanding an apology.

But the school’s principal Simon Boss-Walker declined to speak to A Current Affair during last night’s segment, saying an investigation was already underway and that it would be inappropriate to comment to the media.

It’s unclear whether the school continues to lock children away in its withdrawal room, or whether the Education Department is likely to penalise the teachers involved.

But for now, Ms Brooks wants to keep getting her message out there, desperate to prevent any more children being subjected to the upsetting treatment.

“It’s torture,” Ms Brooks told A Current Affair. “That’s all it is, plain and simple, torture.”