Dear Representatives: After reviewing the House Education Committee discussion on student mental health during a work session on June 28, 2023, I wanted to add some commentary.
First, let me start by saying that I consider the mental health of children to be extremely important. But I think we should all ask ourselves, when did offering mental health assessments and services become a part of public education?
Over the past few years, many of us could see that treating mental health has become more prominent in how public education is delivered in our communities. But we’ve also seen many problems too. When public education shifts to mental health services, what does that mean for students? Does this improve the mental health of those who need services? What about students who do not need these services? Does their quality of education improve or decline? Social and Emotional Learning is directed at all students, not just the children who need mental health treatment.
Many schools have added SEL classes, while we continually hear how time in the core academic subjects has been reduced.
I think we have to be honest with ourselves and admit that this extra challenge to public schools could result in a decline in academic outcomes. You can’t shift focus away from academics, include mental health classes and curriculum, and expect academic outcomes to improve. A student receiving expert mental health care outside the classroom may be a better solution.
For many children, these services are not needed. SEL is offered to all students, and it is embedded in the curriculum. In addition, teachers have reported SEL data collection on students.
If we are talking about children who need mental health services, why has this become a school-wide agenda for all of the students? Why are they not targeting children who need these services?
Children experiencing depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts need expert care. This cannot be provided by a school counselor, or social worker. They do not have the expert training and education that is required. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that these extremely serious mental health conditions can be fixed using an SEL program. Let’s not pretend that an employee without any advanced education, clinical training, or ability to prescribe medication, can handle these serious mental health problems.
We have school counselors in New Hampshire defying basic ethical guidelines, and sharing mental health data without consent from the students or their parents. We have LEA’s changing mental health permission slips to reflect “counseling” so parents will be fooled into signing them. (See attached file 22:00 – 54:00) We have districts with policies that require school staff to lie to parents about their own children. (JBAB) We have a federal student privacy law (FERPA) that was gutted several years ago so that this sensitive data can be shared without informed consent. And now we are going to hand them the responsibility of servicing their mental health?
This has set up a situation that defies ethical codes of conduct. Outside mental health professionals must follow their ethical guidelines if they are to maintain their license to treat patients. And yet we have school officials in New Hampshire ignoring all of this.
I cannot imagine you going forward with any of this in our public schools. School officials are ignoring ethical guidelines, and the privacy laws either go ignored or counselors defy them. We have school policies that are hostile to parents, and you want to now task school personnel with mental health treatment and services?
I’d suggest reading some of the ethical guidelines that have been developed for mental health professionals who treat children. They are extremely supportive of parental involvement, and fully support informed consent when sharing sensitive mental health data. This is not the current practice in our New Hampshire Schools, and we have the evidence to prove it.
You should not task a school district with assessing, and treating the mental health of children without strict ethical boundaries in place. You should not task a school district with treating the mental health of students using personnel who lack the education and clinical training that is needed. Would you ask the school nurse to diagnose and treat a student’s cancer? Of course not. That cancer would be diagnosed and treated by a cancer specialist outside the school system. The school would only be there to follow the doctor’s medical advice.
What is the role of a school counselor when offering direct services to students? What ability do they have to assess or treat a child’s mental health? This is a discussion that one would think would take place in a different committee like Health and Human Services. What are the laws in place that allow parents to hold counselors accountable for poor treatment?
In this example, a student attempted suicide at school after counselors there helped her transition from a girl to a boy. All of this was kept from the parents because the parents were Christian. The school even sent her in a police car to the hospital where she was kept with minimum contact from her parents.
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A few months ago I received a frantic message from a father whose son was given a mental health evaluation after he scraped his friend with a plastic knife in the lunchroom. I’ve received phone calls from parents whose children were counseled at school without their knowledge or consent; and yet ESSA requires parental consent when assessing or servicing a student for their mental health.
A licensed mental health provider in private practice would risk losing their license if they practiced in the manner we are seeing in our public schools.
This push to turn public schools into mental health clinics was done without any consideration for ethics or privacy protections. If I take my child to a private practice, I do not have to worry about information shared with colleagues in the school or sensitive data that can be shared without my knowledge or consent. The privacy of the patient is a priority.
It is shocking to hear these kinds of discussions in the House or Senate Education Committees. Instead of placing this new burden on public schools, these services can still be provided to children who need them through DHHS. Our public schools are struggling to teach children to read, write, add, and subtract. Now they are going to become experts in mental health treatment?
Did you know that children who are sent to the hospital after attempting suicide must sit with a medical professional while doing their homework on their Chromebook? That’s because some of the instant messages come from bullies telling the child to kill themself. Why don’t you ban Chromebooks? The administrators haven’t removed the digital devices in spite of the cyberbullying that continues.
How about all of the pornographic books that are now available to children through the school library App? That is child sexual abuse, and yet this is now allowed in schools by the administrators that are supposed to administer mental health treatment. You want to trust these people with mental health services for students?
The schools remained closed during COVID in spite of the many mental health professionals that were warning about the emotional toll it was taking on children. I worked with parents all over New Hampshire, literally begging administrators to open the schools. Parents explained the emotional toll this was having on their children. All of this went ignored even though private schools were open.
We’ve already started transforming public schools into mental health clinics, and now we see bad behavior treated as if it’s a mental health condition. This new approach has teachers leaving the profession because there are no consequences for bad behavior. This transformation to mental health services in schools is already having a negative impact on behavior. Representative Ladd touched on some of this during the work session. If leadership in the school is going to fail to administer consequences for behavior, what can you do as legislators? This is a problem that must be addressed at the local level, which is why parents in Keene have been attending meetings and speaking up.
SEL isn’t just a program used in our schools; it’s a mechanism for gathering mental health data on children. Many parents send their children to school to learn the academics, not to become guinea pigs when it comes to their mental health.
We have children sitting in hospitals waiting to get into the one mental health facility that treats children. These kids are desperate for mental health services, but we are going to shift much-needed resources to schools that are proving to be incapable of educating students in the core academic subjects. Not only are many failing at their main task, they are failing to offer these services in an ethical and lawful way.
