It’s bad enough that public schools have dumbed down the academic component in our public schools to the point where many children will miss out on careers in medicine, engineering, mathematics, and the sciences. Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards are simply not up to par.
But there is something going on in public education that is just as concerning.
Public schools are becoming less about academics and more about social services. We see this with the push for “community schools.” Community schools will offer students mental and medical services beyond what we’ve been accustomed to in the past.
Enrollment is declining in public schools, but budgets are increasing. Just look at the increase in school counselors, school psychologists, and social workers. In Manchester, they’ve even started the process of medicalizing their district by having Amoskeag Health present in the schools.
Amoskeag Health received a $1 million grant from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services to establish a school-based health center in New Hampshire, the first of its kind.
Parents no longer have to pick their children up from school when they are sick. The school will step into their role instead.
Supporters of the pilot program say it could help treat many illnesses like asthma, upper respiratory infections, strep throat, stomach aches, headaches, and COVID-19 by eliminating some of the barriers parents or caregivers may encounter trying to for a sick child.
School board member Leslie Want was particularly impressed the program will help identify cases of COVID-19 and strep.
Many are rushing to provide these medical and mental health services in the schools, but what are the impacts on your child’s education? If any? How can something that sounds good hurt your children?
When your child is sick, you take them to the doctor’s office for care, and you are present. The chances of a mistake happening while you are sitting there is less likely to occur. When parents are not present, there is a higher chance that a serious mistake can happen.
This year, two young children in New Hampshire received a vaccine while attending school. Their parents were explicit in their direction to NOT vaccinate their children–but two mistakes happened.
Shockingly, many years ago in Pennsylvania, 6th-grade girls were given a surprise gynecological exam at school. Parents were never informed, nor did they consent to their daughters being violated this way, while they were attending school.
….parents of a sixth-grader are suing the East Stroudsburg Area School District for what they claim as subjecting their daughter to a compulsory strip and body cavity search. It turns out that their daughter and 58 other J.T. Lambert Intermediate School girls were summoned to the infirmary. The school nurse instructed them to strip down to their underwear for a gynecological examination. Some parents said their daughters asked not to have their genitals examined but were told they had to. Some of the girls started to cry, and at least one was denied the right to call home.J.T. Lambert School was greeted with a storm of parental protest. Dr. Ramlah Vahanvaty, who performed the exams, explained, “What it involved is an external examination of the labia to see if there were any warts or vaginal lesions.” She said, “Even a parent doesn’t have the right to say what’s appropriate for a physician to do when they’re doing an exam.”
Parents have had to sue their schools to protect their right to care for their children. School policies like JBAB, which is still in some New Hampshire Schools, instruct school staff to lie to parents. How does a parent trust that school officials will not violate their trust when school policies instruct their staff to lie to parents?
As school districts shift to social services, we see examples like this: Kettle Moraine School District’s policy instructs educators to socially transition children to the other gender without parental consent.
School officials can now bill for these services through Medicaid. But the Biden Administration recently proposed changing the rule on Medicaid reimbursements from public schools by eliminating parental consent. They called the rule to obtain parental consent for Medicaid billing “an unnecessary, time-consuming and emotionally fraught process for districts and parents.
This is just another way to cut parents out of some of the most important decisions they make for their children.
Parents can certainly refuse some of these services, but if they do not, they may find out the hard way that what they wanted for their child was not honored.
We also know that personally identifiable mental health information on students in New Hampshire is being shared by school counselors. We know that analysts at Keene State BHII have had access to this sensitive data, and students and parents were never notified, nor did they consent.
Most parents do not know that the student privacy law (FERPA) was gutted during the Obama administration. The protections that were put in place were stripped, and now there are exceptions that allow some individuals and organizations to access your child’s personal information. Think about it: when your child signs on to their Chromebook, all kinds of personal data is being collected by software companies, and you never consented. That’s because Obama changed the FERPA privacy law. There is now a LARGE gaping loophole that allows all kinds of personal information to be shared without parental knowledge or consent. But it’s one thing when they are accessing information your child’s math scores–it’s another when it’s sensitive mental or medical health information.
Did you know that a child who visits a school counselor can be denied a career in the military? If your child has their heart set on a military career, a visit to the school counselor can deny them that opportunity.
They sought help when their Army dad deployed. Now, they’re barred from joining the military:
By seeking counseling for their two teenage daughters as their family coped with multiple moves and multiple deployments to Afghanistan, an Army major and his wife unwittingly prevented both girls from following their father, their grandfather and their great-grandfather into military service.
Rudy and Mia De La Rosa thought they were providing emotional support for daughters Juliet and Samantha.
Sometimes, mental health treatment is necessary, so a career in the military may not be a good fit. But what happens if your child decides to visit the school counselor for something trivial? In order for that district to receive a reimbursement for services provided, they will now bill Medicaid. Medicaid requires the district to assign a code to your child–and there is no code for normal. How will that impact your child if they decide to seek a career in the military?
Did you know that with the change to the FERPA law, the U.S. Department of Education can now share personal information on your child with the U.S. Department of Labor? Why is the Federal Government amassing personal data on students?
Privacy rights attorneys focused on student privacy have already voiced their concerns for all of this data that is now easily accessible to 3rd parties.
Sometimes school officials think they know better than all parents. Here is one of many examples: (emphasis added)
The teenage girl had taken a pregnancy test at the school’s health center, according to a local news report, and administrators subsequently arranged for her to get an abortion at a county-run clinic. The girl was given a pass during school hours, put in a taxi and sent off to a local facility that’s overseen by the King County Health Department in Seattle. It is not known what classes she missed or if she will be allowed to make up the work.
The girl’s mother says the only consent form she signed allowed her daughter to be treated at the school’s health center for ailments such as earaches and sports physicals but not for terminating a pregnancy. She assures that nowhere in the paperwork does it mention “abortion or facilitating abortion.”
Clinic officials told the girl that if she concealed the pregnancy from her family, the abortion would be free of charge and there would be no financial responsibility. The school (Ballard High) is the Seattle District which is the largest in Washington State with more than 45,000 students in 88 schools.
There are numerous problems that can arise from school-based medical clinics. We are already witnessing violations of privacy rights and medical services forced or available to children without parental knowledge or consent.
Activists are out there banging the drums to make sure that all children hear their message, regardless of your views. By shifting public schools into mental and medical clinics, expect more political factions to get involved. Expect more fighting about who has the right to make decisions for your children when it comes to their mental and medical health. Expect more personal data on your child to be confiscated. But how will that impact your child’s future?
That’s what you should be concerned about.