Deteriorating … Mental Health, Privacy, and Parental Consent in Public Schools

As schools begin the shift to providing mental health services, parents need to be aware of some big problems that have been uncovered. Personally identifiable mental health information on students has already been shared, but schools are still failing to acquire informed parental consent for their child’s mental health assessments and services.

SEL is a way to shift more time away from learning the academic content. You can see in this video how the gatekeepers of the SEL programs admit that teachers are no longer important. Your kids can just learn that stuff on the internet. GO HERE.

This request for an investigation into what is going on in Merrimack was sent to The New Hampshire Department of education. Parents need to be informed and consent to all of these mental health programs and services offered by school counselors.

1st Request for Documentation:

Dear Superintendent Olsen:

Pursuant to the Right to Know Law (RSA, 91-1), I am requesting public access, within 5 business days, to the governmental records:

1) A copy of any parental permission slips for teachers to assess students using the DESSA. A copy of any parental permission slips for students to participate in the Second Step SEL program.

2) Copies of all SEL competencies or competencies related to social and emotional learning. (eg: Social Skills)

3) Documents showing where SEL/Social Skills competencies have been sent or will be sent. Colleges, etc.

Per RSA 91-A:4IV(C) If you deny any portion of this request, please cite the specific exemption used to justify the denial to make each record, or part thereof, available for inspection along with a brief explanation of how the exemption applies to the information withheld.

Please let me know when these records are available for inspection or you may email the records to me at Banfieldannmarie@gmail.com.

Ann Marie Banfield
TRUST REQUIRES TRANSPARENCY

Ann Marie Banfield

2) REPLY BACK TO ME by SUPERINTENDENT:

Good morning Ann Marie,

I am submitting my response to your RSA 91-1 Right To Know Request. The attachment addresses your first request. With regard to your second and third request, my response to both is that the District does not maintain SEL competencies, or competencies related to social and emotional learning and thus has no responsive records.

Regards,

Everett Olsen

Chief Education Officer

3) FORWARD to NH Dept. of Ed for an INVESTIGATION:
Dear Ms. Fenton,

Please see the forwarded email from Superintendent Olsen, along with the documents I requested in my 91-a. 

I am asking you to open an investigation into the failure to secure informed parental consent before screening students with the DESSA- Devereux Student Strengths Assessment. It appears that the district required consent once the screening was completed to see if parents approved of additional support for their children.

As you know, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires informed consent by parents when children are assessed or receive mental health services from their school district. While I can appreciate that a consent form was sent to approve of additional services, I believe consent should also be required when their children were screened. 
Second Step includes SEL but also Transformative SEL which crosses over into political activism.

As you can see from the attached documents, the teacher will be covering serious mental health issues like managing stress and anxiety.

Aperture, the maker of the DESSA, includes their privacy policy here. Parents in the district are now raising concerns over what we see is a lack of security with the personal student data they collect and store. For instance, the privacy policy states that while financial payment information will be safely encrypted, it does not say the same about student data. 

Parents do not know what actual data is being collected, with what third parties it is being shared, and how it is being secured.

What happens if, through the screener, a student is experiencing emotional distress? The DESSA tool is supposed to help schools identify students who might need additional social and emotional health support so that they can ensure students have access to the right services and are getting the help they need.

Who has access to all of this personal mental health data? Where is it stored? Has Keene State BHII or any of the former universities accessed this sensitive information?

A New Hampshire physician wrote in The Wall Street Journal about how teachers are now performing mental health screenings using the DESSA. This is all done without parental knowledge or consent.

It was Marc Kirsch, who was Director of Sales & Business Development for Aperture Education, who confirmed for me in 2017 that the DESSA was a mental health assessment. Aperture even markets that “students have experienced a dramatic increase in mental health concerns, including anxiety, depression and behavior disorders. School-based programs focused on building social and emotional skills can proactively support students’ mental health.”

It even appears that you can get a psych degree in a one-day seminar.
Paul LeBuffe is the Vice President for Research and Development for Aperture Education (Apertureed.com). He is a graduate of St. Mary’s College of Maryland and received his Master’s degree in experimental psychology from Bryn Mawr College. For the past 25 years, Paul’s career has focused on strength-based approaches to promoting social and emotional competence and resilience in children, youth, and the adults who care for them. 



My first interaction with SEL was with a New Hampshire teacher several years ago when she sent me this:

DESSA is a program that allows teachers to enter and track student social and emotional behaviors in order to flag and group students for intervention.  

I’m a huge tech person; but this type of tracking of data makes me extremely nervous.  First, because even physicians don’t track data like this over this long of time, and second because the data could be used (potentially) against a child later in life (ie college applications), and third, because a data breach on a system like this wouldn’t take much.  

It’s VERY concerning to me, and because it’s teachers making the observations and entering data, it’s really flying under the radar, but is becoming more and more promoted and used especially in this area.  If ever there was something to get after, it’s programs such as this one.
I think if parents saw samples of the questions and the data that it feeds back, they would be totally against it. 


I believe the info is fed to the DESSA servers. Where it goes from there, not sure exactly – that’s part of the issue. It’s made to track kids across settings and flag high risk kids…so I believe the intent is to store data for access beyond district walls

As a teacher I’d like to refuse taking this info from my students. Can I refuse this as a professional?


In addition, as you will see by Superintendent Olsen’s reply, he said:
”With regard to your  second and third request, my response to both is that the District does not maintain SEL competencies, or competencies related to social and emotional learning and thus has no responsive records.”

As you can see from the file attached titled Merrimack-NH-School-District-SAU26- Essential Learning Competencies, on page 4 titled Subject Area: Characteristics of a Successful Learning, there are competencies listed as part of the Second Step SEL program.  This document was not provided to me in Mr. Olsen’s reply to my 91-a.
Merrimack-NH-School-District-SAU26-Essential-Learning-Competencies

I’m also attaching a file that is from a newsletter provided to parents explaining what will be covered in their child’s social and emotional class. This was sent to me by another source. If you scroll down that document, you will see that they are working on “managing anxiety,” among other mental health issues.
Newsletters (1)

The concerns I’ve raised have been many. For instance, will any of this data be used to deny a child a career in the military when they are older?

Informed parental consent was added to the federal law for good reason. Child Psychologists understand the importance of privacy and informed consent, and It’s why they should be the ones administering mental health assessments and treatments to children–not teachers and school counselors.

Please review the information I provided.

Thank you
Ann Marie Banfield