PART 1: Introduction
This week, there was a hearing before the House Education Committee to prohibit SEL in our public schools. The sponsor proposed an amendment at the hearing to change that to parental consent for children to participate in SEL.
Many counselors showed up to give praise to SEL in our schools. But none of them brought up the importance of parental consent, which is something they should all be requiring. I supported the amendment because it affirms ethical boundaries when treating or servicing a child’s mental health. It would also mean that the state will require parental consent for SEL, which is essentially what the federal government already requires.
In addition, as SEL transitions to Transformative SEL, the goal of turning children into political radicals and activists becomes the focus.
Here is a follow-up email to the House Education Committee on HB1473, which if amended, would require parental consent for a child to participate in social and emotional learning:
Part 2: Message to NH House Ed After Hearing on HB1473
Honorable Members of the House Education Committee:
Due to the limited time for testimony on HB1473, I am submitting my testimony with files and links that support the information I presented at the hearing today. (Below)
In addition to my testimony, I would like to call your attention to one of the school counselors who spoke before your committee today. Nicole Long mentioned that in her district, they used SEL programs like Second Step. I think it’s important to look at the Second Step Transformative SEL program, to better understand why informed consent by parents is essential, It may also explain why some parents would not want this kind of SEL for their children. I was not able to comment on Transformative SEL during my testimony since my time ran out. If you read how SEL is shifting its focus to Transformative SEL, you will get a better understanding of what that looks like in the classroom.
Second Step’s anti-racism and anti-bias Transformative SEL becomes a tool for pushing students to become political activists. Not only is this inappropriate for the classroom, it takes valuable time away from learning the academics.
Megan Phillips from Keene State BHII also spoke to follow up on the testimony that was given during the hearing. It’s unfortunate that no one questioned her on the personally identifiable (pii) mental health data that was collected without informed consent, so BHII could report back to the Federal Government on the MTSS-B framework. Not only did this violate the school counselor’s code of conduct, it was what many of us consider a gross violation of trust. Where did that sensitive mental health data end up? Who had access to it? Why was it even collected to formulate the report?
Ms. Phillips also made the statement that she was there to keep an eye out for inaccuracies in testimony. She clarified social and emotional screenings or surveys and went on to caution us about using the term “mental health assessment” in this context. Ms.Phillips mentioned using assessment tools by a qualified individual and that it’s not a part of social and emotional learning.
WATCH THIS VIDEO of NH SCHOOL COUNSELORS TRYING TO MANIPULATE PARENTS
After that she explained how teachers using a survey or rating scale would be screening children based on their observation. Teachers would not be interpreting the data from the assessment process because teachers are not qualified to do that, and they are not asked to do that.
This is not what teachers and school counselors have revealed to me. It was a teacher who notified me several years ago that she was assessing her students using the DESSA. Devereux Student Strengths Assessment This information is included in my testimony. DESSA was used in SAU16, which is why I sent a 91-a asking to see the parental consent form. SAU16 did not obtain parental consent prior to assessing their students using the DESSA.
It was teachers in New York who also revolted against the DESSA, citing what New Hampshire teachers have revealed to me:
“Teachers feared they didn’t know their students well enough and that their responses could be biased. Many revolted against the directive to administer it, asking parents to opt out. Parents from various ends of the political spectrum refused to have their kids assessed. Some had concerns about privacy and data security, others worried about the questions’ overreach and the time it would take teachers away from building relationships with their children.”
A physician from New Hampshire wrote an article on the use of the DESSA in the Wall Street Journal titled, Have You Seen Jr’s Psych Profile? Emphasis mine
EXCERPT:
Rooted in what’s called “resilience theory,” the test comprises 72 questions that teachers answer about each student every month. They range from “How often did the child carry himself with confidence?” to “Does he cope well with insults and mean comments?” Answers are rated on a five-point scale from “never” to “very frequently.” A student’s composite score “provides an overall indication of the strength of the child’s social-emotional competence.” This information is tracked over time.The justification for blanket screening of all students is noble—to identify those who may benefit from intervention before their social and emotional issues become a problem that impedes success in school and life. But aren’t we really creating psychological profiles that in other settings would be deemed confidential? If so, what is the privacy cost to students who are not at risk for a psychological imbalance, yet whose mental-health information is being documented by teachers and tracked over time?
Dr. Cerundolo goes on to make the argument that parents should be consenting when schools are engaged in building a psychological profile on students.
In my testimony, you will read that I spoke with Marc Kirsch, Director of Sales & Business Development at Aperture Education. We talked about how the DESSA was used as a mental health assessment. Aperture is a vendor for the DESSA assessment.
Aperture Education claims success in treating a student’s mental health through the DESSA:
Mental Well-being
In the past few years, 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. https://www.apertureed.com/
I’m not questioning the validity or the quality of the DESSA; it’s used by Child Psychologists in their private practice. It may be a valuable tool in the hands of a doctor of Child Psychology, but our teachers were receiving about 8 hours of training.
I’m confused by Ms. Phillips’ statements but I would agree that teachers are not qualified to do some of what they are doing under the umbrella of social and emotional learning. These teachers have expressed their concerns to me, and many have been sharing the same concerns in New York.
Why should parents consent to SEL in our schools? Because we do not know what every school district is providing their students. Federal law also requires parental consent when assessing or treating a child’s mental health. Since we know that schools are failing to follow basic ethical guidelines and federal law, a state law is needed.
Parents have lost trust in school officials. Some parents have opted out of SEL for their children in some of our schools. When they hear a discussion where school personnel talk about how to manipulate a consent form to fool parents, it doesn’t help this situation. The parents who’ve watched that video were shocked by what they heard coming from those who are counseling students in our schools. https://www.veed.io/embed/a9d32c65-c439-4885-8a4b-7d629bf636e6?watermark=0&color=&sharing=1&title=1&irclickid=1sIweFQm0xyPT3aW3R15cXtmUkHwF6RpRVJ5W80&utm_source=Linkhaitao.&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=Linkhaitao.&utm_content=Online%20Tracking%20Link&irgwc=1
It doesn’t help that everyone who spoke today never mentioned the importance of informed consent when engaging with these kinds of mental health assessments and programs in our schools. When you read through the Codes of Conduct for those who work in the field of child psychology and mental health, they are very pro-parent and pro-informed consent when treating children or sharing their sensitive mental health data. There seems to be a disconnect when you watch the Zoom video and then listen to the people who are in charge of SEL in New Hampshire schools.
PART 3 TESTIMONY on HB1473 Feb. 5, 2024
Honorable Members of the House Education Committee:
My name is Ann Marie Banfield, and I am a parental rights advocate in New Hampshire focused on education. Today I come before you in support of the amendment to HB1473, which will require parental consent for children who participate in Social and Emotional Learning in school.
Teachers have always tried to support their students’ social and emotional well-being at school. But what was once considered common practice among teachers has been transformed into a standardized mental health program.
SEL programs have become profitable products to sell by Ed Technology Vendors. They are oftentimes administered by teachers with little or no mental health education or training. This is pseudo-psychology in the classroom.
Not only are the goals of SEL ill-defined, but they also raise significant, unanswered questions about what attitudes should be promoted.
Some of the problems associated with SEL in the schools include:
1. Creating standards for attitudes, values, beliefs, and dispositions.
2. Assessments using psychological measurements on children, which would include research when the data is shared through the SEL vendor.
3. Who decides what the proficiency level will be when it comes to the child’s personality and traits?
4. Scoring a child’s attitudes, values, beliefs and dispositions is subjective, and compiled by individuals who do not have the education or clinical training in the field of Child Psychology.
5. Some of the programs are new, which means that the children become research subjects. Vendors compile data on their product.
6. What type of experimental programs will be incorporated into the classroom to change a child’s attitudes? States like Arizona are now setting SEL competencies. That means the government determines what attitudes a child must exhibit.
7. Who receives the personal data on children when data is entered into the state longitudinal data system that allows data to be shared with outside contractors?
8. Children have both a Constitutional 1st and 4th Amendment protection to be left alone in their conscience.
9. Who is liable for damage incurred by staff and social workers?
10. An SEL assessment may violate the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).
HB 1473 would affirm ethical treatment of children when they are assessed or receiving mental health services. This is already a mandate in federal law but there seems to be confusion on the part of school administrators when it comes to informed consent.
I have found that some school administrators are not acquiring parental consent when they bring SEL into the classroom.
HB1473 would explicitly spell out in state statute what they should already be doing. Not only is this ethical, it’s also required in federal law Every Student Succeeds Act. ESSA: https://www.everystudentsucceedsact.org/copy-of-title-iv-sec-4001-general-provisions
ESSA requires :
(a) Parental Consent.–
“(1) In general.–
“(A) Informed written consent.–A State, local educational agency, or other entity receiving funds under this title shall obtain prior written, informed consent from the parent of each child who is under 18 years of age to participate in any mental-health assessment or service that is funded under this title and conducted in connection with an elementary school or secondary school under this title.
“(B) Contents.–Before obtaining the consent described in subparagraph (A), the entity shall provide the parent written notice describing in detail such mental health assessment or service, including the purpose for such assessment or service, the provider of such assessment.
One might wonder why a state law is necessary. Why aren’t local school administrators obtaining informed consent from parents?
School administrators and school board members are not Ph.D. Child Psychologists. This is not their area of expertise. What they may see as behavior modification can cross over to mental health treatment.
For instance, the DESSA is an SEL assessment that has been used in many schools in New Hampshire. The DESSA is also used by Child Psychologists in their private practice. https://www.kaplanco.com/content/products/DESSAIntroduction.pdf
The Devereux Student Strengths Assessment
When districts are assessing their students with the DESSA, they should be receiving informed consent from parents. I know of several districts that did not ask for consent before assessing their students when they used the DESSA. SAU16 for example.
When I spoke with Marc Kirsch, Director of Sales & Business Development at Aperture Education, he confirmed that this was a mental health assessment. They are vendors for the DESSA assessment.
The Aperture Education website promotes their success in treating a student’s mental health through their products. This is on their website:
Mental Well-being
In the past few years, 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. https://www.apertureed.com/
I was introduced to the DESSA when a teacher contacted me concerned about what she was assessing using the DESSA. She became concerned that her child’s teacher would be collecting mental health data on her child, too.
She acknowledged that she was not qualified to grade students subjectively on their mental health. Where would this sensitive data go? Since they use a 3rd party vendor, Aperture Education would now be able to access her child’s mental health data.
SEL vendors will include a privacy policy; however, we know that when they cite FERPA as a privacy protection, FERPA allows for data to be shared because of the exceptions that currently exist. Anyone researching education can now access this sensitive mental health data, and parents will never know.
SEL programs and the data are profitable in the field of Ed Technology.
The Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is the central organization in the SEL sector. Proponents of SEL are proud to focus less on academic content and knowledge in schools and more on a student’s attributes, mindsets, values, and behaviors.
Tim Shriver, Board Chairman of CASEL said in a promotional video, “Content is more and more of a commodity. Children own what they want now at a very young age. They will become self directed. They can find out the dates of the civil war without learning it from a teacher.”
There is a deliberate attempt to eliminate teachers from the classroom. You can see it here and in Education Reimagined. But in my opinion, this is just another way to dumb down public education.
In 2019, CASEL embraced a controversial interpretation of the SEL skills in what is called “transformative SEL.”
Max Eden a Research Fellow at AEI wrote In an Op-ed:
“In the “transformative” model, “self-awareness” encompasses a student’s understanding of their “identity.” Their “identity” is to be understood in terms of “intersectionality,” a concept coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, the woman who coined the term “critical race theory.” This “transformative SEL” encourages students to understand their “identity” in terms of their belonging or non-belonging to identity politics categories that signify privilege or oppression. Transformative SEL also embraces “culturally relevant/responsive” pedagogy, an educational philosophy pioneered by Gloria Ladson-Billings, the woman who introduced critical race theory to the field of education. https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-critical-race-theory-to-sel-education-pipeline/
From my research on CASEL and from what they’ve shared with the public, this is exactly the direction SEL is heading.
One needs to look no further than the Arizona State Competencies for SEL. Arizona students are required to master SEL competencies before moving. Did you know that there are SEL competencies now? That means students in Arizona must consider diversity salience or climate and assess the impact of beliefs and biases.
So when using the Second Step SEL program, anti-racism and anti-bias include a commitment to addressing racial injustice by driving change in our communities. This means that there is a shift from time spent on academics to time spent on training a child to become a political activist. Except they will be more likely to be an illiterate political activist. https://www.secondstep.org/anti-racism-and-anti-bias-resources
You need to look no further than what is made available to the public to understand the numerous problems that can accompany SEL in our schools.
Some of these programs may be valuable in the hands of a Child Psychologist in their private practice. But some of them have a specific political agenda attached to them.
Based on all of these reasons, I urge you to support the amended HB1473, which affirms federal laws and the ethical treatment of children when they are receiving mental health services or assessments in schools.
