More examples of Social and Emotional Learning are in the school classroom now. Here is a psychological exercise given to middle school students in Seabrook by a health teacher. Normally, these kinds of exercises are given to individuals after they’ve been assessed by a mental health professional, not in Seabrook schools. They just hand mental health treatment over to teachers now to distribute to all of the children. It doesn’t matter if a child needs mental health treatment or not.
What’s next? Will teachers be tasked with administering medical care to students in the classroom?
Federal law requires parental consent when their children receive mental health services or are assessed. That law was ignored. In a clinical setting, mental health professionals also need parental consent to proceed with assessing or treating a child’s mental health. That was ignored.
Classrooms have become pseudo-psychology clinics administered by teachers who do not have the education or clinical training in the field of Child Psychology. This has led to all kinds of problems in New Hampshire public schools.
We know that school counselors were pressured to hand over personal mental health data on students without parental knowledge or consent. That violates the School Counselor’s Code of Ethics. We know that Social and Emotional SEL vendors collect mental health data on students through their online programs. PowerSchool was sued for selling this personal data on students, but they claim that what they are doing is legal. Who knows where that information on children has been sent?
Some parents have defended this practice, but none of that really matters. What matters is whether parents are consenting, and is this done in an ethical manner? I know I wouldn’t want my children participating in a psychological exercise at the direction of their health teacher. I would want my child properly assessed, and then treated by a licensed professional in the field of child psychology.
I would suggest calls and emails to the Education Commissioner and to your State Representatives. This kind of pseudo psychology in the classroom is expensive, and can be dangerous to children.
Let’s find proper care for children who truly need it. These psychological experiments on children need to stop. Go back to teaching kids how to read, write, add, and subtract. Clearly, in Seabrook, these kids are desperate for a quality public education:
