Contact your legislator and tell him/her to VOTE NO on HB2361!
(If you don’t know who it is or what the number is, you can look it up here: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2019_20/chamber/house/)
The bill diminishes parent authority regarding their own child by promoting PASSIVE parenting rather than active parenting. Those voting for this change to the Student Data Privacy Act, are intentionally pushing for LESS parent authority.
The bill allows for EVERY child, K-12, to be asked questions regarding both the CHILD AND PARENTS’ PERSONAL BELIEFS OR PRACTICES ON SEX, FAMILY LIFE, MORALITY, RELIGION.
The bill allows for school COUNSELORS and other MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS to be EXEMPT from any administration requirements. Therefore, PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION may be collected, students NEED NOT BE INFORMED that the survey is voluntary, parents NEED NOT BE INFORMED regarding the administration of the survey to their own child, and the data doesn’t have to be reported at the aggregate level.
The state is constructing an individual STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH DATABASE.
YOUR CHILD is being SOLD for his DATA.
The 12+ organizations lobbying legislators to pass this bill overwhelmingly spoke regarding “the ability of school districts to secure grant funds” due to “the lack of information” due to reduced survey participation when parents exercise their authority.
YOUR CHILD is LESS IMPORTANT than the COMMUNITY.
PARENT AUTHORITY is LESS IMPORTANT than COMMUNITY/SCHOOL programs, intervention, and services.
From the note: “…the results of the surveys serve as a valuable tool for schools and communities to build support programs, interventions, and services for students to help make progress toward important physical and mental health outcomes and to guide decision making …”
School employees can administer whatever test, questionnaire, survey or examination (survey) on YOUR CHILD, without your knowledge or permission. The result of which can RESULT in YOUR CHILD being recommended for “services” which you, the parent, must comply with.
Want a “simple” questionnaire, based on personality questions, (somehow “determining”) and LABELING children who are PRE-DISPOSED to alcoholism, based on a couple of “personality traits,” and placing them in BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION? Your child could be labeled an ALCOHOLIC without ever having a drink!
How about government-funded Pre-K/early-childhood “education” SCREENING PRESCHOOLERS for early signs of mental illness (a “healthy kids check”), with children determined to have “troubling behavior markers” referred to psychologists, etc.?
How about 12 year olds being allowed to consent to medical treatments?
HB2361, amending the Student Data Privacy Act, was passed out of the KS House Committee on Children and Seniors, with the deciding vote cast by Rep. Concannon after the committee vote ended in a tie.
This bill received quick handling as it was hurriedly introduced on a Friday in February and heard the following Wednesday. The committee didn’t make the turnaround deadline for the bill, so House Leadership acted to refer the bill to the Committee on Appropriations (so it would be “blessed” and not die) and then refer it back to the Committee on Children and Seniors. Eight of the thirteen members of the committee are Republicans.
Link to the supplemental note on the bill: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2019_20/measures/documents/supp_note_hb2361_00_0000.pdf
In the Supplemental Note to the bill, prepared by Legislative Research:
1. Specifically, the bill would remove a requirement the parent of the student be notified the survey is to be administered and give written permission (opts in) for such student to take the survey.
2. [The survey, test, questionnaire, or examination (survey) may contain] questions about a student’s personal beliefs or practices on sex, family life, morality, or religion, or concerning the student’s parent’s views on these subjects, to a student enrolled in kindergarten or grades 1 through 12.
3. Further, the bill would extend the exception from these requirements [for administration of the surveys to students] for school counselors to other school-based mental health professionals with regard to the administration of tests and forms part of a school counselor’s or other school-based provider’s student counseling services.
Kansans Against Common Core 