The Center for Law and Freedom’s Elliot Engstrom has written an important article about the state Senate’s opportunity to rein in a process that raises troubling questions about how the education and health systems respect family and student privacy.
The Senate is now considering HB 13, which among other things would expand but also clarify the Kindergarten Health Assessment Report that parents must submit when enrolling their children in the public schools.
Parents should be concerned. The assessment forces parents to sign a waver that “1) allows school personnel to communicate directly with a child’s healthcare provider without notifying the parents and (2) allows DHHS to store and analyze the information on the form.”
The information includes:
- Whether a child’s emotional/social development is “within normal” parameters.
- Whether a child’s genitalia, skin, abdomen, “extremities,” and more are “normal” or “abnormal.”
- Whether a child regularly gets healthcare from a hospital clinic, community health center, health department, or private doctor.
- Whether and what kind of health insurance a child has.
- Whether a child has “behavior concerns.”
If you’re a parent, do you want that information to be passed on to bureaucrats without your consent? Do you want that permanently stored in state records system.
At this writing, it’s unclear what if anything the Senate will do.
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