There is an upcoming meeting in Concord on September 19th at 10am. This will be an Education Full Committee Work Session meeting at the Legislative Office Building in rooms 205-207.
This meeting will include NH House Committee members as they review the following bills:
HB 352 : Relative to excused absences due to a student’s mental or behavioral health. https://gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_Status/pdf.aspx?id=5333&q=billVersion
HB 505-FN Relative to comprehensive mental health education in schools. https://gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_Status/pdf.aspx?id=5845&q=billVersion
HB151-FN Relative to mental health education
https://gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_Status/billinfo.aspx?id=819&inflect=2
This continues the transformation of our public schools into mental health clinics.
It’s important to attend this hearing OR send an email to the committee members.
Remind them that public schools are supposed to :
1) Focus on academic subjects.
2) Teachers are not trained or educated in the field of mental health.
3) Schools are failing to educate children in the core academic subjects. This means MORE time away from learning how to read/write/add/subtract, etc.
4) Mental health is important, but this should be a task for health and human services.
5) We already know that school counselors are sharing Personally Identifiable Mental Health data on students without their knowledge or consent.
6) School Counselors are violating their Code of Ethics when they share any mental health PII on students.
7) There are fiscal notes attached to this legislation which means MORE resources taken away from treating students who need mental health services from the one hospital in New Hampshire.
8) Children may sit in the hospital for days or weeks waiting to get into the ONE facility that helps treat them for serious mental health conditions. That’s who needs the additional funding.
9) The Legislation does not give details on what this would look like in a public school.
10) This subject requires expertise that should only be provided by a mental health professional who has the education and clinical training such as a Phd Child Psychologist.
11) School LEA’s have shown us that they are willing to ignore ethical guidelines and ignore a student’s right to privacy when sharing mental health PII. They are willing to misrepresent mental health treatment to parents:
12) Mental health assessments, treatment, education, evaluations should all happen outside the public school system by professionals who are educated, trained and follow a strict Code of Ethics on privacy and consent.
Feel free to add more to the list.
Send Emails to the Committee if you cannot attend this executive meeting: HouseEducationCommittee@leg.state.nh.us
