Parent Consent
Dear Parent or Caregiver:
The Palmdale School District is asking your support in participating in a district-wide study of our first, third and fifth grade children. The study will be part of a collaborative effort with the California School of Professional Psychology–CSPP/ Alliant International University, Children’s Bureau of Southern California and the Palmdale School District.
The goal of this assessment is to establish a community baseline measure of children’s exposure to early trauma (for example, violence). We will identify internal behaviors such as anxiety and depression and external behaviors such as aggression and verbal abuse. As a result, we will be designing a district wide intervention program to help children reduce these barriers to learning, which students can participate in. Please read this consent letter and if you agree, please sign and send it back to your school’s principal no later than December 20, 2001.
The assessment will consist of three, twenty-minute self-report measures, which will be given to your child on one day during the last week of January. This study is 100% confidential and at no time will the information gathered be used to identify your child. Your child will not be photographed or videotaped. You may refuse to have your child participate or withdraw from this study at any time without any penalty or loss of services to which your child is entitled.
I am aware that the research coordinator, Kristi Seymour, one research assistant, the Palmdale School District, Director of Psychology, Michael Geisser, and a professor from CSPP, will be the only people who have access to the study’s information. After the study is completed, all information will be locked in storage and then destroyed after a period of five years.
I understand answering questions may make my child feel uncomfortable. If this occurs, then, Kristi Seymour, the research study coordinator, will assist us in locating a therapist for further psychological help if necessary. If I have further questions, I may contact Kristi Seymour at 1529 E. Palmdale Blvd., Suite 210, Palmdale, CA 93550 at 661.272.9997 x 128. I understand that I will not be able to get my child’s individual results due to anonymity of the children, but I may get a summary report of the study results.
I have read this form and understand what it says. I her[e]by agree to allow my child to participate in this district-wide study.
So, students were given a 54-question survey. Ten of the questions were of a sexual nature:
8. Touching my private parts too much
17. Thinking about having sex
22. Thinking about touching other people’s private parts
23. Thinking about sex when I don’t want to
26. Washing myself because I feel dirty on the inside
34. Not trusting people because they might want sex
40. Getting scared or upset when I think about sex
44. Having sex feelings in my body
47. Can’t stop thinking about sex
54. Getting upset when people talk about sex
A friend of mine who is far more knowledgeable than I regarding such matters of these writes this:
First, I have to say that any parent that signs a parental consent form for independent psychological testing of their child, which includes the words, “I understand answering questions may make my child feel uncomfortable,” is basically either a moron or just plain careless. However, several very interesting parts of this letter that send up “red flags” are:
1) They are clearly looking for psychological signs of child abuse of some sort. They cleverly use the term “early trauma (for example, violence),” rather than “early abuse” to soften the sound of it [i.e., they don't want to use wording that will overtly alarm parents].
2) After the test results are in, “they” plan to create intervention programs to help children with such things as “depression” and “anxiety.” They indicate that students “can participate” in these programs, but cleverly omit any suggestion that parental consent will be required for that participation.
3) Surprisingly, the letter actually informs parents that if the assessment team observes any uncomfortable feelings from a child, the assessment team reserves the “right” to seek a therapist that will provide the child with “further psychological help.” WOW! It is shocking that the assessment team would omit any suggestion, at this point, that parental consent will be required in order to seek psychological therapy for a child! That’s BOLD! Again, I can’t imagine signing a consent form that automatically takes that much responsibility for my child’s mental health — especially without clearly spelling out MY parental rights at every turn along the way.
4) The assessment team also cleverly omitted any indication that the psychological evaluation questions would include sexual references — references that would probably have been alarming to many parents.
The parent-plaintiffs only learned of the sexual nature of some of the questions on the survey when their children informed them of the questions after they had completed questionnaires. The parents allege that if they had known the true nature of the survey, they would not have consented to their children’s involvement. In my opinion, this is a clear case of fraud on the part of the assessment team. They knew full well how parents would feel if they revealed the sexual details of the assessment. So, they “just happened” to omit that as well.
From the opinion: “…[P]arents’ liberty interest in the custody, care, and nurture of their children resides ‘first’ in the parents, but does not reside there exclusively, nor is it ‘beyond regulation [by the state] in the public interest.’ … For example, the state ‘as parens patriae’ may restrict parents’ interest in the custody, care, and nurture of their children ‘by requiring school attendance, regulating or prohibiting the child’s labor and in many other ways.’”
Notice the use of the term, “as parens patriae” — the same term used by the American Psychological Association in their “Guidelines for Psychological Evaluations in Child Protection Matters.”
The opinion goes on to state, “Likewise, lower courts have recognized the constitutionality of a wide variety of state actions that intrude upon the liberty interest of parents in controlling the upbringing and education of their children.” Fascinating, that we have a court here basically looking for all reasons possible where parental rights can be infringed, in order that they can add one more. If that’s not “pro-state” and “anti-parent,” I’ll give it up!
Another fascinating suggestion by this opinion is that the Ninth Circuit fails to differentiate between “sex education” and psychological testing and evaluation; the former intended to provide sexual information to a child, while the latter is intended to seek personal sexual information from a child. Wow! Even an uneducated Neanderthal like me can see the clear distinction here! The Ninth Circuit shows their absolute absurd logic by stating, “Parents have a right to inform their children when and as they wish on the subject of sex; they have no constitutional right, however, to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise, when and as they school determines that it is appropriate to do so.” Again, the assessment team was not “providing information,” it was SEEKING information. Oh, but I forget — the Ninth Circuit believes in NewsMax’s so-called, “therapeutic nanny state.” That’s scary stuff.
The Ninth Circuit also cleverly tries to skirt around the issue of family privacy by continually focusing on their own imaginary case (that fits more comfortably into their agenda) and constantly reiterating phrases like, “providing information,” “dissemination of information,” “telling children” — all of which indicate that the school is passing information along to the child, rather than PROBING into the child’s psychological condition. The Court releases itself from this dilemma by stating that “The parents do not allege that their children were forced to disclose private information. Their argument is only that the survey violated their own right to make important decisions regarding the manner and timing of exposing their children to sexual matters.” Technically, they may be correct here (indicating that the parents’ lawyers probably goofed up by failing to file the proper complaint regarding privacy). However, this does not make the Court seem any less sleazy, since they are clearly suggesting that if the parents had complained that the assessment team was essentially coercing sexual information from their child, their privacy complaint would probably have been on much firmer constitutional ground.
Finally, the Ninth Circuit perceives a constitutional “state interest and educational purpose” for this psychological assessment by simply stating that it concurs with the goals outlined by the assessment team. They state that, “Protecting the mental health of children falls well within the state’s broad interest in education.” The Court just “rubber stamps” the goals of the study (as put forth by the assessment team) and doesn’t even suggest a concern that there may be boundaries to how far the state should be allowed to intrude into the “mental health” of a parent’s child. No boundaries for psychologists in the public school?
The Court ends by reiterating the importance of the “state’s interest as parens patriae.” Of course, to them, “parens patriae” also has no boundaries!
