Posted on 08/10/2005 10:02:21 PM PDT by recall_candidate
SCOTTS VALLEY — Schools in Scotts Valley will not notify parents when they release students for confidential medical reasons — at least for now.
The Scotts Valley Unified School District board of education voted 3-1 Tuesday to retain its current policy, despite a letter sent to parents last November telling parents they would be notified in such a case.
But board members said they want more information about the issue, especially from districts around the state that have implemented policies that require parents or guardians to know before their children leave school.
"Would I want to be notified? Yeah, I really would," said board member Allison Niday.
But she added, "I have seen kids in this district who don’t have that option," referring to cases involving abuse or neglect.
Parents and students filled the Scotts Valley City Council chambers to hear arguments about whether or not the district should require parental notification.
The issue resurfaced last month when interim superintendent Tim Cuneo reviewed packets of information that go to parents before the start of each school year.
Within the school files, a letter that went to parents in November said schools would require parents to know when students leave for medical reasons, but Cuneo, board members and California Attorney General Bill Lockyer say that would violate current state education code.
Lockyer issued an opinion last November saying schools should not notify parents.
Much of the argument revolves around the word "may." The code states that districts "may" excuse pupils for confidential medical reasons.
But many parents at the meeting Tuesday considered it less of a student privacy issue and more an affront to parents’ rights.
Parent Mike Smith said "it’s permissive on your part to determine how you want act on this. The law allows you to determine what you want to do."
Others say it protects minors who might not feel comfortable going to their parents with some medical problems.
"Parents would be surprised how many students feel they can’t talk to their parents," said Ashley Evans, who graduated from Scotts Valley High School this year.
Board member Chuck Walker voted against the policy. He said the district has the authority to make its own policy that is not dictated by state code.
"Parents are really starting to get agitated," Walker said. "I think if you’re going to err, err on the side of the parents. It seems rather reckless to support a policy like this."
Contact Jeff Tobin at jtobin@santacruzsentinel.com
This article hardly does justice to what really happened at the meeting. Parents were in effect given the proverbial stiff-arm even after requesting they retain their Constitutionally guaranteed, parental rights. Yet the remaining members on this board refused such pleads and reversed a policy directive enacted less than one year ago. (these are new board members).
Three of the four board members pointed to the flawed and politically fueled legal opinion of California State Attorney General, Bill Lockyer. Lockyer is a flaming liberal and career politician that got termed out of his State Senate seat. After finishing night school, he passed the bar in order to run for the AG spot.
He is a hack at best. He has never represented a client in court, or sat as a judge in any courtroom. Yet, he issues a flimsy legal opinion loosely construed from irrelevant caselaw. Many briefs were reviewed for this issue last night (8/9), but it all fell on deaf ears with them resorting to the classic stall tactic of "we need more information".
They had reams of information to draw conclusions from, and even a well-delivered presentation by a legal expert from Capitol Resource Institute (www.capitolresource.org).
All this in front of a room full of angry parents. Many left just shaking their heads, muttering "recall".
I was the only board member sticking up for the parents.
It's a sad state of affairs here in California.
- Chuck Walker
confidential medical reasons AKA ABORTION
So, conversly, I guess this means parents can no longer be held accountable if their children do anything wrong. Hell, they could abandon them, kick them out of the house - it doesn't matter - the children are just like adults, right?
straight dope from the source...thanks Chuck...
California is hell on earth...
Scott from Marin Co.
Correct Headline is:
"S.V. board sticks by student release policy"
Please use original titles to prevent duplicates.
To: Mikmur "Would you be in favor to going back, at least at the elementary level, to tried and true methods of teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic prior to exposing students to reform methodology?" No, she wouldn't. She would prefer to continue "the war" by blaming corporate America. The public school system was a socialist experiment which had some success when the majority of students were from traditional families. Ironically, the elites who were most involved in the experimentation knew that to control the minds of the children, they must dilute the strength of the family. Moms heading into the workplace en masse in the late eighties seemed an ideal time to begin with new experiments on our children. What they didn't count on was that middle class children would be adversely effected by moms being in the workforce rather than at home; that this would lead to increased deterioration of the family unit to the point where children started to show more and more behavior problems that would interfere with their new experiments in indoctrination. The schools have ended up a mess because families are messed up. Tolerance and diversity programs take up more time than math class. In one sense, the socialist teachers' unions are getting what they wanted - chaos in the home, so they could take control of the children. However, because that chaos is showing itself in behaviors of children in the schools, teachers (and some really do want to teach rather than indoctrinate), are called on to control the chaos, plus teach. They cannot control the chaos because the most effective tool (common sense) has been made illegal. Tolerance and diversity have been made more important than learning the 3 R's. Socialistic "Community Building" classes are more important than factual history. Children of vastly different abilities are dumped together in classes instead of allowing children with like ability to learn at different speeds. (OMG! This might lead to segregation and unfairness). This woman even needs to rant about children who do well being from more affluent families, disregarding the fact that there are plenty of children who do well as long as they have a stable homelife. Although your letter is noble, I truly don't think it will make a bit of difference to this woman or to liberal educators who pretend to care about the disenfranchised while doing everything they can to make sure that they stay disenfranchised.
This is a very dangerous decision and somebody needs to challenge it. When the State decides what our Parental rights are, Freedom is lost. Nobody in the Government should decide what me, as a Parent, should know about a child of mine.
Who are these people to say they have more right to our children than we do?
Total BS.
If it is a case of abuse or neglect, send the notification to the parent with a police officer and an arrest warrant.
Otherwise, the parent has a right to know where their child is.
We have not given up the fight. One of the board members was absent that night, as he had a death in the family. He would have supported parental notification and consent. Because the stall tactic of “not enough information” was used, this will be brought back to the board in September. But the three liberals (ironically two are Republican, aka RINOs) are digging their heels in on this matter. For what reason, I don’t know. Scotts Valley is a somewhat conservative city when compared to the county of Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is like a mini San Francisco as far as politics goes. They are whacko.
But Scotts Valley is split 50-50 Repubs and Demos. Yet, the polling done before this meeting show that 85% of the households in the district favor notification and consent. I just wonder who the other 15% are! They must be insane! So this is not an issue that can be evenly divided along partisan lines. Unfortunately, California Ed Code states that the schools have the discretion of whether they can release a student for “confidential medical services” or not. AKA abortion, STD treatment, birth control issuance, even psychological evaluation. It is hideous and heinous. I presented case after case where schools have been sued by parents where their child has been released from campus only to end in some kind of tragedy, even death. Yet, they don’t have enough “information”. I pointed out that 30+ school districts now have in place a notification and consent policy with NO LAWSUITS being filed for “children rights”. The President of the board’s (Sue Roth) response was, “Only 30? But there’s over a 1,000 district in California.” Now there’s a visionary for you. No backbone found in that body.
Meanwhile parent after parent approached the podium to express their desire for retaining their parental rights. Why should they even have to be there asking for something that is inherently theirs in the first place! I’m still angry from this.
I have tried to notify O’Reilly. No response. I have sent emails to Sean Hannity. No response. The board members who voted to remove these rights are paranoid of publicity. I would love to make it very public, but we are just a small town of 11,000 people or so.
If anyone has some connections in that regard, please, please, let me know.
chuckwalker007@yahoo.com
- Chuck
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