Some parents and state lawmakers are pushing back against the use of psychological assessments and mental health surveys at Texas public schools in situations where a parent has not provided written consent.
At a Texas House Public Education Committee hearing last Tuesday, Lee Spiller, executive director of the Texas arm of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, spoke in favor of HB 1149.
If enacted, the bill would amend the state education code to require parental consent before a teacher or public school employee administered any assessment meant to “elicit information regarding an attitude, habit, trait, opinion, belief, feeling, or mental disorder or a condition thought to lead to a mental disorder [from a student].”
“I’ll give you an example. There’s an app called Rhithm that’s used in a number of school districts, particularly in North Texas, but now we’re seeing it in other places. It’s emoji-based. It assesses mental, emotional, energy, physical, and social, and then based on what the child has answered, then it supplies an activity to remedy whatever was found,” said Spiller.
“The company’s website called it a bio-psycho-social assessment. What’s the consent for that?” he added.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, some parents with kids enrolled in the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) became alarmed when they discovered that the district was administering daily “check-ins” using Rhithm.
The app would allegedly screen for possible mental health or emotional issues.
“Are you afraid to get consent because if the parents find out you’ve been monkeying around with their children’s brains, doing psychological evaluation without consent by untrained people that they won’t be happy?” Plemons asked the FWISD Board of Trustees last year, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Companion legislation with similar language is also making its way through the State Senate. Both bills are still waiting to be acted on by their respective committees.
