San Diego Schools Skirt Parental Notice For Medical Treatments

                                

San Diego public schools will no longer require students to have parental consent to leave campus for any confidential medical appointments; such as pregnancy, abortion and drug counseling, due to a newly revised policy adopted by the state's Board of Education.

 

The Vista Unified school board, which had previously voted in 2009 to stand by its' practice of requiring parental notifice, before a student could leave campus for any confidential medical service, has now voted unanimously at a meeting held during the spring break, while schools were closed and many families out of town, to revise the controversial policy.

 

The newly updated policy, now defines "pregnancy and other sensitive medical matters as confidential". Thus, under state law concerning medical confidentiality, the schools can now easily skirt parental notice, and allow students to leave for specific medical appointments without notifying their parents.  

 

Marge Kleinsmith, who oversees sex education for the district, stated that the revised policy brings the district in sync with state law, state attorney general opinions and practices, which are already in place at many schools throughout the district.

 

Kleinsmith goes on to state, "Some school nurses and staff have been allowing students to be released for these kind of appointments - could be for suicide counseling, could be for an STD test, could be for pregnancy, could be for a lot of things - because they knew state law said they could."

 

Vince Hall, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of San Diego, as well as Imperial counties, justifies the revised policy, stating, "I hear from my own 14-year-old daughter about kids, who for very legitimate reasons, would not go to their family with these problems."

 

So, skirting any opposition or debate, due to the clever timing of their meeting, the San Diego Unified School District's board has voted unanimously on this controversial policy, to eliminate the need of parental consent, for any student to leave campus for what they have now cleverly deemed "confidential medical appointments".