Oklahoma Senate bill could end student-teacher privacy
TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — A new Oklahoma State Senate bill seeks to transfer decision-making power from teachers to parents.
At 14 pages and over 3,600 words long, State Sen. Cody Rogers (R-Tulsa) wants Senate Bill 131 to completely overhaul the state’s Parents’ Bill of Rights. It’s a wide-reaching bill touching on many issues, most notably sex education, but covers several areas of parental consent.
NewsChannel 8 asked Rogers if he thinks any portion of the bill is most important.
“Notifying the parents,” he said. “I think we need to notify the parents if there’s a situation that arises with a child.”
“Say that your child has a mental health issue,” he continued. “He doesn’t feel comfortable sharing it with you, but he shares it with a teacher or anybody else in the school district. The next call the teacher should have is to the parent to notify the parent, ‘Hey, this is what’s going on at home.’”
S.B. 131 says no school official would be able to “withhold information that is relevant to the physical, emotional, or mental health of a minor child.” Doing so would be “grounds for discipline” and could result in litigation.
“I mean, I have six kids,” Rogers explained. “I would want to know if there’s something dramatically changing in that child’s life. Then I could come in and say, ‘Hey, son, this is wrong,’ or ‘I think this is wrong. Let’s go talk to someone about it.’”
State House Minority Whip Mickey Dollens (D-Oklahoma City) said he understands where Rogers is coming from.
“However, that’s in direct contradiction to existing statute,” he asserted, “where it says if a minor goes into counseling services, they have a right to privacy.”
Dollens said school officials play an important role as confidants. Before he ran for office six years ago, he was a high school English teacher.
“There are often times where the teacher is also playing caretaker and playing mentor,” he said.
“There are many times where a student, once you’ve established trust with them, will confide in you with things that may be happening at home with an abusive parent,” he added.
Dollens expressed fear S.B. 131 could hurt children in abusive households.
“This bill is so ambiguous,” he said. “It’s saying that if a student confides in you on something that could be affecting them at home where the parent may be the problem, the teacher or counselor – the professional – is required by this bill to tell the parent.”
Rogers said the bill has a clause to prevent that but didn’t specify the specific wording.
“You can express your feelings to a teacher,” Rogers countered. “But at the same time, what happens if that teacher does not tell the parent, ‘Hey, this child’s talking about suicidal thoughts,’ and he ends up killing himself? Who’s held responsible on that end?”
Dollens said teachers are already required to direct students with sensitive issues to school counselors trained to address them. However, Rogers said his mindset is simple.
“The child is not in charge,” he asserted. “The parent’s in charge.”
“I’m for parents,” Dollens responded. “I’m a parent of two young children that are three and four years old and will soon be in public schools. If there’s something life-threatening, I would love to know.”
“But sometimes,” he continued, “a young person needs to confide in a professional that they trust. And I trust the counselors at our local public schools would notify me if there was anything life-threatening.”
S.B. 131 will head to the Senate Education Committee on February 7th.