[Edward64]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

I believe they would if for not other reason than CYA. I offer this similar example. I know it is not an exact comparison but I think it is a suitable comparison.

Teacher alarmed by Oxford suspect's drawings ahead of shooting, warned school leaders

And below is an example where there was not a clear alert.

Her son shared thoughts of suicide in a class paper. The school never told her.

You and every other parent in the world would. Why would the school nurse/counselor want to hide this? What is the incentive to hide this from the parents outside of the father being the person or being related to the person who was told which creates its own set of issues? Again, if the student came to school nurse/counselor instead of the parent before, the student and now the school nurse/ counselor have concerns about abuse, neglect and/or abandonment.

re: school counselor, some privacy concerns? See below links. The first link seems to be ambiguous on how they should act (or at least not a clear cut "inform parents"). Second link provides a scenario where parent was not informed and what counselor should have done. So evidence that school counselors (have not read about nurses) don't have to tell.

FAQs - American School Counselor Association (ASCA)
District Policy and Student Pregnancy - American School Counselor Association (ASCA)

Also in my earlier post I said

Additionally, I also found NY, IL (and presumably CA), articles stating there was no responsibility to inform parents.

re: your statement on abuse & neglect, I stated my below caveat before getting into this discussion with you. I accept there will be exceptions to the rule.

A caveat to my discussion below (and future discussions) - if the parent(s) are abusive, then no doubt do take the necessary precautions, inform the right people etc. and don't assume the parents need to be notified right away.

So they are not calling the parents right away anyway. If the student now knows that the person they were going to tell instead of their parents is now just going to turn around and in theory immediately tell the parents, why would the student tell that first person at all? How is that a good thing for anybody involved?

I'm not concerned if they don't call parents right away (other than for most time sensitive situations). I'm more concerned if they don't tell parents at all or in a reasonable timeframe (see example above about suicide). No science to this but I'm going to say within a week.

There will be situations where student won't verbally tell teacher/admin but they will observe it.

Question - you've used "right away" and "immediately tell" in your paragraph above. Are you okay with school/admin not reporting something "right away" but eventually will report it (pick a period, I'm going to say within a week)?

Or are you saying there are some things (outside of abuse, neglect, abandonment) that still should not be reported to parents at all? If its the latter, can you provide a couple examples?

And because we are not going to ask like homosexuality is some sort of mental illness because it is 2022, we are going to do the same for a student who says he is heterosexual? Administration who we don't want to give instructions about sexual orientation now has to track it and inform parents of changes?

I'd say bring it up in my above section of creating guidelines & use case scenarios and get everyone to weigh in. There are (rightfully) a lot of whatabouts that needs to be answered. My answer below but can be persuaded otherwise ...

I think the teacher/school will have to decide within the context of that statement.

Heterosexuality is the assumed default state. I've read census says 8% are LGBTQ (I thought I read previously 10-12%). So no, I do not believe school needs to report if a kid expresses his heterosexuality.

If the kid expresses his heterosexuality in class (or is overheard) and talks about having gotten STDs or having gotten a girl pregnant, absolutely report it.

I think its perfectly reasonable to assume if a kid comes out, out of the blue as LGBTQ in class, a teacher can/may assume the kid needs/wants support as the kid likely has not told parents or has told parents and have not gotten the parental support kid needs or wants.

If the "male" has been coming to school in a "dress", I think its perfectly normal to assume no need to inform parents if he says "I'm LGBTQ".

Request what? Services? A record of what services were provided? A record of what the student said? I got this out of the information the school sent to us last year.

As an example, record of pregnant female student discussing with nurse/counselor, see above discussion and links. How is parent to request those records if they don't know student discussed with nurse/counselor? And by the time they know (e.g. student is showing pregnancy, it'll be late).

Same as before. I think this one is interesting from the other side. Should the parents be responsible for telling the school that their child is depressed or is being bullied? What if your child is the person causing the depression of or is bullying another student?

Legally, as the law is written, no obligation to. But yes, parents should inform school. And yes, parents should take action if their kid is doing the bullying.

Unfortunately, if the kid is bullying, that is likely (I think) a reflection of the home the kid is from. So parents taking action is a maybe (?).