Nebraska Family Forum

It is the Mission of the Nebraska Family Forum (NFF) to promote education policies in our state that preserve and protect parental authority and the integrity of the family. In so doing, we will preserve the cooperative and respectful relationship between school authorities and parents, preserve a family-centered community, and provide a well-rounded education for our kids.

Monday, February 13, 2012

State Authorities Press for Access to the Private Medical Records of Minors: Is HIPPAA Violated?

This mother shares her experience with the shifting attitudes of school authorities related to school attendance since the passage of the 2010 school attendance law. The story demonstrates the very dangerous effects on parental authority and the integrity of families when the state constructs policies and procedures that do not honor the natural God-given rights of parents to care for and judge what is best for their children. This mother would prefer to remain anonymous because of fear of retaliation against her by school and state authorities.

I am a retired widow with a B.S., B.A., B.S.E. and 16 years experience in teaching in the public schools with an "A+" evaluation for effective teaching, and my sons mother. Despite this my judgment to care for my own child has been under scrutiny because of Nebraska's truancy law. My son needs medical care supervised by his own doctors of my and his choosing without government interference or scrutiny. When I hospitalized him several times in 2009 to 2010 and took him out of school for doctor appointments, I was called into a meeting at his school and received letters from the school district and a phone call from the school social worker requiring me to defend my actions.

I was threatened with the possibility of having his medical care removed from my ability as his parent to make medical choices for him based on my knowledge as his mother of his needs according to his doctors. I was told that I had better mend my ways or I would find myself in the county attorney's office and possibly in court. I was rudely told I needed to support my son's education and to stop trying to interfere with it. I do not need to be threatened with losing my parental rights and removal of my child from my home because I am following the direction that his doctors have recommended. Parents, of course, want educated children. To accuse any parent with medical needs children of not wanting educated children is ridiculous but that is what is happening due to this flawed law.

We do not need school personnel and the court system looking over private medical records and deciding if doctors and parental choices are the correct choices for students because these choices were/are taking students out of school more than 10- 20 days in a semester/year. I believe the current truancy Nebraska law that is requiring any parent to defend their family by turning over medical records for the purpose of governmental evaluation or face the disruption of their family is an invasion of privacy and is a direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. My son has a right to privacy. I will not state his diagnosis here because I believe in the right to privacy of medical records. His medical records did and do support his need to be absent from school at that time. I should not be threatened with having to pay legal fees/take action to defend him. All the school should have needed is/was a medical note they received from his doctor(s) verifying he was absent for medical care and that should be the end of it

Parents of medical needs children are not having their needs fully met in public schools in Nebraska. Parent are being told they do not know what their kids need, are not knowledgeable enough to make decisions or lack the education to understand the needs of their student so the government needs to take over. In a State with one of the worst child foster care records in the entire United States, the threat of government interference is horrifying...so I removed him from public government scrutiny by taking him out of public school and placing him in private school.

I responded to these threats, that the doctor's opinion and my opinion of my son's needs were possibly incorrect and possibly needed the supervision of the government and school officials under the direction of the county attorney, by my choice to remove him from this high school who threatened and bullied us. His medical needs and educational needs are now met in a private school setting without the government interfering with our family choices. His previous high school now can show his "truancy" improved because he is no longer counted because he is no longer there. So what are the statistics on truancy actually showing?. How many kids are being removed from the public school system at additional expense to their family so their families can protect them and their medical record privacy from their own government. How many families do not have the resources to make the choice I felt forced to make? Is this the America we want?

He is lucky to have enough family/medical support so he can attend private classes. He is expecting to graduate from high school with approximately a "B" average but the threats by the government to his family should have never happened.

2 comments:

Autumn Foster CookFebruary 13, 2012

This brings to my mind echoes of Judge Crnkovich's meeting with parents last May. "Who are you to decide if your child is sick? Maybe we need to get a doctor on your diversion team to see if he's getting the right kind of care. We just want to help."

It's creepy. It's wrong. It's not fitting for what has usually been considered a family-friendly state.
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Brenda VosikFebruary 13, 2012

It's very similar to the comment made by the infamous and dishonest Hall County Attorney: "I don't think the parent is necessarily the best judge of what is a justifiable absence."
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The Personal Impact of Nebraska's School Attendance Law

We began collecting stories in April of 2011 and will continue to collect them as long as the law is abused. The stories we have collected demonstrate how our community has been impacted by Nebraska's school attendance law that counts all absences rather than "unexcused" absences for purposed of "truancy".

It may seem by the district by district breakdown that the law has impacted Millard Public Schools the most, but it is important to note that the Nebraska Family Forum grew out of the Millard Parent Society and therefore the awareness within Millard Public Schools is longstanding.

Out of the 3000+ cases referred to the Douglas County Attorney last year only 400 came from MPS. For every story collected here it is reasonable to assume that they represent dozens more who are affected who have not written their thoughts in a public way.

Nebraska Family Forum: What we Stand For

Mission:

NFF Guiding Principles:

Family is Key: We believe the family is the single most important element to a child’s ability to learn and be successful in school and life, and parents are the foundation upon which family success rests. For this reason, it’s imperative that the state honor the authority of parents as they exercise their natural rights, obligations, and responsibilities to raise, manage, direct, and educate their children.

Freedom in Education is essential: We believe that flexibility in education, school choice, stimulating curriculum, quality teachers, and innovative education reforms are essential to a family centered education. We support policies that will lead to greater parental influence in education innovation, curriculum, and choice.

Family struggles are a healthy part of life: We believe that the fundamental right of a parent does not cease to exist simply because a parent may fail to be a model parent. Parents often struggle to meet the needs of their children, but this is not in itself sufficient cause for unwanted and unwarranted government intrusion into family life. We join with Father Steven Boes of Boys Town in "proclaiming that not only are there no bad boys, as Father Flanagan taught, but there are no bad families.” There is always at least one person in a family that wants what is best for their children and is willing to ask for and receive the help they need.

Government Intrusion can be Harmful: We believe that the right of parents to raise their children without undue government interference is a fundamental liberty that has long been protected by the Constitution of the United States and is not void upon the enrollment of ones child in a public school. We warn that governments who seek to micro-manage the everyday choices of parents in pursuit prescribed outcomes, will do great harm to the integrity of the family and by extension, the well-being of children and society as a whole.

The Simple Truths

Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves. ~ Ernest Dimnet

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. ~ Oscar Wilde

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. ~ William Butler Yeats

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. ~ B. F. Skinner

Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. ~ G. M. Trevelyan

Every educated person is a future enemy. ~ Martin Bormann

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. ~ Michel de Montaigne

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. ~ Mark Twain

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. ~ John W. Gardner

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding. ~ Ezra Pound

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. ~ Albert Einstein

To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks. ~ A. A. Milne

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. ~ Albert Einstein

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. ~ Abraham Lincoln

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. ~aya Angelou

Dad kept us out of school, but school comes and goes. Family is forever.

I hated school. Even to this day, when I see a school bus it's just depressing to me. The poor little kids. ~ Dolly Parton

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

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Monday, February 13, 2012

State Authorities Press for Access to the Private Medical Records of Minors: Is HIPPAA Violated?

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