Parental consent laws in California

After the armchair psychologist incident with my daughter, I got to thinking about how would the public school system respond to an emotionally distraught child. In the public school arena, "grief counselors" are provided after "unfortunate incidents" and without involving the parents.

In the state of California, the school can send a child 12 and older to counseling without the parents' consent or even knowledge. I wonder what psychobabble they are promoting. I looked at the California Educational Guidelines and discovered an interesting thing. In the California Department of Education 2004 Fact Book, one of the purposes of counseling in schools was "to involve the parents." In the 2005 Fact Book, that phrase was removed. Parents are no longer mentioned. Do the parent's know that the state no longer considers them as part of the process?

I can't image what you could say to a child, that would be of any benefit in the long run, without the parents' involvement. I can image quite a lot of harm which could be done by a counselor with his own agenda, especially when there is not a parent there to protect the child from psychological manipulation.

If you have time to wade through the Confidentiality and Minor Consent guidelines on the California Deaprtment of Education's web site, it is worth a read. For example, if a 11 year old is having sex with 13 year old, there is no obligation to report it. However, if a 13 year old is having sex with a 14 year old, then they are supposed to report it to the police or child protective service. (It is only considered a crime if one of them is over 13.) However, they do not have a legal obligation to report it to the parents. In fact, the guidelines pointed out that they are under no legal obligation to ask the age of the sexual partner.

Another guideline said that if a 12 year old minor children is being treated for a sexually transmitted disease, having an abortion or requesting birthcontrol, the parents are NOT to be informed or be permitted to look at their children's medical records.

Not only are children not safe in public schools, they are not safe in the entire state of California.