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Legal and ethical research item that is most interesting to me

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Legal and ethical research item that is most interesting to me

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Of the two articles that I have included for this assignment, the one involving constitutional rights is most interesting. Much of my research in this program has sparked questions about how a school counselor navigates conflict between school policy and ethical obligations. It appears that these crossroads are often impassable because policy is not informed by ethics and legality. This puts educators in seemingly impossible positions.

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5th Amendment Rights Controversy (Exploration Option 3b)

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5th Amendment Rights Controversy (Exploration Option 3b)

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In a Huffington Post article, accessed via Education Dive, a case is highlighted where a teacher was considered for disciplinary action after informing students of their constitutional rights. The situation involved a survey wherein students were asked about their use of drugs and alcohol. The teacher advised the students that they had rights against such self-incrimination.

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Dive Summary:

John Dryden, a social studies teacher at Illinois' Batavia High School, faces a potential disciplinary hearing Tuesday for informing three classes of students about their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before they took a student drug and alcohol use survey last month.

Brad Newkirk, the school district's chief academic officer, said the survey was a "screener" for school counselors and psychologists following a string of student suicides in recent years.

The district's director of human services, Greg Romaneck, wouldn't confirm or deny that Dryden would face a disciplinary hearing Tuesday, but students and members of the community are backing the teacher with a "Defend and Support Educator John Dryden!" petition that has received 4,200 signatures.

From the article:

... "I made a judgment call. There was no time to ask anyone," Dryden told the Herald. He added that he would have spoken to an administrator first, if he had received the surveys earlier. ...

Top image credit: Flickr user RDECOM

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Ill. teacher in hot water for informing students of 5th Amendment rights

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Dive Summary: John Dryden, a social studies teacher at Illinois' Batavia High School, faces a potential disciplinary hearing Tuesday for informing three classes of students about their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before they took a student drug and alcohol use survey last month.

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My immediate post-graduation plans will likely differ from most others in this class. I do not plan to go immediately unto a role that requires the Guidance and Counseling degree. I am currently in a full-time ministry position and hope to use what I am learning in my work with the church.

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The High Risk of Cutting  Mental Health Staff (Exploration Option 3a)

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The High Risk of Cutting  Mental Health Staff (Exploration Option 3a)

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In an article from the National Education Association Today publication, entitled, Campus suicide exposes risk of cutting mental health staff, one higher education institution was under scrutiny for firing several employees who were speaking out about suspected unethical practices. One of the terminated employees was the only mental health professional on campus, actively working with high risk students. There was no contingency for the continued care of these students, one of which committed suicide shortly after this firing took place.

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In June, two days after campus administrators unexpectedly eliminated the job of the only mental-health counselor at Florida Polytechnic University, professor Christina Drake drove to the state's higher education board meeting and warned them.

"The termination was so abrupt," she told board members, "there was no time or ability for the counselor to put into place a continuity of care for her patients, including those for which there is a concern for suicide."

Six weeks later, a 21-year-old Florida Poly engineering student who enjoyed hiking, cooking, and tinkering with computers sat down on a campus bench and shot himself. In the wake of his death by suicide, unnamed university employees confirmed to the Tampa Bay Times that the student had been a client of the laid-off counselor, prompting the newspaper's editors to declare: "A student suicide and a question: Could it have been prevented?"

"There's no way to tell if that student would have reached out," said Casey Fox, the former counselor, to the Times. "There's no way to know because there was no one there. There was no one on campus to be that person."

Florida Poly isn't the only campus in the U.S. struggling with skyrocketing numbers of students with depression. It's also not the only one to cut counselors or privatize their services. Those are life-threatening trends on campuses across the nation.

But those issues are made more dangerous by another development: increasing administrative and legislative attacks on faculty and staff's ability to speak up. Counselor Fox and other Florida Poly employees who were terminated this spring, including the university's only librarian, were union members who openly advocated for students. By openly targeting them, administrators may have hoped to silence complaints around administrative pay raises, a "toxic" campus culture, and growing concerns around mental health issues.

But faculty and staff speak up for a reason, and often it's to make things better for students. Retaliating against their speech isn't just wrong-it can be dangerous.

In her testimony this June, professor Drake made this point, cautioning board members: "It is dangerous in an educational setting, when the administration retaliates against faculty and staff who bring forth concerns, in good faith, as a part of their job function. If we do not allow employees to speak up on issues, we run the risk of a student being injured in one of our labs, a student being sexually harassed or worse, or a student committing suicide."

Less than two months after speaking up, she was fired, too.

The Tsunami of Depression

Suicide has become the second leading cause of death for people ages 15 to 24. Likewise, depression is at an all-time high on college campuses with record numbers of students seeking help, according to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH).

More than a third of the students who seek mental-health counseling on campuses say they have "seriously considered" suicide, according to CCMH's 2017 annual report. (Data is unavailable for the many students who don't seek help.) Fifteen percent say they've seriously considered it within the past two weeks. About 10 percent of college clients have attempted it.

There's no way to tell if that student would have reached out. There's no way to know because there was no one there. There was no one on campus to be that person." - Casey Fox, former counselor, Florida Polytechnic University

Making matters worse, as state funding for higher education has declined, many colleges and universities are cutting their mental-health staff and seeking to privatize those critical services.

The recommended number of counselors on campus, according to the International Association of Counseling Services (IACS), is one per 1,000-1,500 students. But finding this is rare. The California Faculty Association, the statewide faculty union, recently studied California State University (CSU) campuses and found that the system averaged 2,217 students per counselor. At Cal State LA, there are only seven full-time, non-tenured counseling positions for more than 28,000 students.

"It's surreal in this high demand for services and the increase in severity of student mental health issues that the CSU doesn't want to hire and retain experienced permanent mental health counselors," CSU Stanislaus counselor Martha Cuan told CSU trustees last year.

Meanwhile, Florida Poly has 1,400 students-and, since June, not one on-campus, full-time counselor. Instead it has a 24-hour hotline number and a contract with a private company to send a counselor to campus for 4 to 8 hours a week.

In an email to NEA Today, a Florida Poly apokeswoman said the new services constitute an improvement. "This model provides a broader scope of services and access to a much larger network of mental health professionals with diversity in experience, allowing students to choose the options that are best for their needs. This is not possible with one counselor on staff," wrote Maggie Mariucci, a university vice president .

A Culture of Silence

Problems at Florida Poly, which opened in 2014, have been surfacing for months. Earlier this year, an anonymous employee wrote to university trustees, saying, "In the last 9-12 months things here at the university have gotten progressively worse, and while myself and others have tried to bring these things to light we continuously are made to feel incompetent," according to a report in the Lakeland Ledger.

When asked about the letter, Poly president Randy Avent told the Ledger that he was more concerned with the "group responsible for the letter" than its content, which included concerns about 20 to 29 percent administrative pay raises and mental health on campus. "We have one counselor here doing a job meant for three people," the letter said, putting the campus "dangerously close" to an avoidable tragedy.

In May, the two-year-old faculty union, a chapter of the United Faculty of Florida (UFF), surveyed faculty about campus climate. Two-thirds said they feared reprisal if they expressed "a dissenting opinion about administration's policies." In the comments section, one faculty member wrote "administrators dismiss students' concerns and criticize faculty who try to alert them to those concerns."

In July, the union filed a charge of unfair labor practices (ULP) on campus, relating to staff layoffs, which the state deemed sufficient. An evidentiary hearing has been scheduled for October 31. A second ULP charge relating to additional terminations, filed by the union in mid-August, awaits the state's disposition.

Although nobody signed the letter sent to trustees, its author named about 20 employees who might provide the board with more information, or who had a history of speaking up about serious issues in the workplace. This spring Florida Poly began letting go the people on that list.

"These terminations... appear aimed at suppressing potential whistleblower complains," professor Drake told state board members in June. "They appear aimed at staff who have spoken up about safety issues, legal and ethical issues, and other problems plaguing the university."

The seventh person laid off was the university's only on-campus librarian, who was invited to a meeting and surprised with a police escort off campus. "I'm sure we're now the only university in the United States to not have a dedicated librarian," Drake told state board members.

The eighth person laid off was Fox, the mental-health counselor.

The ninth? The union's grievance chair, Christopher Coughlin, a nanotechnology professor who asserted the rights of his colleagues to union representation. Although he never received anything but positive job review, Coughlin's role in the union "irritated" the provost, according to the union's most recent ULP.

The tenth, and most recent, was Drake.

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Campus Suicide Exposes Risk of Cutting Mental Health Staff | NEA

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The move to cut counselors or privatize their services to save money is a life-threatening trend on campuses across the nation.

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My search of the ASU Library provided a Journal of Adolescent Health article entitled, The effects of requiring parental consent for research on adolescents' risk behaviors. This article specifically addresses situations where students are asked survey questions and whether the ethical decision to inform parents of the nature of the survey will influence the outcome of the survey.

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Angelo State University - Library Online Resources

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Unauthorized use is prohibited; Usage may be subject to security testing and monitoring; Misuse is subject to criminal prosecution; No expectation of privacy except as otherwise provided by applicable privacy laws.

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An October 17, 2018, a Valley News, in West Lebanon, NH, report described a recent event where a sex-related survey was administered to elementary school children. The administrators were not aware of the survey contents prior to it being administered. Some students reported being "uncomfortable with the questions but felt compelled to answer them." The school officials were compelled by community complaint to acknowledge and address this very questionable action.

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Windsor - School officials and researchers this week apologized for a survey administered to fifth-graders at the Windsor School that included questions about students' gender identity and their romantic and sexual relationships.

They've also pledged to work with parents before conducting any additional research or violence prevention classes at the elementary school.

The Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union said on Tuesday that it has suspended ties with WISE, the Lebanon-based nonprofit that offers sexual violence prevention programs in Upper Valley schools, because of the survey, which the organization sent to the school to evaluate the effectiveness of the nonprofit's efforts.

In a statement to parents, Superintendent David Baker said administrators didn't see the survey, which was written by University of New Hampshire researchers, before it was given to students.

"To any family involved in this survey, we sincerely apologize," he said. "Sometimes, in an effort to do good, people go too far, too fast."

When reached this week, Baker declined to answer questions on the school's response to the survey or to provide a copy of the survey and the form announcing it to parents.

WISE also issued a statement on Tuesday saying the organization regrets not better engaging parents ahead of the survey, and will work with UNH and Windsor officials to redesign its evaluation.

"We deeply regret that we did not sufficiently engage parents at an earlier stage in the process," WISE spokeswoman Betsy Kohl said on Tuesday. "Our strong relationship with the Windsor School District, parents, and the community at large is of the utmost importance to us."

The survey asked students about their gender identity and whom they're attracted to. A question also queried students on whether they had been involved in a romantic relationship in the last 12 months.

"By a relationship we mean more than friendship, like having a partner for planned events like a school dance or going to the movies, having a sexual partner, or hanging out in a group as a couple," the questionnaire said.

A related survey also went to sixth-graders at the school.

The greater public learned about the survey last week after WPTZ-TV reported that some parents were upset about what they regarded as inappropriate questions for elementary schoolchildren. Windsor resident Vanessa Beach said her 10-year-old daughter brought home the survey and told her she was uncomfortable answering the questions.

Beach said she isn't opposed to sex education but the survey didn't provide any context or information to students, who came home with more questions than answers.

Beach also said she never received the form announcing the survey to parents, and she questioned why parents weren't better informed.

Heather Prebish's daughter also was given the survey. The fifth-grader later told her mother that she felt uncomfortable with the questions but felt compelled to answer them.

Prebish said she also didn't receive a notice before the survey and called on the school district to better communicate with parents about the classes and surveys their children are asked to take.

"We want answers," she said, adding that the district's School Board and Windsor School Principal Tiffany Cassano haven't committed to an open dialogue.

In his statement, Baker said his office and the Windsor School administration likely would have "been far more critical of both the survey and original permission letter that was sent home." But they never got the chance to review the materials, he said.

"Unfortunately, with respect to the survey, the administration was caught completely off guard," Baker said. "The contents of the survey were never shared with the administration."

In a separate Facebook post, Baker said that a Windsor School employee received the survey in a sealed manila envelope and didn't show it to the principal or administrators before distributing it to a class. Baker did not identify the employee or their role in the school district.

"That staff member thought, wrongly, that the administration had previewed the survey," Baker said in the post. "It was a mistake and as I said in my letter to parents, we are taking the steps necessary to make sure it does not happen again."

The survey was intended to mark the beginning of a five-year evaluation of WISE's school violence prevention programs at three Upper Valley school districts, said Jane Stapleton, executive director of practice at UNH's Prevention Innovations Research Center, a collaboration of experts and child care practitioners who develop and study programs aimed at ending sexual and relationship violence.

Preparation for the evaluation began a little more than a year ago, she said, after WISE contracted with UNH to perform the work.

Students in the other two districts, which UNH has declined to name, have not been given the survey, she said. It's not yet clear whether they will be given updated or revised questions if the evaluation is restarted, Stapleton added.

"We have asked these questions because we know that some prevention programs resonate and are more effective with some populations more than others," Stapleton said.

If researchers know a student's biological sex, gender identity or experience with romantic relationships, they can better examine which programs are most effective with different groups of students, she said.

"We also know that some populations of students may experience higher rates of victimization," Stapleton said, referring to students whose gender identity puts them at particular risk.

When asked whether the questions were appropriate for fifth-graders, Stapleton said that the survey was drafted using questions from evaluations of similar middle and high school programs. But she also acknowledged that the questions might need to be revised.

WISE began offering its school programs more than two decades ago in an attempt to curb the number of people affected by sexual and relationship violence in the Upper Valley, WISE Program Director Kate Rohdenburg said in a phone interview.

Because people between the ages of 12 and 24 are most at risk of experiencing those types of abuse, she said, it's important that advocates work in school settings.

Over those 20 years, the organization has continued to build on the programs in hopes that promoting better interactions will help students acquire the skills needed to avoid violent behavior adults, Rohdenburg said.

WISE's programs are particularly interesting because the organization offers one of the few middle school-based prevention programs in the U.S., Stapleton said. The programs are well-known for teaching children to seek support when they see potential bullying, hazing or harassment of others, she said.

While there is research on similar high school programs, "we don't know scientifically a lot about prevention programs with children," Stapleton said. "We're really hoping to better understand the effectiveness of WISE's prevention work."

The UNH researchers spent about eight months developing the survey and having it evaluated by the university's institutional review board, a group of scientists tasked with reviewing studies and protecting the rights of participating students.

Each student was asked in the survey to come up with a unique ID through a series of questions, such as "What is the first letter of your first name?" and "What is your birth month and year?" While the questions are personal, Stapleton said, they allow researchers to compare and follow student responses during the multiyear evaluation without identifying any of the children.

The university also takes great care in protecting the survey information, she said.

A designated teacher is supposed to distribute and collect surveys, which are then kept in a locked file inside a locked office at UNH, Stapleton said.

"We will not report individual students' responses," she said. "Rather, we will aggregate the findings when we report to both WISE and to the school."

While student surveys can sometimes make parents uncomfortable, they do provide valuable information to physicians and educators hoping to provide support, said Dr. Steve Chapman, president of the New Hampshire Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"Surveys can be really helpful in helping us understand the issues that kids and families are dealing with," said Chapman, who said he hadn't seen the WISE study. "Many of the issues are just normal growth and development issues."

The biannual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is one such survey that practitioners rely on, said Chapman, director of the Boyle Community Pediatrics Program at Children's Hospital at Dartmouth. It asks high schoolers about sexual behavior, drug use, and sexual and relationship violence, among other topics.

But Chapman said it's also important to get parents involved in those discussions and questions.

"Kids live with their parents and their guardians, and so the point is not to drive a wedge but to understand and sometimes surface issues than can be difficult to talk about," he said.

Alice Ely, executive director of the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley, also defended school surveys as necessary to gauge what students have either been exposed to or are experiencing in their own lives.

Children are being exposed to more at younger ages, she said, and educators need to know about it to safely navigate children into adulthood.

"In order to have these conversations among ourselves as a school and among our kids, we do need to have good information to what they're exposed to and what they're experiencing," she said. "And I think we often are more comfortable believing that our preteens are not exposed (to conversations on sex) when in fact they are."

But parents weren't just uncomfortable with the WISE survey questions. They also questioned whether the Windsor School, or any elementary school in Vermont, should be allowed to conduct student surveys without parents actively giving permission to include their children.

WISE and the school's guidance office sent a letter home to the families of fifth- and sixth-graders informing them of the survey and telling parents of their right to opt out, according to the district. But parents said it's possible that students lost the notice or forgot to deliver it.

Windsor children taking the survey also were asked to sign a form before taking part and were told they could skip any questions or stop at any time without getting into trouble, Stapleton said.

Parents were also critical of Vermont's "passive consent" regulations, which mandate that parents or guardians must sign a form if they do not want their child to participate in a survey or evaluation. By contrast, New Hampshire schools operate under an "active consent" system in which a signature usually is required before children can take part in a survey.

The Republican-led state Legislature in 2017 passed the law that mandates the so-called "opt-in" procedure to the dismay of many Democratic legislators and researchers, who cautioned that it could stifle research and skew the pool of students participating.

In his statement, Baker said the passive consent permission is "totally unacceptable" and called for parents to be given the chance to opt in. In a separate email, he also said the Windsor School will consider adopting a formal policy governing school surveys.

Baker said Windsor school administrators, including building principals, plan to meet with WISE to re-evaluate its work in the schools, while WISE officials said they're open to rethinking the evaluation to address parent concerns.

Stapleton, the UNH researcher, said the university also is open to working with both groups.

"Do we need to rethink our approach? I think we do, and we're ready to do that," she said.

The Windsor School Board also is planning a meeting to discuss the matter but hasn't decided on a date or time, Baker added.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223. Correction
Alice Ely is the executive director of the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley. An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported her first name.

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Windsor School Officials Apologize for Sex-Related Survey Sent to Middle School Students

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Windsor - School officials and researchers this week apologized for a survey administered to fifth-graders at the Windsor School that included questions about students' gender identity and their romantic and sexual relationships. They've also pledged to work with parents before conducting any additional research or violence prevention classes at the elementary school.

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Ensuring that school policy is informed by appropriate legal and ethical standards should be of paramount concern to school administrators. The school counselor serves a vital role of providing guidance and direction to ensure that ethical and legal dilemmas are eliminated.

It is apparent from my research that students are often asked to provide personal and even incriminating information without adequate consent from parents. Sometimes this quest for research data is executed in a way that purposefully avoids engaging parents, because it is believed that parental involvement will skew the research data. That conclusion may be correct, but is it ethical and even legal to pursue such purposes with concealed intentions.

As a school counselor, I would likely have direct involvement in the administration of such research surveys. It will be imperative that I know as much as possible about such efforts. Also, school policy should be clear about the administration of such surveys and the appropriate level of parental notification, as well as compliance with ethical and legal standards appropriate for the situation.