From State Rep. Steve Reick:

Mental Health Screening in Schools, How Far Will We Go?

It’s been a while since my last Reick Report, and I apologize. I suppose I could’ve handed the job of writing my Reick Reports to a Chatbot [or House staff] and hoped that you couldn’t tell the difference, but in just a few short years we’ve seen the internet go from a tool for information gathering to a performative art platform, leading us to a world where our phones tell us how to think. I’m not ready for a machine to start doing my thinking for me.

Hot Topic of the Week: What Limits Should Be Put on Schools To Provide Mental Health Screening?

There’s no question that there’s a mental health crisis running rampant among today’s youth.

The sources are many: peer pressure and bullying are things that we all had to deal with when growing up, but social media and radical cultural changes all play a part in creating anxiety that those of us in previous generations didn’t have to deal with.

Our children are being torn in ways that we could not have imagined and are questioning not only who they are but what they are.

A big reason why our children are being torn is the fact that they are constantly confronted with discussions of depression, personal inadequacy and stories of self-harm, and are glued to social media that paints a false narrative of a world that’s throwing one big party that they’ve not been invited to.

Being impressionable, these things reinforce in their minds a perception that there’s something different about them upon which then they obsess. There’s no question that this is a problem that requires immediate attention.

Announced by Governor Pritzker in March 2022, the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative aims to improve the delivery of behavioral health services to children and adolescents with significant and complex challenges, as well as to streamline and simplify the ways in which families can access resources, services, and support. 

The Blueprint for Transformation: A Vision for Improved Behavioral Healthcare for Illinois Children, released in February 2023, guides the state in improving the children’s behavioral health service system in Illinois.

Senate Bill 1560 is currently on third reading in the House, and it sets up a program of mental health screening to be conducted in schools for students in Grades 3 through 12.

A recent survey shows that 28 percent of Illinois school districts are currently implementing universal screening.

However, many of these districts reported using socioemotional learning (SEL) screeners, which assess students’ social skills, emotional regulation, and behavioral competencies to support overall well-being and academic success.

In contrast, it’s the intent of S.B. 1560 to provide for more robust mental health screening throughout the state, with the goal of identifying students at risk for mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, or trauma-related disorders.

On its face this is a good idea, because for too long providers of these types of services have acted within what are called “silos”, offering distinct services without any coordination with other providers which might offer complementary supportive services.

This is an inefficient and wasteful way of providing needed services across a wide range of needs.

But the devil as they say is in the details, and there are some details that need to be clarified before I can support this bill or anything like it.

Legislation carves good intentions into stone, and the broad rulemaking authority given to administrative agencies can take the language of statute into directions which create totally unintended consequences.

As a member of JCAR [Joint Committee on Administrative Rules], I see it far more often than I’d like. 

Such is the problem here.

I asked several questions and ISBE provided me with the following answers:

• Will homeschools or private schools be mandated to implement universal mental health screenings?
  • (Public) school districts shall offer mental health screenings. Homeschools and private schools are not mandated to implement universal mental health screenings. (Not yet, anyway.)
• When/how will parents receive notice of the mental health screenings and be allowed to opt-out if needed?
  • When and how parents receive notice of mental health screenings will vary district to district. However, model policy/guidance issued by ISBE will lay out when/how parents should be notified and detail a plan for parents/choosing to opt out, like vision and hearing screenings.
• What will the qualifications be of those administering the screenings?
  • By changing the requirement of SB1560 to 3rd through 12th it allows for the screening tools to be self-assessed. Bill language does not require a certain qualification for those providing the screening tool; however sample policy guidance will be issued by ISBE, that will advise who best to administer a screening tool.

Since these screenings are geared toward identifying potential issues based upon answers given to specific questions, it’s only fair to ask what are the areas of concern to be addressed, the specific questions to be asked and how these will be adapted to different grade levels.

For instance, will third graders be asked if they know someone who committed suicide or if they ever considered suicide?

To say that these assessments will conform to some standard of “best practices” is not enough, since I’ve seen far too many instances of “best practices” being developed to satisfy the demands of one constituency to the exclusion of others.

I’m not saying that it’s happening here, but in today’s super-heated climate, it’s better that all cards be put face-up on the table. 

The bill also provides that on or before September 1, 2026, the State Board of Education, in consultation with the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Team in the Office of the Governor and relevant stakeholders, shall report its work and make available resource materials, including model procedures and guidance informed by a phased approach to implementing universal mental health screening in schools.

It doesn’t specify to whom that report shall be made.

If the General Assembly is going to give the green light to this initiative without all the questions being answered (especially the specific language of the universal assessments by grade level), the General Assembly should take responsibility for its actions by giving its approval to the plan once it’s fleshed out.

It’s one thing to test vision and hearing, and behavioral screening to determine why a kid is disrupting in class or doesn’t color within the lines.

It’s something altogether different to screen in a prospective way to judge the likelihood that he or she will tend toward certain conditions which could manifest themselves in the future.

Especially when the results of this screening will follow them throughout their school years and potentially beyond, guarantees of confidentiality notwithstanding.

Finally, I don’t see enough safeguards here to satisfy the reasonable concerns of parents.

The bill is pretty light on the responsibility of schools to communicate the results of screenings to parents.

In a world where schools are being told to not tell parents that their children have asked to be called by a different name or pronoun, it’s not hard to imagine a school’s reluctance on this front, as well. 

Parents need to be given the authority to opt-in to this screening instead of being told they can opt-out, something that may be overlooked.

This is too important to be overlooked.

Since COVID, confidence in our public institutions has been badly eroded, with schools and public health institutions being at the top of the list.

Providing opt-in would serve to give parents a measure of control over a situation where they often feel powerless. 

For these and a variety of other reasons I’ll not go into here, I can’t support this bill.