Title of Bill:
AN ACT to clearly set forth certain rights for parents, guardians and children enrolled in __________ schools.

Purpose or General Idea of Bill:
To ensure that teachers in classrooms are not diagnosing unwanted classroom behaviors and slow learning problems as "disorders" or recommending psychotropic drugs for children.

Summary of Specific Provisions:
This Act would establish rules and regulations prohibiting school personnel from identifying or diagnosing unwanted classroom behaviors or slow learning as "disorders" or suggesting or recommending psychotropic drugs for any child. Teachers would be prohibited from administering diagnostic tests to students in classrooms and schools would be prohibited from requiring that a child take a psychotropic drug as a condition of school attendance. Parents could not be charged with neglect or abuse if they refused to label or drug their child.

Justification:

(1) U.S. Public Law 96-88 states, "parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children, and States, localities, and private institutions have the primary responsibility for supporting that parental role."

(2) Schools are funded by taxpayers and school staff are servants of the public.

(3) Research by medical professionals indicates considerable controversy and diverse opinion about the validity of childhood behavioral or learning "disorders" such as, but not limited to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). In 1998, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD, concluded, "We don't have an independent, valid test for ADHD; there are no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction...and finally, after years of clinical research and experience with ADHD, our knowledge about the cause or causes of ADHD remains speculative."

(4) Medical research has also established that prescription psychiatric drugs may have permanent deleterious effects on children, and that at least one stimulant prescribed for ADHD is more potent than cocaine. Children diagnosed with "ADHD" and prescribed stimulants can be later ineligible to serve in the armed forces.

(5) NIH also found that children taking prescribed stimulants for ADHD still have a higher level of some behavior problems. Studies have found that children who take prescribed amphetamine-type stimulants do not perform better academically and, in fact, fail just as many courses, and drop out of school just as often, as children who did not take the drugs.

(6) Teachers have been found coercing parents into accepting psychiatric diagnoses for their child's behavioral or learning problems and insisting that parents place their child on a psychiatric drug. This exceeds the teacher's role and denies parents access to information (and, thereby, violates, in principle, informed consent standards) about other known medical and educational causes for disruptive behavior or learning problems. This includes but is not limited to: poor reading and math skills, environmental toxins, allergies, nutritional deficiencies, and abnormalities in the endocrine system or thyroid function.

(7) The American Medical Association's (AMA) standard for Informed Consent includes communicating the "nature and purpose of a proposed treatment or procedure; the risks and benefits" of such treatments and the alternatives "regardless of their cost or the extent to which the treatment options are covered by health insurance." In relation to parental permission and assent in pediatric practice, The American Academy of Pediatrics, also notes that "…the patient has the freedom to choose among the medical alternatives without coercion or manipulation."

(8) In 2000, the Texas board of Education adopted a resolution recommending that schools consider non-medical solutions to behavioral problems. The Colorado school board approved a similar resolution in 1999. Several states have also introduced and/or passed laws protecting children against school personnel using coercive or intimidating measures to have a child with learning or behavioral problems placed on psychotropic drugs.

(9) This proposed legislation would work to ensure that teachers would not be conducting diagnostic tests for "disorders" in classrooms or suggesting psychotropic drugs.

Prior Legislative History: New Bill.

Fiscal Implications for State and Local Governments: School district liability for any school personnel in non-compliance with these rules and regulations.

Effective Date: This act shall take effect immediately.

SYNOPSIS: AN ACT to ensure that teachers in classrooms are not diagnosing unwanted classroom behaviors or slow learning problems as "disorders" or suggesting/ recommending psychotropic drugs for children. To ensure that parents are informed about the controversy and the diverse medical opinions about the validity of certain learning "disorders" such as the ADHD diagnosis. To ensure that a parent's refusal to allow a child to be labeled with a "disorder" or drugged is not grounds for removal of the child from the classroom or from parental custody.

(1). Teachers shall be prohibited from giving to students in the classroom any clinical test, survey or questionnaire related to potential emotional, behavioral, psychological, psychiatric or "learning disorders" or problems; and

(2). Teachers shall be prohibited from suggesting or recommending psychotropic drugs for any child or coercing or intimidating parents or guardians into seeking or pursuing specific psychological or psychiatric diagnoses, psychotherapies or medications for their child; and

(3). School personnel shall be prohibited from suggesting, inferring or requiring that a student take a psychotropic drug as a condition for attending school; and

(4). Schools shall ensure that written information is available for parents that clearly states there is controversy and diverse medical opinion about ADHD and learning disorders and that according to medical opinion, such problems can be attributed to various causes such as environmental toxins, allergies, nutritional deficiencies, and many other similar causes; and/or can be caused by poor reading and math skills, requiring tutoring or more educational basics, such as phonics.

Such rules and regulations shall not in any way prohibit school medical staff from recommending that a child see a physician for an accident, injury or infectious disease.

(__) The following penalties for non-compliance with subsection _____ shall be imposed:

(1) The school district shall be liable for payment to the parent or legal guardian of all legal costs associated with a complaint resulting in a determination of non-compliance to the above rules;

(2) The school district shall be liable for payment to the parent or legal guardian of all medical costs incurred for a student who withdraws from school-mandated psychotropic drugs;

(3) The school district shall be liable for payment of medical costs and damages to the parent or legal guardian for any permanent harm to a student resulting from the mis-identification or mis-diagnosis of a learning "disorder" or administration of school-mandated psychotropic drugs or mental examinations.

(__) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, rule or regulation to the contrary, the refusal of a parent, guardian or person in parental relation to a child to allow the child to be labeled with a "disorder" or to refuse to administer, or have administered, a psychotropic drug to a child shall not be grounds for a charge of neglect or abuse or the child's removal from their custody, or sole grounds for the child's removal from a classroom or from school attendance.

Section 2. This act shall take effect immediately.