School can't force you to medicate your child

[charliegirl]

Child Medication Safety Act of 2003 (Referred to Senate Committee after being Received from House)

HR 1170 RFS


108th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 1170

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

May 22, 2003
Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


AN ACT
To protect children and their parents from being coerced into administering a controlled substance in order to attend school, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Child Medication Safety Act of 2003'.

SEC. 2. REQUIRED POLICIES AND PROCEDURES.

(a) IN GENERAL- As a condition of receiving funds under any program or activity administered by the Secretary of Education, not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, each State shall develop and implement policies and procedures prohibiting school personnel from requiring a child to obtain a prescription for substances covered by section 202(c) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812(c)) as a condition of attending school or receiving services.

(b) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- Nothing in subsection (a) shall be construed to create a Federal prohibition against teachers and other school personnel consulting or sharing classroom-based observations with parents or guardians regarding a student's academic performance or behavior in the classroom or school, or regarding the need for evaluation for special education or related services under section 612(a)(3) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(3)).

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) CHILD- The term `child' means any person within the age limits for which the State provides free public education.

(2) STATE- The term `State' means each of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

SEC. 4. GAO STUDY AND REVIEW.

(a) REVIEW- The Comptroller General of the United States shall conduct a review of--

(1) the variation among States in definitions of psychotropic medication as used in regard to State jurisdiction over public education;

(2) the prescription rates of medications used in public schools to treat children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other disorders or illnesses;

(3) which medications used to treat such children in public schools are listed under the Controlled Substances Act; and

(4) which medications used to treat such children in public schools are not listed under the Controlled Substances Act, including the properties and effects of any such medications and whether such medications have been considered for listing under the Controlled Substances Act.

(b) REPORT- Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall prepare and submit a report that contains the results of the review under subsection (a).
Passed the House of Representatives May 21, 2003.

Attest:

JEFF TRANDAHL,

Clerk.

[katiekat]

Thanks for this CG. I will print it out and I am sure there will be a day where I can whip it out and shove it in someone's face at that school.

[John]

School can't force you to medicate your child.


Thanks for that INFO Barb . . . .


PS ~ Just like they can't force kids to not pray in school too.

[katiekat]

They can't force you but they can certainly try. Every time I talk to those people their answer for eveything is "he needs to be medicated." They won't do anything and keep saying "well lets see how things are when he's taking something." Yes I agree my kid needs medication but I am not putting him on it to make their jobs easier. I would love to know what they would do if I did not believe in medicating and refused to ever do so.

[carol]

We are not in favor of medicating our son. When he attended his previous school, medication came up a lot. When they knew our wishes to not medicate, I swear they did everything in their power to make my son's school experience awlful. No accommodations, no acknowledgement of him having a learning issue. I had to go through litigation to get the proper help for him. I think it is fair to say that parents get fed up with the phone calls, notes, detentions, and suspensions. It is almost as if the school feels that if they badger parents enough, they will say, "Oh, the h-- with it and just comply. As an educator myself, I am sometimes torn knowing he would be learning at a faster rate and to some extent, just liked better. It attacks a child's self-esteem when he picks off that someone does not like him. Also, when you are in conversations with certain types of people, they tell me I am doing him a great disservice by not medicating him. He has hyper moments, but is not hyper in terms of gross motor. His distractibility and, at times, inability to filter stimuli hinders his learning somewhat. I don't think he could learn efficiently in a regular 30 child classroom without meds. He currently attends an Approved Private School and is in a classroom of 7. It is wonderful. I do get reports he has a lack of focus, but he is doing work and is learning. It seems to be slower. It is hard to watch someone with all this information and is so articulate, has creative ideas, is intuitive, but at this point, cannot achieve on grade level. His dyslexia doesn't help things. I give him coromega and am researching more natural ingredients, maily because he is such a poor eater. I am glad I now have this information about the medication and school's responsibility. I may have to pull it out of the hat someday as he will not be able to attend this private school for his whole academic life. He was only approved for 2 years. The thought of him go back to what he had before keeps me awake at night. Hopefully, he will have the tools he needs to make better choices than before and be organized enough to achieve. Thanks for the info.

[notellin]

The school cannot force you to medicate, but they can suspend, send your child to the office for every little thing, send home notes/emails daily, call and complain, ask you to pick up your child in the middle of the day, tell you that the yard duties/librarian/music teacher/other parents complain, imply that other children view your child as a "freak," exaggerate everything, let him/her sink academically, and generally make your life miserable.

[carol]

Exactly, notellin. What does a parent do or say about this? This is when the most damage to a child's self-esteem is happening. I almost feel punished for not medicating my child. This was my past 3 years until my son was placed appropriately. The damage is done. We are now trying to pick up the child's esteem from the multitude of disciplinary actions inflicted upon him for just about every big and little thing he did. Too bad all this energy could not have been geared toward identifying the problem and putting things in place to help it or, better yet, all this energy could have been put in teaching my son to read since he was 9yo and on a kindergarten reading level. Too bad.

[rakuflames]

Feb 3, 2008 15:47:19 GMT -5 carol said:

Exactly, notellin. What does a parent do or say about this? This is when the most damage to a child's self-esteem is happening. I almost feel punished for not medicating my child. This was my past 3 years until my son was placed appropriately. The damage is done. We are now trying to pick up the child's esteem from the multitude of disciplinary actions inflicted upon him for just about every big and little thing he did. Too bad all this energy could not have been geared toward identifying the problem and putting things in place to help it or, better yet, all this energy could have been put in teaching my son to read since he was 9yo and on a kindergarten reading level. Too bad.

No, they can't force you to medicate your child. The question is, how hard is that parent willing to push for extensive modifications? AD/HD is not specifically covered under IDEA. To get an IEP, you have to get an "Other Health Impaired" educational diagnosis. In that process, they cannot insist on a trial of medication.

The thing is, when a child has AD/HD and is not medicated, it is likely that the child will get a lot of negative feedback. While there are a lot of things a classroom teacher can do to help support a child with AD/HD (I recommend Sandra Rief's books -- give the school copies but insist that they travel with him from teacher to teacher each year) ... the child will still get a *lot* of corrections. It is the teacher's job to try to guide and instruct the child, and that includes teaching the child to not interrupt, stay on task, not distract others, etc., etc., etc. etc. I raised one very hyperactive child and one very inattentive child (with their father until he passed away) and they were not on meds until they were 12 and 14 so I've BTDT.