Sample Parent-Rights Letter

The following is a sample letter to the school district delineating parents’ rights to demand that school counselors/psychologists NOT counsel a student without prior permission and/or their presence.

The following is a sample letter to the school district delineating parents rights to demand that school counselors/psychologists NOT counsel a student without prior permission and/or their presence.

Please feel free to delete any of the listed activities and/or materials to fit your preferences.

SAMPLE PARENT-RIGHTS LETTER

We are the parents of ______________________", default", who attends

_____________________________ School. Under U.S. legislation and court decisions, parents have the primary responsibility for their children's education, and pupils' parents have certain rights which the school may not deny. Parents have the right to assure their children's beliefs and moral values are not undermined by the schools. Pupils have the right to have and to hold their values and moral standards without direct or indirect manipulation through curricula, textbooks, audio-visual materials or assignments. Accordingly, we demand that our child be involved in NO school activities or materials listed below unless we have first reviewed all the relevant materials and "strands" and have given our written consent:

1. Psychological and psychiatric examinations, tests, or surveys designed to elicit information about attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings of an individual or group;

2. Psychological or psychiatric curriculum designed to affect individual or group behavioral, emotional, or attitudinal characteristics;

3. Values clarification, moral dilemmas, religious or moral standards, role-playing or open-ended discussions of situations involving moral issues, and survival games (e.g., life/death decision exercises);

4. Death education, including abortion, euthanasia, suicide, assisted suicide, use of violence, and discussions of death and dying;

5. Curricula pertaining to alcohol and drugs;

6. Discussion of war, nuclear war, nuclear policy and nuclear classroom games;

7. Anti-nationalistic, one world government, or humanistic or globalism curricula;

8. Discussion or testing on interpersonal relationships; discussions of attitudes toward parent(s) and parenting;

9. Education on human sexuality, including premarital sex, extra-marital sex, contraception, any form of abortion, homosexuality, group sex, marriage, prostitution, incest, masturbation, bestiality, divorce, opulation control, roles of men and women; sex behavior and attitudes or beliefs of student or family;

10. Pornography or any material containing profanity, nudity and/or sexual explicitness;

11. Guided fantasy, hypnotic techniques, suggestology, imagery;

12. Evolution, including the idea that man developed from previous or lower types of living things;

13. Discussion of witchcraft, occultism, out-of-body experiences, reincarnation, the supernatural, and Eastern mysticism;

14. Political affiliations and beliefs of student and family, personal religious beliefs and practices, church attendance;

15. Mental and psychological concepts and "self-incriminating" behavior potentially embarrassing to the student or family;

16. Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the child has a relationship, including but not limited to his/her family;

17. Legally recognized privileged and analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians and ministers;

18. Income and purchases, including the student's role in family activities and finances;

19. Personality tests, questionnaires on personal or family life and attitudes;

20. Autobiographies, log books, diaries, and personal journals;

21. Contrived incidents for self-revelation, sensitivity training, group encounters, talk-ins, magic circles, self-evaluation and auto-criticism, strategies designed for self-disclosure (e.g., zig-zag);

22. Sociograms, sociodrama, blindfold walks, isolation;

23. Removed or isolated from the majority of the classroom students for personal or group discussions;

24. Answering any non-academic question that does not have an obvious right or wrong answer;

25. Questions about the home. Additionally, do not release any personally identifiable (e.g., name, age, address, phone number, social security number, test results, grade level, classroom, etc.) information on my child to any outside person, agency, or institution for any purpose what-so-ever, without my personal, written permission. This letter is to preserve my child's rights under Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment to the General Education Provisions Act, and under its regulations (1984). These regulations provide a procedure for filing complaints first at the local level, and then with the U.S. Department of Education. If a voluntary remedy fails, federal funds can be withdrawn. We respectfully request that you: send us a substantive response to this letter, attaching a copy of your policy statement on procedures for parental permission requirements; notify all our children's teachers; and keep a copy of this letter in our child's permanent file. Since benefits to all students include federal lunch subsidies, learning improvement grants, and testing, the fact that my child may not participate in a specifically federally funded program is not sufficient for dismissal of this request. Prohibition Against Federal Control of Education - 1978. (20 U.S.C.123h, PL 96-88, Title I, Section 101, No. 3) The primary responsibility for a child's education belongs to parents. Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects -1978. (B-1,

[Ethics require] respect for the immature ... [which] may require protecting them as they mature... [It is unethical] to withhold information necessary to make a considered judgement.... [R]espect for persons demands that subjects enter into the research voluntarily and with adequate information [so that they are] aware of possible adverse consequences.

Protection of Pupil Rights - 1984. (20 US code Sect. 1232h. Inspection by Parents or Guardians of Instructional Material...)

1. All instructional material ... used in connection with any research or experimentation ... shall be available for inspection by the parents or guardians.... [R]esearch or experimentation' ... means any program ...designed to explore or ... develop new or unproven teaching methods.... [such as ] psychiatric or psychological examination, testing or treatment....

2. No student shall be required ... to submit to ... examination, [or] testing... to reveal information concerning political affiliations; mental and psychological problems ...; sexual behavior and attitudes; illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior; critical appraisals of ...family relationships; legally recognized privileged ... relationships...; or income ...without the prior ... written consent of the parent. Code of Federal Regulations, Part 46, Protection of Human Subjects -1991. (Title 34, Education, Part 97, Protection of Human Subjects, Subpart A, Sec. 97.101 [B-2]; 56 FR 28003) [The law requires written permission for] Research involving the use of educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures or observation of public behavior [in which]: (i) Information obtained is recorded in such a manner that human subjects can be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects; and (ii) Any disclosure of the human subjects' responses outside the research could reasonably place the subjects at risk of criminal or civil liability or be damaging to the subjects' financial standing, employability, or reputation. Goals 2000 - Protection of Pupils Rights Amendment - 1994. (Sect. 10177 [20 USC 1232g] - Sect. 439)(a) All instructional materials, including teachers' manuals, films, tapes and other supplementary material ... used in connection with any survey, analysis, or evaluation ... shall be available for inspection by the parents or guardians (b) No student shall be required ... to submit to a survey, analysis, or evaluation that reveals information concerning... [the issues listed above under Protection of Pupil Rights - 1984].

3. Educational agencies ... shall give ... effective notice of the [se] rights....

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