DeSantis signs bill requiring FL students, professors to register political views with state

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Here are two articles discussing new opt-in forms and opt-out forms school districts had to create and the local impacts of these forms:
Gallion, Bailey. "Under Parent's Bill of Rights, parents asked to opt in for Band-Aids at schools." Florida Today. 01 Sep, 2022
Kokal, Katherine. "Citing parental rights law, schools say some kids can't be treated with Band-Aids, ice packs." Palm Beach Post. 31 Aug, 2022

Note one impact is that many parents are not filling out forms which leaves schools open to liability risk.

Couple of observations. First off, your links make it clear that some counties are using opt-in forms and others are using opt-out forms. I read the law and didn't see anything in it requiring opt-in forms. So it looks like the counties that went with opt-out forms are being sensible, and the 57000 unreturned opt-in forms causing so much concern to Palm Beach County school officials are a self-inflicted wound.

From your original link that was quoted twice in above posts:
"requiring school districts to notify parents of healthcare services and provide parents the opportunity to consent or decline such services;"

Emphasis added.

"consent" (in the context of Florida state laws that require things in writing) ==> opt-in form
"decline" (in the context of Florida state laws that require things in writing) ==> opt-out form

Ergo, if a school is implementing an opt-in form, then they are providing the opportunity to consent or decline such services. Likewise, if a different school is differently implementing an opt-out form, then they are also providing the opportunity to consent or decline such services.

(A or B) is true if either A or B is true. It does not require only A. or only B.

Lastly, having parents opt-in as opposed to opt-out might produce less risk. For example, if a parent claims they never received the form or were not provided access, but their child received incorrect medical intervention, then it could create serious financial consequences. In a school district with thousands to tens of thousands of students, there will certainly be students' parents who actually did not receive a form/have access to one online or at least claim that was the case.

It may seem counter-intuitive to contrast this with theoretical risk of parent not completing an opt-out form in that you would expect there to be more outcomes of incomplete needed medical interventions. However, in the here and now of politics in Florida, it's been conservative parents who are being litigious, suing schools and acting like crazy people.

And second, your links say:

The parents' response to the forms won't prevent students from receiving emergency care, Campbell clarified. All districts have said they'll call 911 if a student is having a medical emergency. "We're not going to wait for a parent to come up if your child is bleeding out," Campbell said.​

​

and​

​

The district went on to say staff will call 911 if a child is having a medical emergency. Palm Beach County has the same policy.​

Duh! If the new policies are prompted by "caution", aka, fear of lawsuits, well, failing to call 911 in an emergency is a far surer way to get sued than calling 911 when a parent didn't tell you to in advance.

That's in contrast to Ziprhead's link, which said:

“We’ve been instructed to not even give a bandaid to a child if they have a cut,” explains Angela, who is speaking under a pseudonym to maintain both her anonymity and her job. “Even if their arm is hanging off, we can’t call 911 unless the family has consented to their child being cared for.”​

So it appears that either "Angela" had a hysterical overreaction to the new rules, or else her district's administrator did.

In some other posts, you had micro-outrages over usage of the word "we." Remember, it means you and I and maybe some others (allegedly). Even though we know there is often an unsignified we or a royal we or we need to look at context to understand who the we is in reference to. Here, you seem to be assuming the "we" is in reference to the totality of the school, including the school nurse, as opposed to a smaller subset that includes Angela, a teacher.

The usage of the word "we" is in the context of the next paragraph which shows a dichotomy between teacher functions and nurse functions:

"Further complicating matters was the fact that teachers are not permitted access to the database of consenting parents. Angela was thus obligated to call the nurse’s office to check whether the coughing student was eligible to receive care, a call she was forced to make over and over again as the inundated office proved unreachable."​

I am not going to claim to be an expert on FERPA, good Samaritan laws, nurse's duties to apply emergency medical aid versus teacher duties, but I think there are different scopes of medical obligations between the school as a whole, the teacher, and the school nurse.

I have surmised that there is some general rule that an administrator relayed to the teaching staff as a reaction to teachers asking "what if" questions in the context of parents opting out of (not opting in to) medical intervention. They may have been told to always send the student to the nurse, even in an emergency, but if the emergency is life-threatening, such as the child bleeding out, it might be best for the teacher to act and also call the nurse. That nuanced exception to the general rule might not have been relayed to the teachers.

Regardless, it's probably a good idea to look closely at the wording here:

"we can’t call 911 unless the family has consented to their child being cared for"​

If the parents selected NO/did not select YES on medical interventions by the school, what legal authority does the school have to medically intervene? Does the teacher have different obligations than the nurse? What statutes create the obligations for the teacher as opposed to the nurse?

Suppose a child has their arm hanging off, their parents had clicked NO on medical interventions/did not click YES, and the child is not bleeding out. Is the teacher legally to medically intervene?

Prior to the new law, in light of in loco parentis, if the child's arm was hanging off and not bleeding out, would the teacher have legal authority to medically intervene while calling the nurse for more qualified help?

 

[laughing dog]

So it appears that either "Angela" had a hysterical overreaction to the new rules, or else her district's administrator did.

Or Angela is exaggerating or mistaken about calling 911.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is that only the nurse has that information. Thus the teacher has to call the nurse before doing anything. ...

That isn't a law of nature; and so far nobody's exhibited a provision showing it's even a law of man. It appears to be just a policy of some school district. What's to stop the administrators from directing the nurses to cross-reference the class lists with the parental permission forms at the beginning of each term, and prepare a list for each teacher of which of that teacher's students it's okay to give bandaids to? That way the teachers don't get any so-called "medical information" except for what they need to know, but when kids get cut teachers can check their lists instead of phoning the nurse. The lists only tell the teachers exactly what the nurse would say anyway. If a policy along those lines would violate FERPA, somebody quote the FERPA provision it's a violation of.

1) That requires giving information to the teachers that I don't think they're allowed to.

2) The list can change over time.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you're talking about FERPA, Don didn't actually say it prohibits teachers from being told which students they're allowed to give bandaids to. He only said it requires that that sort of information be made available on a need-to-know basis. That interplay isn't sufficient to create the problem. Unless you can point out some provision of FERPA that specifies that teachers don't have need-to-know for that information, it would appear the problem was created not by the interplay of laws but by an idiot administrator who decided teachers don't need to know which children they're allowed to give bandaids to. That's on him or her.

(Contrariwise, if you're claiming a number of posters have told me which law other than FERPA is allegedly interplaying with DSG, I'm not going to reread 570 posts just to make a long-odds bet against the default presumption that you're blowing smoke out your ass. Quote a post or take your "God works in mysterious ways" argument and own it.)

The problem is that only the nurse has that information. Thus the teacher has to call the nurse before doing anything. The nurse isn't always available.

I would go further and say a nurse isn't always on campus. Many must travel between schools due to staffing shortages. My niece has T1D and was in high school in the early 2000's. My sister ended up having to homeschool due to lack of access to her insulin/glucose meter; neither of which she was allowed to carry with her. She tried a pump early on only to have a teacher 'remove her from class' for having a "beeper" that disrupted class. Oh and don't claim ADA - as diabetes is not covered.

Huh? Why isn't diabetes covered under ADA? It sounds to me like a school begging for a lawsuit.

 

[Bomb#20]

That isn't a law of nature; and so far nobody's exhibited a provision showing it's even a law of man.

It's basic HIPPA:.

consent is immediate to a medical procedure, therefore knowledge of consent is knowledge of medical information.

The consent under discussion is clearly not immediate to a medical procedure -- it's given by parents before the need for a medical procedure arises. If HIPPA defines "consent" to be immediate to a medical procedure then the formality created by the Florida law cannot legally qualify as "consent" for HIPPA purposes. It's some other thing that happens to have the same name.

HIPPA limits who may access medical information heavily, including how it is stored.

If whether a child's parent has consented to him being bandaided is "medical information", whether the child is actually being bandaided is certainly medical information too. So if some provision of HIPPA bars teachers from knowing the one, then how the heck does that provision not bar teachers from knowing the other? That implies Florida consent law is immaterial -- it implies HIPPA already barred teachers from bandaiding students.

This is something that anyone can figure out after a visit to a specialist: you are asked to fill out a form authorizing release of medical information to a second party. Likewise you have to fill out a form before someone else in your family can access your records.

Hey, if the upshot of all this is that the consent form schools send to parents needs to not only say "I consent to my kid getting minor treatment from a teacher" but also say "and I consent to my kid's teacher being told I consent to my kid getting minor treatment from a teacher", then that's something the districts should have figured out when they designed the forms. It's not the fault of the Florida legislature that our society has opted to let legislatures enact general purposes and delegate the gory details to executive branch underlings. You want an administrative state, you get an administrative state.

 

[laughing dog]

It's not the fault of the Florida legislature that our society has opted to let legislatures enact general purposes and delegate the gory details to executive branch underlings. You want an administrative state, you get an administrative state.

Of course it is the fault of the Florida legislature - they write the laws that allow that administrative state.

 

[Bomb#20]

Couple of observations. First off, your links make it clear that some counties are using opt-in forms and others are using opt-out forms. I read the law and didn't see anything in it requiring opt-in forms. So it looks like the counties that went with opt-out forms are being sensible, and the 57000 unreturned opt-in forms causing so much concern to Palm Beach County school officials are a self-inflicted wound.

From your original link that was quoted twice in above posts:
"requiring school districts to notify parents of healthcare services and provide parents the opportunity to consent or decline such services;"

Emphasis added.

"consent" (in the context of Florida state laws that require things in writing) ==> opt-in form
"decline" (in the context of Florida state laws that require things in writing) ==> opt-out form

Ergo, if a school is implementing an opt-in form, then they are providing the opportunity to consent or decline such services. Likewise, if a different school is differently implementing an opt-out form, then they are also providing the opportunity to consent or decline such services.

(A or B) is true if either A or B is true. It does not require only A. or only B.

Thank you, Captain Obvious. Why are you lecturing me as though something you're saying here is in conflict with something I wrote? You are confirming my take on the situation. The state gave counties the option; it did not require opt-in forms.

If what you're getting at is the state would have been wiser not to give counties the option of using opt-in forms, I agree; that wasn't the point in dispute.

Lastly, having parents opt-in as opposed to opt-out might produce less risk. For example, if a parent claims they never received the form or were not provided access, but their child received incorrect medical intervention, then it could create serious financial consequences. In a school district with thousands to tens of thousands of students, there will certainly be students' parents who actually did not receive a form/have access to one online or at least claim that was the case.

It may seem counter-intuitive to contrast this with theoretical risk of parent not completing an opt-out form in that you would expect there to be more outcomes of incomplete needed medical interventions. However, in the here and now of politics in Florida, it's been conservative parents who are being litigious, suing schools and acting like crazy people.

And a crazy litigious conservative parent would never sue for her kid's injury having been neglected, and claim not to have received an opt-in form?

That's in contrast to Ziprhead's link, which said:

“We’ve been instructed to not even give a bandaid to a child if they have a cut,” explains Angela, who is speaking under a pseudonym to maintain both her anonymity and her job. “Even if their arm is hanging off, we can’t call 911 unless the family has consented to their child being cared for.”​

So it appears that either "Angela" had a hysterical overreaction to the new rules, or else her district's administrator did.

In some other posts, you had micro-outrages over usage of the word "we." Remember, it means you and I and maybe some others (allegedly). Even though we know there is often an unsignified we or a royal we or we need to look at context to understand who the we is in reference to. Here, you seem to be assuming the "we" is in reference to the totality of the school, including the school nurse, as opposed to a smaller subset that includes Angela, a teacher.

I have no idea how you're getting that out of what I wrote. I was assuming "we" meant Angela and whoever else she intended to include.

I am not going to claim to be an expert on FERPA, good Samaritan laws, nurse's duties to apply emergency medical aid versus teacher duties,
...
Prior to the new law, in light of in loco parentis, if the child's arm was hanging off and not bleeding out, would the teacher have legal authority to medically intervene while calling the nurse for more qualified help?

Not sure what your point was in all that. If what you're getting at is that requiring parental consent is a bad idea in any way, shape or form and teachers should always be considered in loco parentis, take it up with the people of Florida. As far as I can tell, parental consent laws for just about everything tend to be popular. Democracy means not always getting what you want.

 

[Bomb#20]

I would go further and say a nurse isn't always on campus. Many must travel between schools due to staffing shortages. My niece has T1D and was in high school in the early 2000's. My sister ended up having to homeschool due to lack of access to her insulin/glucose meter; neither of which she was allowed to carry with her. She tried a pump early on only to have a teacher 'remove her from class' for having a "beeper" that disrupted class. Oh and don't claim ADA - as diabetes is not covered.

Huh? Why isn't diabetes covered under ADA? It sounds to me like a school begging for a lawsuit.

According to the U.S. Department of Education:

"In most cases, application of these rules should quickly shift the inquiry away from the question whether a student has a disability (and thus is protected by the ADA and Section 504), and toward the school district's actions and obligations to ensure equal educational opportunities. While there are no per se disabilities under Section 504 and Title II, the nature of many impairments is such that, in virtually every case, a determination in favor of disability will be made. Thus, for example, a school district should not need or require extensive documentation or analysis to determine that a child with diabetes, epilepsy, bipolar disorder, or autism has a disability under Section 504 and Title II."​

Questions and Answers on the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 for Students with Disabilities Attending Public Elementary and Secondary Schools

In responding to requests for technical assistance, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has determined that school officials would benefit from additional guidance concerning the effects of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (Amendments Act) on public elementary and...

www2.ed.gov

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Couple of observations. First off, your links make it clear that some counties are using opt-in forms and others are using opt-out forms. I read the law and didn't see anything in it requiring opt-in forms. So it looks like the counties that went with opt-out forms are being sensible, and the 57000 unreturned opt-in forms causing so much concern to Palm Beach County school officials are a self-inflicted wound.

From your original link that was quoted twice in above posts:
"requiring school districts to notify parents of healthcare services and provide parents the opportunity to consent or decline such services;"

Emphasis added.

"consent" (in the context of Florida state laws that require things in writing) ==> opt-in form
"decline" (in the context of Florida state laws that require things in writing) ==> opt-out form

Ergo, if a school is implementing an opt-in form, then they are providing the opportunity to consent or decline such services. Likewise, if a different school is differently implementing an opt-out form, then they are also providing the opportunity to consent or decline such services.

(A or B) is true if either A or B is true. It does not require only A. or only B.

Thank you, Captain Obvious. Why are you lecturing me as though something you're saying here is in conflict with something I wrote? You are confirming my take on the situation. The state gave counties the option; it did not require opt-in forms.

If what you're getting at is the state would have been wiser not to give counties the option of using opt-in forms, I agree; that wasn't the point in dispute.

Wrong. Your conclusion was "unreturned opt-in forms causing so much concern to Palm Beach County school officials are a self-inflicted wound." You based this conclusion from a narrow "cause" only looking narrowly at the statute as opposed to how it gets implemented in practice. Not all schools can in practice (or practically which is different than practicably) go equally with either option. That's an inherent assumption you made in jumping to your conclusion.

Lastly, having parents opt-in as opposed to opt-out might produce less risk. For example, if a parent claims they never received the form or were not provided access, but their child received incorrect medical intervention, then it could create serious financial consequences. In a school district with thousands to tens of thousands of students, there will certainly be students' parents who actually did not receive a form/have access to one online or at least claim that was the case.

It may seem counter-intuitive to contrast this with theoretical risk of parent not completing an opt-out form in that you would expect there to be more outcomes of incomplete needed medical interventions. However, in the here and now of politics in Florida, it's been conservative parents who are being litigious, suing schools and acting like crazy people.

And a crazy litigious conservative parent would never sue for her kid's injury having been neglected, and claim not to have received an opt-in form?

Once again, you are taking things out of the context of the world, isolating them, and not looking at what is actually going on in the context of life. Conservatives are not out suing schools for not medically intervening. There are chapters of Moms for Liberty political activists in every county of Florida screaming about mask mandates (or they were), vaccination policy, and therapeutic affirmation for gays and trans kids. Therefore, the two risks you are insisting are equivalent are not. That is, conservatives do not want to automatically be opted in as a default and have to opt out explicitly as this is the very thing they are complaining about. The statute says that the schools have to provide an opportunity to decline, but conservatives can argue they didn't have adequate opportunity and what that means in practice isn't decided yet by legal precedent.

That's in contrast to Ziprhead's link, which said:

“We’ve been instructed to not even give a bandaid to a child if they have a cut,” explains Angela, who is speaking under a pseudonym to maintain both her anonymity and her job. “Even if their arm is hanging off, we can’t call 911 unless the family has consented to their child being cared for.”​

So it appears that either "Angela" had a hysterical overreaction to the new rules, or else her district's administrator did.

In some other posts, you had micro-outrages over usage of the word "we." Remember, it means you and I and maybe some others (allegedly). Even though we know there is often an unsignified we or a royal we or we need to look at context to understand who the we is in reference to. Here, you seem to be assuming the "we" is in reference to the totality of the school, including the school nurse, as opposed to a smaller subset that includes Angela, a teacher.

I have no idea how you're getting that out of what I wrote. I was assuming "we" meant Angela and whoever else she intended to include.

I am not going to claim to be an expert on FERPA, good Samaritan laws, nurse's duties to apply emergency medical aid versus teacher duties,
...
Prior to the new law, in light of in loco parentis, if the child's arm was hanging off and not bleeding out, would the teacher have legal authority to medically intervene while calling the nurse for more qualified help?

Not sure what your point was in all that. If what you're getting at is that requiring parental consent is a bad idea in any way, shape or form and teachers should always be considered in loco parentis, take it up with the people of Florida. As far as I can tell, parental consent laws for just about everything tend to be popular. Democracy means not always getting what you want.

Nope, that wasn't my point.

 

[blastula]

Judge criticizes DeSantis' firing of Democratic prosecutor but declines to reinstate Andrew Warren | CNN Politics

A federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit brought by a former state attorney in Florida who sued Gov. Ron DeSantis for suspending him last year.

www.cnn.com

Suspended prosecutor Warren lost his case against DeSantis.The judge ruled that the suspension violated Florida's constitution but that a federal judge can't grant him relief. The judge did recommend DeSantis reinstate Warren. As if.