All students enrolled in public schools would be required to have suicide screenings beginning at age eight and every year thereafter, through adulthood, under a new bill filed in the Georgia legislature.
House Bill 1005, sponsored by State Representatives Meisha Mainor, Katie Dempsey, Beth Camp, Marvin Lim, and Rebecca Mitchell, would make mandatory suicide screenings a recurring part of the ‘new school year’ routine. The measure is bipartisan as Dempsey and Camp identify as Republicans and Mainor, Lim, and Mitchell are Democrats.
The legislation reads, in part, that:
“Beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, each local school system shall require every student age eight through 18 to undergo a suicide screening at the beginning of each school year. The Department of Education, in consultation with the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, the Suicide Prevention Program established pursuant to Code Section 27-1-27, and suicide prevent experts shall develop or identify one or more age-appropriate screening tools. Local school systems shall refer any students, as appropriate, to mental health services or programs based on results of the screenings.”
The bill is a little more than one page long and is absent of any details pertaining to scope, cost, appropriations, or with whom the information would be shared as well as if a parent would have the ability to opt their child(ren) out of the screening. The language also fails to address liability for inadequately performed screenings or a complete lack thereof.
Former state Representative Ken Pullin, who served in the state house before Rep. Beth Camp, said Friday that he found the bill to be particularly concerning:
“I worry that the screening tools that the State develops could ask a wide array of questions that should be between a family and the child. Do your parents ever “fight”? Do you feel “safe”? Are there guns in your house? (Think Stacey Abrams for Governor)
How is this information stored and who is it shared with? Is there any way to opt your child out of this screening process? What happens if your child is referred “to mental health services or programs”? What does this cost the local school system to implement?”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2019 suicide was the second leading cause of death among children and adolescents ages 13 to 19 — and the leading cause of death among 13-year-olds. The same report suggested that 8.9 percent of high school students surveyed attempted suicide and 18.8 percent of high school students “seriously considered” attempting suicide
The bill has been assigned to the House Education Committee.
You can read the bill in its entirety here.
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