Megan Navarro
KYLE — School districts are grappling with the potential impacts from Senate Bill 12 (SB 12), passed by the 89th Texas Legislature, that includes several components, including student health and counseling services.
SB 12 requires the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to “develop a form for use by school districts in providing information about parental rights and options.” To comply with the parental rights form requirement, TEA, according to its website, has prepared a Parental Rights and Options Form designed for parents and families that details parental rights and options — which includes the right to withhold consent for or exempt the parent’s child from certain activities and instruction — related to the following:
• Courses of study and supplemental services
• Instructional materials and library materials
• Health education instruction
• Instruction regarding sexual orientation and gender identity
• School options, including virtual and remote schooling
• Immunizations
• Gifted and talented programs
• Promotion, retention and graduation
• Grade, class rank and attendance
• State standards and requirements
• Data collection practices
• Health care services, including notice and consent
• Special education and bilingual education
• Grievance procedures
School districts are required to provide the parental rights form to parents upon their child’s enrollment in the district for the first time and to the parent of each child enrolled in the district at the beginning of each school year. It further requires each district to post the form in a prominent location on the district’s website.
Student health/nursing
According to Hays CISD Director of Student Health Services Megan Benthall, there has not been an impact from the nursing perspective due to SB 12, as there has always been a requirement that the district have parental consent for treatment.
She explained that anything done in the nurse’s office, with the exception of health screenings — this includes vision, hearing and spinal — has required consent in the past. However, it is looking like that the district will need to have consent for the screenings moving forward.
“There's not an impact from the nursing perspective because there's always been a law that we had to have consent for treatment. I don't feel like that picture was painted very well in this legislative session because that's existed for so long. I can't speak for other school districts; I've been in the district for 10 years, and we have always had a consent for treatment,” Benthall said. “Any parent that states no or opts out of that, we make contact with those parents, whether it's by way of email or calling them, to make sure they understand what it means and also give them an opportunity to change that if that's not what they meant. It's not like that's a one-time opportunity. The opportunity is always there to change it. Now, [on] the health screening side of it, there is some impact there because we're used to screening the majority of our students that are in the required grades and our numbers are going to be a lot lower this year.”
When parents register their students — which is required every year — the treatment consent forms are a component of that, along with providing medical and emergency information, Benthall said.
If a parent has not provided consent for treatment and their child comes into the nurse’s office and they are bleeding, for example, Benthall explained that they are going to meet that child’s immediate need and then, contact the parent.
“[We will] tell the parent, ‘Hey, your child was in here today. This happened. I just want to let you know.’ It's another opportunity, too, to say, ‘Hey, do you want to change your mind on the consent or not?’ I know there's confusion, too, about teachers not being able to give Band-Aids and things like that. That's not true,” she said. “I think it comes down to those definitions that are in the draft rule right now and is giving a Band-Aid considered a health service? I mean, that's really, really gray, especially if a child can put the Band Aid on themselves, or they can wash their wounds themselves. Are we really providing an intervention? No, I think that's up for debate.”
She continued to state that if there is an emergency situation and a parent has not provided consent for treatment, they will still take care of the child: “Whether that’s giving them Narcan, giving them an EpiPen or even CPR, we are not going to stand back and [not help them].
Right now, Benthall said the best way for a parent to know what consents they have given and to make any changes they see fit is to contact their campus nurse.
“The overall theme of this bill is just parental notification and parental consent. We are partners with parents in ensuring that their child received the best education possible,” she concluded. “I don't know what the true intent of the bill was, but if it painted a negative picture of what any of us are doing in our nurse clinics, I can assure you that none of that is happening and that any parent is welcome to come to their campus and speak with the campus nurse about what are the things that we do and don't do in the clinic.”
Counseling
As for counseling, SB 12 would not heavily impact Hays CISD, according to Maritza Gonzalez, director of counseling, because the district already has systems in place and it confirms and aligns with the current processes.
She went on to explain that in December, the district had to undergo a school safety and security audit by TEA and some of the items that were required by sometime in January or February included substantiating and providing written detail of the process, such as examples of the forms.
“It pertained to similar aspects of this Senate bill, which was what processes do we have in place of assuring and securing parental consent when the student was going to receive any type of mental health support and services at the campus. So, I was able to, once again, revisit our processes of protocols, provide that evidence,” Gonzalez said. “[SB 12] solidifies our current processes that we have. We are fine tuning because I know there is language and there are requirements in terms of using screeners and specific forms and, in assuring that we are compliant, we are doing a revisit of our mental health crisis manual as we speak.”
The process that Hays CISD has been following, which, according to Gonzalez, seems to align with the current, generalized language of SB 12, is all about communicating with the parents.
She further went on to state that right now, counselors are required to implement a comprehensive guidance plan when it comes to individual planning and group advising to students. At the beginning of every year, the district communicates the plan to families and parents by various avenues, informing them regularly of advising on course selection, etc.
“It does emphasize at one point or another that the school districts need to — at the beginning of the school year, or to me, I interpret that at the beginning of each process that we will be doing — [communicate] the programs, the comprehensive plan that the counselor will follow with students when it comes to academic advising,” she said. “So, we [do] an over abundance of communicating, not only at the beginning of the year, but all throughout; that's the process that we follow. We provide communication, not just at the beginning of the year, but we provide communication of the various advising, course-related academic advising efforts, that our district conducts through the counseling program on the campus.”
Consent is also required for psychiatric treatment prior to giving services, unless the infringement is necessary to provide life-saving care to the student. In a crisis situation, when a student is at the counselor’s office either by self-referral or by a teacher or other staff member, SB 12 has an exception to the parental consent requirement, Gonzalez explained.
“There's always those cases right, where it says that unless the infringement is necessary to provide life-saving care to a child or this session may not be construed to limit a school district's employees ability to inquire about the students' daily well-being without parental consent … I think some individuals were starting to interpret that no one could even ask a child, 'How are you doing,' or if a child can even speak openly if they're feeling, maybe they're feeling sad that day or something happened with the friend. That is, based on this Senate bill, still allowable.”
She added that if a child does not have a parent or family member at home whom they trust and they are worried they may not be able to provide consent in order to see a counselor, that is also an exception that would fall under SB 12 because it goes into taking care of the student’s well-being and safety.
TEA is still finalizing the details of how SB 12 is going to affect school districts; therefore, it only has a draft version of the rule.
By Jan. 1, 2026, in addition to SB 12 parental rights form requirements and as a requirement of SB 204, TEA must also create and maintain a parental rights handbook that explains all rights of a parent regarding the education of the parent’s child, according to its website. This handbook is currently in development and will be released in the coming months.
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