Kennewick district addresses parent permission for physicals

Migrant students in Kennewick will no longer be taken out of schools for subsidized physicals, and parent permission will be better documented for the exams.

Superintendent Dave Bond told school board members of the district’s moves to correct lapses in notifying parents about the physicals during the board’s retreat Wednesday.

The changes are being implemented after an incident in October where a student was taken to a clinic for a physical without his parent’s knowledge.

“We did something we shouldn’t have done under our current policies,” Bond told the board.

The student, a third-grader at Eastgate Elementary School, was enrolled in the state’s Migrant Education Health Program through the district.

The program, which serves students whose families are primarily tied to agricultural jobs and move frequently, provides students with school meals and supplies, summer programs and field trips, and college planning and other support, along with no-cost physicals. About 2,000 children in the district are signed up with the program.

While the student’s mother had signed a form indicating her son was eligible for a physical through the program, she never saw a form that gave explicit permission for the procedure, nor was she informed he’d be taken off school grounds to a Tri-Cities Community Health clinic near Amistad Elementary School.

She instead learned of the exam from her son after returning from work and seeing a bandage for what looked like an injection, but was actually a tuberculosis test.

The district has apologized to the student’s family for the oversight.

Bond said that mention of the physical on the form signed by the mother was minimal and likely to escape a parent’s notice. The district’s review of the program’s operations found staffers weren’t verifying whether parents were intentionally notified of the exams and were transporting students without parent knowledge.

The district will now require letters be mailed to and phone calls be made to families ahead of any student receiving a physical. Permission forms must be on file before they are given. The physicals will be done at each student’s school by a medical professional brought in by the district.

Little was being done to ensure students who had the greatest need of a physical were being given priority, Bond said. Staff will ask parents when their child last was seen by a medical professional when they sign up with the program.

Board members and Bond also discussed whether district policy should be amended to tighten requirements for parental notification and permission to take students off school grounds. That might be brought back before the board at a future meeting.

This story was originally published January 14, 2016 at 5:53 PM with the headline "Kennewick district addresses parent permission for physicals."