ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 22, 1996 TAG: 9601220093
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
IN RELINQUISHING to local school boards the power to set policy on student access to school counselors, the state Board of Education may have chosen "the lesser of two evils," as one board member put it.
A far worse alternative was the one being pressed by the Allen administration - to require all Virginia public schools to receive parental permission before any child could speak to a counselor about anything other than academic matters.
But there was no reason to change the policy at all - other than, apparently, to pay political tribute to the religious right. Too bad about the kids - this is about politics.
Schools still will be required to offer guidance and counseling services. But rather than making these available to all students who want them, as the statewide policy has been, Virginia will leave it to local school boards to decide whether schools must limit the services to students whose parents have given explicit permission.
Those few who believe that children's access to the solace, advice and encouragement of a counselor is a threat to their own parental authority already had the option of asking the schools to exclude their children from any nonacademic counseling. Parents demanding such tight control of their children's activities are precisely those who would be aware of and act on that option.
But the perceived protection of their own children isn't good enough. They want all parents to be required to give permission before their children can get social or personal counseling - never mind how disengaged some kids' parents are. Never mind how many youngsters - precisely because they do cherish their relationship with their parents - will seek the counsel of any trusted authority except the parents they want desperately not to disappoint.
But then, the state board decided, schools are to make provision somehow for children in need whose parents don't respond.
This sounds like the long way round back to providing help to children except when their parents object. In most schools, the problem is kids not seeing enough of guidance counselors.
Whether schools will be able to offer counseling as they have been, or be required to get parental permission first, now will be an issue to be fought district by district, wherever passions on one side or the other run sufficiently high to create controversy. Ah, nothing like a good political fight - except in this case, children needing help may be the ones bloodied.
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB