Medicalizing Public Schools
New bill allows schools to lease property to “federally qualified health centers”
Senate Bill 3156 and Assembly Bill A4281 will put “Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC)” in your public school. FQHC includes Primary Doctors, Behavioral/Mental Health Centers, Preventive Health Care, Dental Care, Lab Services and HIV/AIDS Counseling and Testing, and more.
Instead of the education committee focusing on the learning loss and developmental delay from the COVID-19 pandemic mandates, they decided to give parents something that no one asked for or wanted. Schools made TERRIBLE decisions when it comes to our children’s health by enforcing medical mandates, which caused developmental delays and educational setbacks. Why in the world would anyone want medical facilities IN THE SCHOOL?
To make matters more concerning, NJ state legislature will soon be voting on lowering the age of consent for behavioral services (S1188/A2874) from the current 16 years of age to 14. This means that a behavioral health center placed in a NJ high school could provide services to ANY student without parental consent. All of the high school children will be at an age that they are considered responsible enough to make medical decisions for themselves.
According to NJ Stands up,
School-based health centers (SBHCs), already in place in several states, seek to replace the family doctor and provide a full range of services including vaccinations, prescriptions, reproductive counseling, mental and behavioral health counseling. Mostly unregulated, the SBHCs have few if any guardrails to protect parental rights and meet minimum standards of care.
The placement of health centers within school settings takes parents out of the picture for their child's healthcare, relies on the child to make informed decisions without a fully developed brain or full knowledge of their health history, and places health practitioners in an unethical position. There are many potentially harmful implications of bill S3156.
TAKE ACTION: Click HERE to send a prewritten message to our legislature (SO EASY!) or call and email the office of Senate President Nicholas Scutari and some of his colleagues today and especially Monday morning.
What to ask for when you call:
Ask them to VOTE NO on S3156.
Tell them that schools should not be in the business of health provider or decider. Ask them to protect children and protect parental rights.
Nicholas Scutari - Senate President: (732) 827-7480; senscutari@njleg.org
Paul Sarlo - Deputy Majority Leader: (201) 804-8118; sensarlo@njleg.org
Joseph Cryan - Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on the Public Schools: (908) 624-0880; sencryan@njleg.org
Shirley Turner - Senate President Pro Tempore: (609) 323-7239; senturner@njleg.org
Jon Bramnick: (908) 232-2073; senbramnick@njleg.org
Vin Gopal - Chair of the Senate Education Committee: (732) 695-3371; sengopal@njleg.org
Angela McKnight - Member Senate Education Committee: (201) 360-2502; senmcknight@njleg.org
Joseph Lagana - Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
(201) 576-9199; senlagana@njleg.org
Renee Burgess: member of the Joint Committee on the Public Schools: (862) 231-6577; senburgess@njleg.org
Nilsa Cruz-Perez: (856) 541-1251; sencruzperez@njleg.org
Please call your own Senators (Democrats and Republicans) and let your voice be heard.
Read more on this substack!
Too many changes at one time in education policies is a behemoth recipe to fix the administrative shit shows currently in schools. Too many unqualified cooks already spoiled the broth.
Might make sense in rural states like Montana, North Dakota where the nearest medical center
could be 30 miles away. Nobody in NJ is more than 5 miles from medical care--this is ridiculous
Another chance to sneak behind the backs of parents to promote their woke agenda