.png){kind=small}
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Advocates for kids with disabilities and minority children sued Palm Beach County’s public schools this week over their practice of forcing hundreds of students a year to undergo mental health exams at psychiatric facilities.
Calling the involuntarily exams “excessive and illegal,” the advocacy groups said in a federal lawsuit that the school district had deprived hundreds of children of educational opportunities and inflicted unnecessary trauma by forcing them into mental health centers over unthreatening behavioral incidents.
Florida’s Mental Health Act, commonly known as the Baker Act, gives police, judges and mental health professionals power to require people to undergo mental health exams if they appear to be suffering from a mental illness and there is a “substantial likelihood” that they could cause serious harm to themselves or others.
The thread of logic those school officials must have used to decide to send students to psychological institutions may have been socially acceptable in the 1930s, but it isn't in this century. Schools are responsible for students' emotional wellbeing, which includes having a sense of belonging in their own schools. Modern schools have specially designed classes dedicated to serving students with disabilities, both mental and physical.