HOWARD COUNTY SCHOOLS
Pregnancy Notification Policy Alarms Some Health Experts
By Susan DeFord
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 3, 2008; Page C12
A revised regulation that directs Howard County school officials to notify parents when students reveal they are pregnant has drawn criticism from health experts who say it violates a young woman's right to privacy and jeopardizes health care.
The policy and accompanying procedures appear to be among the strictest in the region.
Health experts say that students' willingness to seek care will decline.
"There's no question this will have a chilling effect on kids coming forward," said County Health Officer Peter Beilenson. "It's going to slow down health care."
Howard's policy "really pushes the issue of informing the parents, when state law says minors have the right to make decisions independent of the parents," said Deborah Chilcoat, an education and training specialist for Planned Parenthood of Maryland and co-chair of a county coalition on adolescent sexuality and reproductive health. "It's not going to be in the best interests of young people in Howard County," she said.
The Maryland State Department of Education provides no clear mandate on parental notification, so rules vary. Some school systems leave it to students to tell parents about a pregnancy. Others leave the decision to school nurses.
Under Howard's regulations, approved last month by the Board of Education, any school employee who learns that a student is or might be pregnant is to notify the school counselor or nurse.
If the pregnancy is confirmed and the parents don't know, the counselor or nurse helps the student tell them. Although the rules do not specify a time frame, Frank Aquino, chairman of the Board of Education, said it probably would occur "in a matter of a few days." The regulations take effect July 1.
Mary Shaw, a spokeswoman for Fairfax County schools, said that system does not disclose pregnancies, "but we do everything in our power to get the student to disclose the information directly to parents." Prince George's County follows a similar policy. Anne Arundel County regards parental notification as a matter for the student.
In Montgomery County, school employees such as a principal or counselor must report to parents on any matter they think puts a student at risk, and that can include pregnancy, schools spokeswoman Kate Harrison said. But a school nurse can use professional judgment in deciding whether to inform parents, said Judy Covich, director of School Health Services for the county Department of Health and Human Services.
Maryland's minor consent law, which applies to those younger than 18, says teenagers do not have to inform parents to receive health services, including pregnancy testing, contraceptives and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.
State law requires a parent or guardian to be notified before a minor has an abortion, but it also allows circumstances in which parents need not be informed. They include when the physician has determined that the minor is capable of giving informed consent or when the minor is threatened with abuse.
Virginia gives minors the same rights as adults in seeking contraception and prenatal services but requires consent of a parent for an abortion. In the District, minors can consent to an abortion as well as health-care services such as contraception and prenatal care, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit agency that focuses on sexual health.
Last school year, 17 high school students in Howard told school nurses they were pregnant; 22 did so the year before, said Donna Heller, health services coordinator. She said there may be more pregnant students who don't come forward or who leave school.
Howard school board members say the decision on notifying parents formalized what has been an unofficial practice for years.
"We wanted to make it clear: If the student does not tell the parents, the school system will advise the parents," Aquino said. "Parents have a right to that information."
Mark Blom, the system's general counsel, said school health offices should not be regarded as clinical settings, where the state's minor consent law would apply.
Andrew Gavelek, the eight-member board's student representative and a senior at Reservoir High, cast the lone no vote. He talked to 40 female students and said they unanimously opposed the policy.
"If they were going to tell their parents, they would want to do it themselves," he said.
Some parents and health experts remain divided. "There are just certain things -- like pregnancy -- that cannot be kept from parents," said Ellicia B. Chau, a parent.
"Keep in mind that if a school system employee had knowledge that my child was pregnant and did not tell me and something awful happened, the school system would be held liable," parent Stephanie Foster told school board members at a December meeting.
Tina L. Cheng, chief of general pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Johns Hopkins University, said research has shown that significant numbers of sexually active adolescents said they would stop using health-care services if confronted with mandatory parental notification.
"It may not be in the best interests in some circumstances for the parents to know up front," Cheng said.
Rosemary Mortimer, a nurse on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and a longtime education activist in Howard, said: "I believe students will deliver without prenatal care because they're afraid to tell anyone. It's like putting an 'A' for a scarlet letter on a young lady."
