Bill > A3926

Introduced Session

This bill requires a board of education to ensure that students in grades seven through 12 annually receive a health screening for depression. The screening will be administered by the school physician or school nurse and will consist of a written self-report questionnaire to be selected by the Commissioner of Health. Under the bill, the Department of Education and the Department of Health will jointly establish standards on the procedures to be implemented to conduct the screenings. The screenings must be conducted in a manner that ensures the privacy of the student and the confidentiality of the results. The bill requires a board of education to notify the parent or guardian of a student whose screening for depression detects a suspected deviation from the recommended standard and to encourage the parent or guardian to share the results of the screening with the student's primary care physician. A student may be exempt from the depression screening upon written request of the student's parent or guardian. In March 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics published updated guidelines on adolescent depression, which recommend that adolescents ages 12 and older should be screened annually for depression using a formal self-report screening tool.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Herbert Conaway (D)*,  Pam Lampitt (D)*,  Carol Murphy (D)*,  John Armato (D),  Daniel Benson (D),  Joe Danielsen (D),  JoAnn Downey (D),  John McKeon (D),  Angela Mcknight (D),  Gabriela Mosquera (D),  Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D),  Shanique Speight (D),  Shavonda Sumter (D),  Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D),  Anthony Verrelli (D), 

Substituted by S2835 (2R) (on 01/13/2020)