What the law requires
ORS 336.216 governs universal mental health screening in Oregon and it is an opt-out statute. Families must be notified and given a mechanism to decline. Full detail in Module 1.1.
✓ Take Action. Send notice far enough ahead that a family has time to ask questions and decline. Two weeks minimum, by mail to the last known address and by email. A notice that arrives on Friday for a Monday screening is technically compliant and practically a broken promise.
What to send
A mailer and an email. Both. Families who read email are not the same families who read what comes home in a backpack.
What the notice covers:
- What the screening is and what it asks
- When it is happening
- Who sees the results, and who does not
- What happens if a student screens at risk
- How to opt out, with a deadline and a form
- Who to contact with questions, by name
What the notice does not do: persuade. The opt-out section is information, not an argument. A family that feels pressured on the notice is a family that distrusts the program when the phone call comes.
Translation
The notice goes out in the languages your families actually read, not only Spanish, and not only the languages your district usually translates into.
Never rely on a student to translate a notice to their own family about their own mental health screening. See Module 8.17.
The information night
A live, virtual question and answer session before screening week. An hour is enough.
Cover the privacy protections concretely, walk through what the Dashboard is and is not, and let people ask hard questions. Attendance is usually low and that is fine. The point is that it happened and was offered, and the families who come are often the ones who would otherwise have opted out.
