On Sunday, April 23 our Legislation Committee emailed all 50 Senators and their staff regarding SB232.
While we believe that Senator Brooks’s SB232, Lyme Disease Education of Parents, and Establishing Protocols for Tick Bites in Schools is well-intended, two major parts of this bill stood out to us:
First, “(1) A school nurse, school physician or employee of a school district shall remove a tick from a student in accordance with guidelines issued by the Secretary of Health.”
Only a school nurse or a school physician is qualified to remove a tick. If done improperly, the student is put at higher risk of tick-borne disease. Additionally, requiring a random employee of the district to remove a tick raises issues of liability. Who is liable if problems arise from removal?
Second, “(ii) be sent directly by the school district to the Tick Research Lab of Pennsylvania for testing using the free basic panel tick test. Upon receiving the results, the school district shall inform the child’s parent or guardian of the results”.
If parents decline to send the ticks themselves to the lab, why are the results not sent directly to the parent(s) and sent only to the school district? There is no benefit to making the school the middleman between parent/guardian and test results. Would the school nurse be required to disclose prior to sending the tick that these results would be sent to the district instead of the parent? Furthermore, under SB232, the test results returned to the school would be placed into a student’s medical record at school. Schools are not held to HIPAA; rather, they fall under FERPA. According to The HIPPA Journal, “If health information is stored in education records, it is not classed as protected health information and is therefore not covered by the HIPAA Privacy Rule.”
Our Legislation Committee was alerted Monday morning that Senator Brooks was willing to amend SB232. And while it isn’t perfect, we consider the amendments that passed 49-1 on April 25th to be an enormous win for parents across the commonwealth! This bill was amended on 3rd consideration, which rarely happens. The bill was amended to read that a school nurse, school physician or designated employee of the school entity […] because not all schools have a school nurse and/or physician. Our 2nd issue was a bit trickier but, in the end, the original results will be given to the parents or guardians of the child, the school may not make a copy of those results, nor may they place any of the information in the child’s school record. The only thing the school may notate from the results are the type of disease(s) present in the tick which is to be used for the purpose of compiling data regarding what diseases are present around the school’s property.
On April 26th, SB232 passed 49-1 off the Senate floor. This bill currently sits in the House Education Committee.
We are excited to continue supporting this bipartisan supported bill through its journey in the PA House! Stay tuned for how you can help!