Parents Are Asking for Answers

Palmdale fifth-grader Jimmy Fields came home from school on a recent afternoon, made sure his three younger siblings were out of earshot, and told his mother about the survey he’d just taken.

A school counselor for a Los Angeles nonprofit agency administered the questionnaire. Among other things, it asked Jimmy how often he thought about having sex, how often he thought about touching other people’s private parts and how often he wanted to kill himself.

“I was so floored, I was almost speechless,” said his mother, Tammany Fields. “He’s 11.”

According to the Palmdale School District, the surveys were given to 12 third- and fifth-graders at Mesquite Elementary School in January, after their parents signed consent forms. But some parents like Fields say the forms were vague and indicated only that the questions would measure exposure to “early trauma.”

The survey has become a major embarrassment for the K-8 district in this bastion of high desert conservatism. Some residents are calling for the resignation of school district Supt. Nancy Smith.

The counselor who conducted the survey, Kristi Seymour, said she was fired as a result by the Children’s Bureau of Southern California, an agency dedicated to fighting child abuse.

Distribution of the survey is also under investigation by the California School of Professional Psychology, where Seymour is enrolled in a doctoral program.

The Palmdale school board will consider stricter rules for surveys at its Feb. 19 meeting.

Nationwide, many conservative and parental rights groups have battled school districts over questionnaires that pry into the most intimate corners of the student psyche. Allen Parker, chief executive of the San Antonio-based Texas Justice Foundation, says too many schools are taking the otherwise laudable concept of in loco parentis too far.

“This comes up all the time--you’ll get this attitude from a school district that ‘these are our kids, and we can do what we want with them.’ That’s a nice idea,” Parker said, “but these are not their kids. They’re the parents’ kids.”

In 1999, his group sued the San Antonio Independent School District over a survey that, among other things, asked high school students if they ever wanted to switch genders. As part of the settlement, Parker said, the district set up a parents advisory board that now screens all questionnaires.

In New Jersey, the state Legislature passed a law last month that strengthens parental consent rules for surveys. The bill was influenced in part by a lawsuit that parents brought against a Ridgewood district over a questionnaire that asked about sex, birth control and suicide.

In New Milford, Conn., parents complained to administrators at Schagticoke Middle School after sixth-graders in a gym class filled out an explicit sex survey in 2000. The school board apologized.

“[Schools say], ‘We’re going to ask these very intrusive questions about sex and drugs,’ and they’re really trying to find out what’s going on at home,” said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based conservative group, which joined parents as plaintiffs in the New Jersey suit.

“The idea being that if the kids are doing bad at school, it’s the parents’ fault,” he said. “Parents have become the suspects in our society.”

Palmdale schools spokesman Isaac Barcelona said district officials were shocked when they learned that the survey had been conducted.

Barcelona and Seymour agree on the events that led to the issuance of the questionnaire, up to a point.

Both say Seymour--who had developed a good reputation after a year and a half of counseling at the school--had approached district officials in 2001 about a districtwide survey.

She told officials that the responses would be used for her doctoral thesis but also might help the district secure grants for counseling programs, they say.

Officials turned her down, saying the project was too big. She returned a few months later with a pilot survey that would focus on students at Mesquite School.

Barcelona said the district psychological services director, Michael Geisser, reviewed the 54 questions.

Barcelona said Geisser asked Seymour to remove six questions he thought were inappropriate and bring the survey back for further review.

Barcelona said the counselor apparently administered the survey without omitting the questions.

“We don’t know why she went ahead with it,” he said. “She never got the final clearance.”

Seymour, 34, said Geisser only told her to take out the questions for first-graders she had wanted to survey. She said he approved the entire questionnaire for the older students.

About 400 letters were sent to parents asking for their consent, but only 20 forms were returned. The letters promised confidentiality.

The contractual portion read, “I understand answering questions may make my child feel uncomfortable.” It added that Seymour would help parents find a psychologist for their children if they become too uncomfortable.

Tammany Fields said the letter, which arrived at her house in a district envelope, did not mention sex or suicide. “We didn’t see anything that put up a red flag,” she said.

The letter also said the survey was a collaborative effort with the California School of Professional Psychology and the Children’s Bureau. Both deny any involvement in the survey.

Ellin Bloch, director of the psychology school’s clinical doctorate program, said the survey “was not carried out under the auspices of our school.”

Bloch said the matter was “under very serious investigation” by the school. She added that Seymour did not get the required approval for the survey from the college’s “human subjects” committee.

Seymour said she did not submit the survey to the committee because the district was pressuring her to send out the questionnaire in January.

In a telephone interview, she cried as she told of devoting her life’s work to helping children. She said that if she could do it over again, the survey would go only to children referred to her by police or shelters. But she said she would still consider giving it to younger children.

“There are a lot of kids that age who have serious problems and need help,” she said.

Ted Feinberg, assistant executive director of the National Assn. of School Psychologists, said the survey did not sound like it was appropriate for third- and fifth-graders. But he said sensitive questionnaires should have a place in schools.

“I think it’s very important to keep your finger on the pulse of what kids are feeling and thinking,” Feinberg said. “It needs to be done in a responsible and scientific way.”

Tammany Fields agrees. But in this case, she said, she wasn’t given enough information on the consent form.

“There was much that was misleading here,” she said.