An Act to require the School Health Services Committee, in collaboration with the Department of Education, to study and make recommendations on best practices for annual mental health screenings for public school students in grades six through 12 utilizing evidence-based tools; report.
HB355 requires the School Health Services Committee, working with the Department of Education, to study and recommend best practices for annual mental health screenings for public school students in grades 6 through 12. The study must focus on screenings that use evidence-based tools and identify practical policies for how such screenings should be administered in schools.
The bill directs the Committee to examine several implementation issues, including how parents may opt their children out, how staff should be trained to administer screening tools, how schools should communicate with families about the screenings and results, and how to protect the confidentiality, privacy, and storage of screening data. It also requires consideration of accommodations for bilingual students, students with disabilities, and students with low reading proficiency, as well as ways to allow real-time review of results and same-day intervention by a licensed mental health professional when needed.
HB355 does not itself mandate statewide mental health screenings, but it adds a formal study and reporting obligation to the School Health Services Committee under § 30-411 of the Code of Virginia. The bill affects public school students in grades 6 through 12, the Department of Education, school health and mental health stakeholders, and any future policy decisions that may follow from the Committee’s recommendations. Its practical effect is to place annual mental health screening best-practices, privacy safeguards, parental opt-out procedures, and accessibility accommodations into the state’s education and health policy review process.
The bill appears generally supportive and preventive in tone, reflecting interest in expanding attention to student mental health while emphasizing safeguards and implementation details. Because the measure is a study-and-report bill rather than a direct mandate, it is framed as a measured approach that can gather evidence and recommendations before any broader policy change. No committee transcript or recorded vote information was provided, so there is no documented opposition or floor debate in the supplied materials.
The main issues the bill anticipates are the same issues likely to generate debate in future policy discussions: whether parents should have an opt-out right, how much confidentiality and data protection is required, who should administer screenings and with what training, and whether schools can reliably provide same-day mental health follow-up. Additional points of concern include how screenings would work for bilingual students, students with disabilities, and students with low reading proficiency. These topics suggest potential tension between expanding access to mental health identification and protecting family choice, privacy, and administrative feasibility.