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Bob Bundy

Position on IDEA "Consent" removal proposal

The Secretary of Education has proposed to remove the requirement for public agencies to obtain parental consent prior to accessing, for the first time, a student’s public benefits or insurance.

I applaud this proposal.  It removes what has become a major obstacle LEAs face in accessing these benefits for the purpose of the school-based services program.

The proposal summary states:  “As there are no comparable consent requirements prior to accessing public benefits for children without disabilities, the removal of this consent requirement would align public benefits consent requirements for children with disabilities to those for children without disabilities and ensure equal treatment of both groups of children.”

This statement is correct in its specificity but not in its practical application.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) requires (99.30) “written consent before an…agency…discloses personally identifiable information from the…education records.” 

Since a disclosure of student PII would need to occur the first time that information was sent to a Medicaid agency, in effect, there IS a comparable consent for students without disabilities.

The FERPA consent requirement applies to ALL student records and thus, removing the redundant consent requirement from IDEA relieves LEAs from having to reconcile the slight variations between the two.

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School Medicaid Lunchinar Feedback Survey Results

We get lots of great feedback and input on our School Medicaid Lunchinars.  With several hundred attendees from all over the country, we hope that it's hitting the mark of providing quality information on a program that doesn't get a lot of attention.

But we want to be sure that we're hitting that mark.  So at the end of the last few school years, we've polled all of the folks who've registered for a Lunchinar with a short online survey.  We had a great response this year and want to share the results.

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CARES Provider Relief Fund - Can Schools Participate?

Mid-July, this question was posted to the School Medicaid group on Facebook:  "Does the Medicaid Cares Act Provider Relief Fund apply to schools?"

The federal CARES Provider Relief Fund includes $175 billion in relief funds to hospitals and healthcare providers due to loss of revenue attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.  What about public schools that participate in their states' School Medicaid program?  Are they eligible?  In a June 15 phone call with NAME, CMS said that schools were not excluded from this program.  Have any school districts applied and received funds?  Is it relatively easy to apply.  The answers are "Yes" and "Yes."

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