Broward Schools Study Use of Medication With Students
By Bill Hirschman, Education Writer
Originally published in the Sun-Sentinel, June 8, 2001
Scores of Broward County schoolchildren receive prescriptions every year for various medications—not from their family doctor, but from school district psychiatrists.
As–yet unsubstantiated concerns about abuses and the potential for lawsuits have school officials rethinking having employees prescribing medication, including anti–psychotic drugs, which have side effects.
"We're going to have a committee look at how we handle this," Superintendent Frank Till told School Board members this week. "I think the real question I want the committee to ask is: Should it be our responsibility to be prescribing medications at all?"
"We have a responsibility to help administer them, but do we want to accept the responsibility of prescribing them? Is that our role?"
No one has proved that employees prescribe medications solely to make children more manageable, but some parents have alleged the problem exists.
"This has been going on for quite some time: There are too many kids on these potent medications and the monitoring is not what it should be," said Ivan Baratz, chairman of the Exceptional Students Education Advisory Committee. "I have a problem with the district becoming medication administrators."
Baratz said he suspects that "the psychiatrists come in there and it's the first thing they do [to solve a problem]. It's a quick fix. — And once a child is on medication, it's impossible to get him off."
The district has not received any serious complaints, said Leah Kelly, director of special education.
"Medication is not prescribed to control a student's behavior but to address the underlying causes of the behavior, [such as] depression, psychosis etc.," the district's policy states.
"We have gotten very positive responses from parents because of the psychiatric services provided, and because of them we have been able to maintain students in their homes or other settings, like foster homes, rather than place them in residential centers," Kelly said.
School psychiatrists get parents' permission before prescribing medication, and explain the possible side effects.
But Baratz and others say parents usually defer to the psychiatrist's judgment. But district officials say school principals meet with the psychiatrists weekly to consult on each student's situation.
The issue arose last month when the School Board was asked to renew contracts with psychiatrists working for the district at three schools serving more than 480 severely emotionally disturbed children.
The approval was delayed because the board wanted more information about concerns over medication at Whispering Pines in Miramar, Sunset in Fort Lauderdale and Cross Creek in Pompano Beach.
Three–quarters of the students at those schools were taking medication this spring, according to a study that the state Department of Children & Families compiled for the district. Nearly half those children were receiving medication prescribed by school psychiatrists.
