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NEDA TOOLKIT for Educators Why parent-school communications may be difficult This information is intended to help both parents and school staff understand each other’s perspectives about communication and the factors that affect their communications. Parents of children with an eating disorder (diagnosed or undiagnosed) sometimes express frustration about what they perceive as a lack of communication about their child’s behavior from school teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, and other school administrative personnel. From the parents’ perspective, feelings have been expressed that “my child is in school and at school activities more waking hours a day than they are home. Why didn’t the school staff notice something was wrong? Why don’t they contact us about our child to tell us what they think?” From a teacher’s perspective, feelings have been expressed that “eating disorders can be difficult to spot, especially when someone may be going to great lengths to hide the problem. Also, it’s often the case that a given teacher sees a student less than an hour a day in a class full of kids. So no school staff person is seeing the child for a prolonged period, and they often have a hard time getting a good baseline from which to detect changes.” It is important to keep in mind that rules vary by state, city, and district, and to educate yourself on your locality’s confidentiality and communication regulations. Some schools may be bound by strict protocols generated by state regulations about how teachers and staff are required to channel observations and concerns, while in many districts teachers can and do contact parents directly about concerns they have over a student, whether directly related to academic performance or other behavior observed at school. Teachers can also address issues directly with the student. Parents are often grateful for the communication from the teacher and open and responsive to concern and feedback, although there are exceptions to this. Although a parent can request that a teacher not disclose certain issues to the student, and students can ask that the teacher not contact their parent, there are few laws prohibiting or requiring this disclosure except in cases of suspected abuse. Eating disorders can have serious and even deadly consequences so both parents and teachers must keep the overall well-being of the student in the forefront of their minds as they make decisions about what to disclose and to whom. However, in some areas, school districts may be required to have a “student assistance program” team to handle student nonacademic issues. Guidance counselors may also be involved, given the nature of eating disorders. Some guidance counselors may ask that a teacher be responsible for all parent communication so that the student will continue to share their concerns openly and honestly with the counselor. Guidance counselors may have slightly different ethical concerns and obligations to the student and his or her parents than teachers do. The American School Counselor Association’s (ASCA) position statement on confidentiality (www.schoolcounselor.org) states the professional responsibilities of school counselors, emphasizing rights to privacy, defining the meaning of confidentiality in a school setting, and describing the role of the school counselor. The position statement underscores that an atmosphere of trust and confidentiality is vital to the student-counselor relationship; a counselor’s primary obligation is to their students, but that obligation should be balanced by mindfulness of the family’s legal and inherent rights in their child’s life. Page  | 23