The mental health form you never returned can’t be a yes, Washington says

The federal agency that enforces student privacy law says a school cannot screen your child’s mental health without your signature, and that an opt-out form is no substitute. The red pen landed on Illinois. On October 30, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office gave Illinois until November 13, 2026, to revise the guidance it issued to districts in August 2026.

Every state got the warning. On October 5, 2026, the department and the Justice Department wrote to every state attorney general that schools asking parents to opt out, instead of collecting written consent, are breaking federal law. Under an opt-out your silence counts as yes, and the screening, a set of questions a student answers about things like depression, anxiety and trauma, happens unless you say no. The two federal laws in this fight cover most public schools, so the question reaches well past Illinois.

Washington and California read the word “required” in opposite directions

The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, or PPRA, says no student “shall be required,” in a federal education program, to submit to a survey, analysis or evaluation revealing “mental or psychological problems of the student or the student’s family” without a parent’s prior written consent. Another part lets parents opt out of surveys on those topics. Read on its own, that makes a screening your family can decline the opt-out kind, with no signature needed.

The department rejected that reading in an August 26, 2026 letter to state and district school chiefs. Students commonly feel obliged when a school official gives them a survey, it reasoned, so any survey on the protected topics, with or without direct federal money, “will be considered by this Office as ‘required.’” Violations can cost a school system its federal funding.

That letter is the agency’s reading, not a court’s. California’s education department told its districts on September 23, 2026 that it “does not have the force and effect of law” and that a signature is needed only when a survey actually requires a student to take part. Two governments now read one sentence two ways, and only one of them controls the federal money.

Illinois law names the opt-out, and a district can still demand a signature

Under Public Act 104-0032, Illinois districts must offer a screening at least once a year in grades 3 through 12 starting in the 2027-2028 school year, barring an extension, as long as the state supplies a free tool students fill out themselves. The statute says the state’s model procedures must include “the option to opt-out.”

The state board’s August 2026 guidance lets each district choose between opt-out and written consent, and it says opt-out is “associated with considerably higher participation rates.” Nothing in the statute stops a district from collecting signatures. On consent, an Illinois district can satisfy both governments by requiring a signature first.

The board has less room, because that line of the statute binds its own model procedures. A rewrite that drops the opt-out would run into Illinois law, and one that keeps it as a district’s choice runs into Washington.

Records are harder. They fall under FERPA, the federal law that lets parents see their child’s school files.

The “temporary” label hides less than it sounds in Illinois, where the school records act already gives a parent the right to “inspect and copy” temporary records along with permanent ones.

A rewrite may not settle the bottom row. The age-12 rule comes from a state statute, the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act, which the guidance only describes, and the department’s public statement does not mention it. That section says it does not affect access under the school records act, which itself protects what a student tells school staff in confidence, and the guidance says the stricter rule wins when both apply. So the answer turns on who holds the results. The act is likelier to apply, the guidance says, when a therapist keeps them, and even then a parent may request and receive the child’s diagnosis and treatment needs.

The guidance still carried its August 2026 date on November 2, 2026. We will add the board’s answer here.

The school owes you the questions first and the records within 45 days at most

These steps work in any state.

• Find the annual notice. Schools must tell you about these rights each year, through a calendar, newsletter, handbook or website. The department is rewriting its sample forms, so ask the school office for this year’s.
• Read before your child answers. PPRA lets you inspect a survey on the protected topics before the school gives it. California, for all its dispute with Washington over signatures, agrees on this part.
• Ask for the records in writing. Federal law gives the school no more than 45 days to let you see them, and your state may give it less. Illinois allows 10 business days, plus up to 5 more if the district extends. What a school is likeliest to hold back is a staff member’s private notes, kept as a memory aid.

The Illinois guidance itself says a screening is not a diagnosis. If you are worried about your child, talk to your pediatrician.

Washington gave Illinois a deadline, and you can give your school one. Email the office one sentence: “Please let me read any mental health survey or screening before my child takes it, and show me any results on file.” A school that receives it on November 16, 2026 owes you the results by December 31, 2026 under federal law, and an Illinois school owes them by about December 1, 2026.

The tables we built and the calculations we ran on this page are free to reuse under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: credit Kidsomnia and link here. Government figures inside them stay under the agency’s own terms.