In this year’s legislative session, the Gold Dome has churned out a slew of terrible bills. But in a handful of cases, bipartisan collaboration was able to scrap or improve bad and dangerous legislation. One crucial example of this came about on Sunday – when legislators reached a deal affirming parental rights in children’s mental health care at school.

House Bill 23-1003 was introduced earlier this year by Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet to help address the youth mental health crisis by identifying students who may be falling through the cracks.

“Mental health challenges can happen to anybody – can be your neighbor, your son, your grandfather, your aunt,” Roshini Rajkumar, communications/crisis coach and host of “The Crisis Files” podcast, told me on 710KNUS Saturday. She lamented a recent Accenture study looking at trends for 2023 and concluding we are in a state of “perma-crisis.”

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If adults and our communities are constantly in perma-crisis, how about our young people?

“By May of 2020, we officially were in a state of mental health emergency, which is not a term that’s ever been used before – but that’s how significant that it was,” clinical psychologist, Dr. Sheryl Zielger, PsyD., added on my radio show. “We really are in a state where kids have not rebounded, this is something that really permeates into the educational system… it permeates into the family system, the health care system.”

The motivation behind HB1003 was noble. As someone who’s been public for a few years about my own treatment for serious clinical depression and anxiety in the past, I commend the intent.

The bill creates a statewide mental health screening program for students in grades six through 12. There is no statewide requirement for participation; schools that opt-in would administer with a “qualified provider.”

But the original bill had one fatal problem: it shut out parents. Though they could opt a child out, anyone aged 12-and-older could opt back in.

“Not only could a kid opt themselves back in, behind their parents’ back,” Sen. Jim Smallwood told me on 710KNUS on Tuesday, “but even if the assessment deemed there was some sort of significant crisis – potential for suicide, potential for harming others – if the child had opted themselves in, the parent wouldn’t have been notified if their child was suicidal or in a state where they might hurt somebody else.”

As I detailed in February, that approach undermines a fresh body of research demonstrating the significant link between parental involvement and a child’s mental health. Two research teams led by the University of Maryland’s Dr. Cixin Wang published studies examining this connection at the middle and high school levels.

“Considering the protective role of parental involvement, it is critical for schools to provide a variety of opportunities for different parents to be involved,” the middle school study finds. “The degree to which students feel they can openly communicate with their families about social and emotional problems increases the likelihood of them being able to mitigate the adverse effects of victimization, such as (suicidal thoughts and behaviors),” the high school study stresses.

Fortunately, the Senate amended HB1003 in committee and then on the floor to protect parental involvement in kids’ mental health issues. Both of the concerning provisions, among a few others, were removed and/or revised from the bill.

Smallwood was arguably the most instrumental Republican in the effort to amend the bill – bolstered by significant public outcry, especially from parents on both the right and the left.

The bill was first changed in a Senate committee “to at least fix the child-in-crisis errors that I think were in the bill as introduced,” Smallwood said – meaning, the screener will notify the students’ parents first in a crisis situation.

This weekend, another agreement was reached to ensure that, “if a parent opts their child out (of the screening), now that is firm – and there is not an option for a child to opt themselves back in.” This is critical, he argued, because “you just can’t carve parents out of the equation.”

To be sure, researchers have found school-wide mental health screenings are valuable for helping catch students in need. In fact, the aforementioned middle school study concludes, “school psychologists should implement school-wide mental health screenings to identify students who may be at increased risk of experiencing mental health challenges, such as girls and students who are victimized…”

So, it makes sense for schools to conduct mental health screenings – but parents must be involved. “Until HB1003 gives parents final opt-out rights – or better yet, empowers them to opt-in – and mandates that all results automatically get sent to the parents, the bill should not become law,” I ended my February column.

Though parents still aren’t able to opt into the screenings, the bill does accomplish those two main objectives – ensuring parents have the final opt-out rights and making sure screening results are appropriately sent to the parents.

“I commend the bill sponsors for being open to a conversation,” said Smallwood. “I feel much, much better about the bill the way it is now.”

I second Sen. Smallwood.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Coloradans should cheer legislators’ ability to redress parents’ concerns and strike a bipartisan deal that addresses the mental health crisis in a balanced way. Colorado’s kids deserve this kind of thoughtfulness and collaboration. HB23-1003 isn’t perfect, but presuming the amendments hold, I’d say it’s become a bill worth passing.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on News/Talk 710 KNUS. Reach Jimmy online at JimmySengenberger.com or on Twitter @SengCenter.