Supervision, nurturing, desertion, and psychological neglect off the abuse list
Two education unions just redrew the line on what Oregon school employees can be investigated for.
The Oregon Court of Appeals on September 23 invalidated four portions of an Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) rule that defined "abuse" for school-based investigations. The agency, the court held, had stretched its definition well past what the legislature authorized.
It started in 2019. Oregon's legislature passed Senate Bill 155, creating a mandate for ODHS to investigate abuse reports involving school employees, contractors, agents, and volunteers. The law gave the agency authority to "adopt any rules necessary" for those investigations. What it did not give was permission to rewrite what counts as abuse.
ODHS did it anyway, the Oregon Education Association and the Oregon School Employees Association argued. The statute defines negligent treatment as "the failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter or medical care that is likely to endanger the health or welfare of the child." ODHS had tacked on supervision, protection, nurturing, desertion, and psychological neglect.
The court sided with the unions. Food, clothing, shelter, medical care - those are basic physical and medical needs. Supervision, nurturing, desertion, and psychological neglect are not in the same category. The statute's "including but not limited to" clause did not hand the agency a blank cheque to invent new...
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