52-2-211. County or regional interdisciplinary child information and school safety team. (1) The county commissioners of each county shall ensure the formation of a county or regional interdisciplinary child information and school safety team that includes representatives authorized by any of the following:

(a) the youth court;

(b) the county attorney;

(c) the department of public health and human services;

(d) the county superintendent of schools;

(e) the sheriff;

(f) the chief of any police force;

(g) any board of trustees of a public school district operating within the boundaries of the county; and

(h) the department of corrections.

(2) Officials under subsection (1) from one county may also cooperate with officials under subsection (1) from any other county to form regional interdisciplinary child information and school safety teams, in which case access to information under 41-5-215(2) is authorized for all members of the regional team for each county participating in a regional team. The formation of regional teams must be formalized by written agreement between participating counties.

(3) The persons and agencies listed in subsection (1) or (2) may by majority vote allow the following persons to join the team:

(a) physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, and other providers of medical and mental health care;

(b) entities operating private elementary and secondary schools;

(c) attorneys; and

(d) a person or entity that has or may have a legitimate interest in one or more children that the team will serve.

(4) (a) The members of the team or their designees may form one or more auxiliary teams for the purpose of providing service to a single child, a group of children, or children with a particular type of problem or for any other purpose.

(b) A member of an auxiliary team must be a person who has personal knowledge of or experience with the child or children in the member's respective field.

(5) The purpose of the team is to ensure the timely exchange and sharing of information that one or more team members may be able to use in serving a child in the course of their professions and occupations, including but not limited to abused or neglected children, delinquent youth, and youth in need of intervention, and of information relating to issues of school safety. Information regarding a child that a team member supplies to other team members or that is disseminated to a team member under 41-3-205 or 41-5-215(2) may not be disseminated beyond the organizations or departments that have an authorized member on the team under this section.

(6) A written agreement may be created to provide for the rules under which the team will operate, the method by which information will be shared, distributed, and managed, and any other matters necessary to the purpose and functions of the team. Any agreement created may not limit access of any team member to information under 41-5-215(2).

(7) An interdisciplinary child information and school safety team shall coordinate its efforts with interdisciplinary child protective teams as provided in 41-3-108 and youth placement committees as provided for in 41-5-121.

(8) To the extent that the county or regional interdisciplinary child information and school safety team is involved in a proceeding that is held prior to adjudication of a youth in youth court, the team satisfies the requirements of 20 U.S.C. 1232g(b)(1)(E)(ii)(I) of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. Montana school districts may release education records to the team. The officials and authorities to whom the information is disclosed may not disclose any information to any other party without the prior written consent of the parent or guardian of the student.

(9) The county superintendent of schools shall provide to the office of public instruction a current copy of any written agreement under this section no later than September 1. The office of public instruction shall report to the education interim committee no later than September 15 any county that has not provided a written agreement under this section.

History: En. Sec. 1, Ch. 510, L. 1991; amd. Sec. 26, Ch. 458, L. 1995; amd. Sec. 7, Ch. 466, L. 1995; amd. Sec. 341, Ch. 546, L. 1995; amd. Sec. 58, Ch. 550, L. 1997; amd. Sec. 2, Ch. 564, L. 1999; amd. Sec. 7, Ch. 364, L. 2013; amd. Sec. 5, Ch. 248, L. 2019.