Kansas Schools’ Transgender Mistreatment of Children Draws Federal Rebuke

The Trump administration has made the message clear: children cannot identify as the other gender at school without their parents’ knowledge. Several Kansas school districts have been under fire for permitting students to use different names, pronouns, and written gender transition plans at school without notifying their parents. In response to concerns brought to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the U.S. Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (CRD) acted to protect and uphold children’s safety and parents’ right to know what information is maintained in their children’s school records.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon received a letter from Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach outlining concerns about policies in four Kansas school districts. According to the letter, the districts may have violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Title IX by allowing information related to a student's gender identity, including preferred names, pronouns, and related records, to be withheld from parents. The policies also permitted students to exclude parents from discussion regarding gender identity transitions and limited parents’ ability to contest these plans. The U.S. Department of Justice argues that such policies infringe upon parental rights protected by FERPA and Title IX and maintains that school districts cannot violate federal law in the name of supporting gender ideology.

Only one of the districts, Topeka Public Schools, has agreed to enter into a Resolution Agreement with SPPO. The resolution prevents school personnel from creating or enforcing gender support plans, prevents schools from withholding student information from parents, and requires teachers and administrators to cover pre-approved FERPA content in training. The remaining districts, specifically the Olathe Public Schools and Shawnee Mission Public Schools, support that they were not in direct violation of FERPA or Title IX regulations. Since these districts have refused to comply with FERPA guidelines, the SPPO has partnered with CRD to take further action to enforce parental rights laws. The U.S. Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, has made it clear that the U.S. Department of Education and CRD are prepared to enforce FERPA regulations upon any remaining school districts responsible for withholding student records from parents. 

Parents need to protect their children from grooming by school officials. Rather than sexually mistreating students and promoting ideological agendas, schools need to focus on their primary mission: providing students with a quality education and skills necessary to promote future success.