Tag: parental rights

Ed Department: California Violated Family Rights Law By Secretly ‘Transitioning’ Students

The U.S. Department of Education found the California Department of Education (CDE) in violation of federal family rights law on Wednesday for facilitating the gender “transition” of children and hiding it from their parents.

California pressured school districts across the state to violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a student privacy and parental rights law, by forcing them to conceal student records from parents about their child’s so-called “gender transition,” according to a senior department official detailing the results of an investigation Wednesday.

“FERPA requires that schools provide access to all education records upon a parent’s request. Schools do not get to choose which records they feel like providing to parents and which ones they don’t,” the official said. “As Secretary McMahon stated last year, this is not only patently unlawful, but morally reprehensible. Children do not belong to the state. They belong to their parents. Parents must know about the most sensitive information pertaining to their child’s health and well-being.”

A Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) investigation found that at least 300 students in California were put on “‘gender support plans,’ many without parental consent or knowledge.” At CDE’s direction, school officials placed the “support plans” in “separate filing systems” to keep parents in the dark about the plans.

As The Federalist reported, school personnel are often some of the first and most influential people a student interacts with regarding confusion about sex and “gender,” and many push children toward “social transition” like name and pronoun changes, which often leads to destructive medical interventions.

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They Trained Us How to Hide Kids’ Gender Changes from Mom and Dad: Teacher Whistleblower

A former public school teacher in Olympia, Washington, says educators were instructed to conceal sensitive student information from parents, including changes to gender identity and pronouns, during his time working in the Olympia School District.

Ryan Defant, who now teaches at Evergreen Christian School in Olympia, made the claims while describing his experience as a teacher at Centennial Elementary.

Defant said that during multiple staff meetings, teachers were trained on how to use internal systems to keep certain student information hidden from parents.

“My name is Ryan Defant right now. I’m currently teaching at Evergreen Christian school, and I live in Olympia, Washington. I used to work at Centennial Elementary in the Olympia School District, and I can recall several staff meetings where we were trained and showed how we can hide information from parents using our skyward program,” Defant said.

Skyward is a widely used student information system that allows families to access grades, attendance records, and other school-related information.

According to Defant, teachers were instructed on how to enter data into the system in a way that blocked parental access.

“Skyward program was where we did our grades and attendance and information for families to access, but we had a teacher, and a couple teachers actually train us on how we can input information into skyward that was behind a wall that parents couldn’t access,” he said.

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California Family Loses Custody Of Daughter After Refusing To Medically “Affirm” Her Transgender Identity

A Ukrainian family in California says Child Welfare removed their teenage daughter from their home and placed them on the child abuse registry after they declined to “affirm” her transgender identity. Speaking to Reduxx under the condition of anonymity, the parents say the removal followed a report filed by their daughter’s psychiatrist without their knowledge.

The mother, who will be referred to as Ellie, told Reduxx that a social worker from Shasta County Child Welfare Services arrived at the family’s home on June 3, 2024, without prior notice. According to Ellie, the worker accused the parents of emotional abuse and demanded access to their daughter, who will be referred to as Maya, without presenting a warrant or court order.

“She just kept saying, ‘You’re emotionally abusing your child,’” Ellie said. “But she had nothing in her hands. No paperwork. Nothing.”

The removal was a dramatic climax following years of instability that Ellie says began in early childhood. After the family immigrated to the United States in 2007, Maya began experiencing anxiety, anger issues, attention difficulties, and emotional dysregulation. Her mental health concerns, which once resulted in a temporary placement in a psychiatric facility, were made worse by the persistent bullying she experienced at school starting in first and second grade. She said the bullying came not only from other students but also from indifferent teachers, and that repeated complaints to school administrators were dismissed.

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Florida Enacts Historic Law Banning Minors from Attending “Drag” Shows, Strengthening Child Protection, Parental Authority, and Traditional Values

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed this week a law prohibiting minors from participating in “drag” shows.

The law is already in effect and responds to growing concern over children and teenagers being exposed to sexualized content at public events, where adults dressed in female attire perform in front of young audiences.

State authorities emphasize that the law aims to protect childhood, restore common sense, and reinforce parental authority in the education of their children.

Republican lawmakers defended the measure, highlighting that parents’ right to decide what their children are exposed to should take precedence over ideological agendas that promote sexualized behavior from an early age.

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California Schools Are About to See Waves of Children Flee After Gavin Newsom’s ‘Demonic’ ‘Kidnap’ Bill

While the world’s attention was focused on the release of the Jewish hostages taken by Islamic Hamas monsters, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that would make it easy for strangers to kidnap children from his state’s schools—without parental permission, naturally. While one story gloried in hostages freed from totalitarian barbarians, another set of totalitarians loosed a plot to take more. 

Think that’s overwrought? Hold my beer. 

Newsom signed AB 495 into law on Sunday night and pretended that the law, proffered by a Democrat to hide kids illegally in the country from Immigration authorities, kept parental rights intact and preserved parents’ relationships with their own children. Instead, it made every child in California schools, preschools, and state-licensed childcare facilities a target. 

Newsom had the hubris and temerity to tout it as “a bill to protect parents’ rights and children.”

That is false. Indeed, it’s worse than false. It’s a license allowing anyone to take your child without your permission and act as that child’s unapproved “guardian.” As the California Family Council (CFA) put it, “Anyone falsely claiming kinship can easily sign the affidavit, access a child, obtain medical care, and enroll them in another school. Even the most basic safeguard of a notary is not required to confirm the true identity of the person accessing your child. AB 495 violates fundamentally constitutionally protected parental rights, endangers California’s children, and will be appropriately legally challenged and struck down.”

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What Democrats Will Support In Order To Oppose Donald Trump

The list is staggering, really. And one need not go back to January to compile a collection of the most anti-democratic behavior and positions possible, all to save muh democracy. I can fill out this column with stuff just since Friday. 

In June of this year, The United States Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision in Mahmoud V. Taylor, in favor of parents objecting to sexually explicit LGBT material being used in school on religious exemption grounds. The case overturned the decision against both the rights of parents and the 1st Amendment’s freedom to practice religion by a district court judge nominated early in Joe Biden’s term. That judge’s name? Deborah Boardman. 

One might think that a leftist trial court judge getting spanked by the Supreme Court that hard would be the biggest black mark on her record. Wrong. On Friday, Judge Boardman ruled in the sentencing phase of the would-be assassin of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Nicholas Roske. 

Roske, in case you don’t recall, left his home in Simi Valley, California after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe V. Wade and returned the abortion issue where it belonged – to each state’s citizenry to decide. This was too much for Roske, who flew across the country and eventually arrived outside Justice Kavanuagh’s Maryland home with a Glock-17 with ammunition, zip ties, a tactical knife, pepper spray, a hammer, a screwdriver, a nail punch, a crowbar, duct tape, a pistol light, and padded boots for stealth. This was not a spontaneous murder he was plotting. 

Roske was found guilty by a jury of his peers. Federal sentencing guidelines for a crime like this vary between 324-405 months. The Department of Justice asked for 30 years, or 360 months, right in the middle of the sentencing guidelines. Boardman came back with 8 years, or 96 months. Why? Because sometime recently, Nicholas decided he was now trans and wants to be called Sophie. Boardman essentially threw all legal jurisprudence out the window and came up with this for justification.

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Education Department takes action on report Virginia high school worker helped student get abortion

he Education Department says it is taking “enforcement action” in response to reports a Virginia high school social work helped a student get an abortion without informing her parents.

The incident allegedly occurred at Centreville High School during the 2021-22 school year, according to a release Monday by the department.

In addition to allegedly scheduling the appointment for the 17-year-old student, the social worker also allegedly paid the clinic fees and “swore the girl to secrecy without informing the student’s parents,” the release also states.

Also, the social worker allegedly pressured another student to get an abortion, telling her she “had no other choice” and directing her to the same clinic for an abortion, which the student ultimately did not do.

The department started the enforcement action under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, which gives parents of students the right to be notified and say no to any non-emergency, invasive physical examination or screening that is required by a school district.

“It shocks the conscience to learn that school personnel in Fairfax have allegedly exploited their positions of trust to push abortion services on students without parental knowledge or consent,” said Candice Jackson, the department’s acting general counsel.

The department requested Fairfax County Public Schools to provide information by Oct. 17 on its policies and whether federal funds were used for “sensitive medical services, including abortion-related referrals or procedures.”

The allegations regarding the social worker were first detailed in August in a Substack post, according to The Washington Post. 

The school district launched an investigation into the allegations that month and said Tuesday that it “welcomes the opportunity to answer the DOE’s questions, based on our ongoing review of these 2021 allegations.”

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School district may have ‘intentionally deceived’ parents on girl’s gender transition, judge rules

AMichigan school district may have violated the due process rights of parents by “actively concealing” their daughter’s identification as a boy, referring to the girl by her given name with parents and her “masculine” name at school, a federal judge ruled, exacerbating conflicts in the lower courts that may trigger Supreme Court review.

U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney, known for siding with a school district that banned students from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts, greenlit Dan and Jennifer Mead‘s Fourteenth Amendment claims against Rockford Public School District for violating their “fundamental rights as parents” and “deprivation of liberty without due process.”

He dismissed the Meads’ free exercise claim, however, saying surreptitious social transitions don’t “compel students (or their parents) to believe or do anything,” contrary to the mandatory exposure to LGBTQ “storybooks,” compelled school attendance and flag-salute requirement struck down by the Supreme Court in precedents from the 1940s to this year.

The President George W. Bush nominee noted the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is binding on him, last month upheld an Ohio gender identity school restroom policy as “facially neutral” in a challenge by Muslim and Christian students. (Their only potential relief was damages, since Ohio mandated restroom access by sex during the case.)

The 1st Circuit, which oversees Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island and has no Republican-nominated judges, reached the opposite conclusion as Maloney on parental rights and due process earlier this year, prompting parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri to petition the Supreme Court.

Several friend-of-the-court briefs are backing the Massachusetts parents, including detransitioners who abandoned transgender identities after medicalization and a prominent transgender child psychologist who argues parents are integral to transitions.

The 3rd Circuit, covering Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, heard a similar case this summer and already has precedents upholding parental authority, including an opinion joined by future Justice Samuel Alito on “actions that strike at the heart of parental decision-making authority on matters of the greatest importance.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley called Maloney’s ruling “potentially precedent-setting” on parental rights in public schools. He highlighted Maloney’s finding that the Meads’ allegations “show some amount of coercion or interference” from the district, implicating their right to make “fundamental decisions” for the girl.

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DOJ Declares School Dissent Protected Under First Amendment

Attorney General Pamela Bondi issued a memorandum to all United States Attorneys highlighting the Department of Justice’s policy to prevent and act upon violations of parental rights and First Amendment liberties in educational settings. 

Bondi directed United States Attorneys to work with federal, state, and local partners to identify and respond to credible threats against parents whose federal rights have been violated.

“The First Amendment guarantees the right of every citizen to speak freely, assemble peaceably, and petition the government for redress of grievances-including at public school board meetings,” the memo said. “These rights do not yield to political trends or bureaucratic convenience. While schools must maintain order, such authority cannot be used as a pretext to silence dissent or punish parents for expressing their views. 

The new memo says it will protect the right of parents to dissent during school board meetings. 

“Let me be clear: when school board members, administrators, and other government officials threaten law-abiding parents, they can and will be held accountable,” the letter said. 

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DOJ now looking for threats to parents’ rights, after Biden’s threats against parents themselves

he Department of Justice this week issued a memo directing the Civil Rights Division to work with federal, state and local partners to identify threats to parental rights and free speech in education, following years of parents’ rights being trampled on under the Biden administration. Many of the parents say their voices were silenced as well.

“Recent years have seen a disturbing trend in which state and local authorities have brought radical gender and racial ideology into our public schools while suppressing dissenting viewpoints,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in the memo. “Worse still, they have ignored, dismissed, and even retaliated against concerned parents who speak out against these morally and factually bankrupt ideologies and in defense of their own children.”

Bondi: Constitutional rights “do not yield to political trends”

“The First Amendment guarantees the right of every citizen to speak freely, assemble peaceably, and petition the government for redress of grievances—including at public school board meetings,” she added. “These rights do not yield to political trends or bureaucratic convenience. While schools must maintain order, such authority cannot be used as a pretext to silence dissent or punish parents for expressing their views.”

She further highlighted the rights of parents to exempt their children from instruction contrary to their religious beliefs, specifically pointing to gender and sexual orientation-related issues. “We are restoring the rule of law and returning the federal government to the people it serves. This Department stands with America’s parents,” her memo concluded.

Under the Biden administration, there have been multiple stories of parental rights being violated in the school system, resulting in protests and parents speaking out. Some have even been arrested at school board meetings. 

In October 2021, a 15-year-old student who identified as transgender was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting two female students at two separate high schools in the Loudoun County, Virginia, Public School district.

According to local news station WUSA, the first assault was reported on May 28, 2021, at Stone Bridge High School, while another one allegedly occurred on Oct. 8 of that year at Broad Run High School.

The parent of one of the alleged victims was arrested at a school board meeting, where he shouted at officials for not doing more to protect his daughter. Ex-Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler was found guilty by a jury in 2023 for using his position as superintendent to retaliate against a teacher who cooperated with a grand jury to expose how the district covered up a sexual assault.

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