Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) issued a decisive finding that the California Department of Education (CDE) is in continued violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) for policies that pressure schools to conceal information about students’ “gender transitions” from their parents.
The ruling confirms what parents and parental rights advocates across California have been warning for years: state officials have unlawfully promoted the false notion that minors possess privacy rights from their own parents that schools are obligated to protect. Under federal law, parents have the clear and unequivocal right to access all education records related to their minor children, including records documenting name changes, pronoun usage, and so-called “gender support plans.”
A broad coalition of parental rights organizations, including California Family Council (CFC), has been instrumental in pushing back against these unlawful practices. The coalition worked closely with parents and local school boards to encourage districts to adopt parental notification policies, policies designed to ensure that parents are informed when a child adopts a different name or pronouns at school. These common-sense policies were met with fierce opposition from state officials, who falsely claimed that such records were “unofficial” and therefore exempt from parental inspection.
SPPO explicitly rejected that argument, concluding that there is no “unofficial records” exception under FERPA. Any record that is directly related to a student and maintained by a school, including gender support plans and documentation of name or pronoun changes, is an education record that must be made available to parents upon request.
Jonathan Keller, President of California Family Council, welcomed the decision and emphasized its importance for families across the state:
“Today’s finding by the Department of Education confirms what California parents have known all along: the state has been abusing its power to cut moms and dads out of the most important decisions in their children’s lives,” said Keller.
“Despite claims from Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta, and Secretary Thurmond, parents have the legal and moral right to know what schools are doing with their children. Federal law is clear, and no amount of ideological activism in Sacramento can override that. CFC celebrates this decisive victory for parental rights, the rule of law, and the fundamental truth that children belong to families, not the government.”
The Department of Education’s findings also document extensive efforts by school officials to deliberately hide information from parents, including the creation of separate filing systems and the manipulation of student information software to prevent parents from seeing name and pronoun changes through parent portals.
SPPO has given the California Department of Education the opportunity to voluntarily resolve its violations by issuing corrective guidance to school districts, affirming that FERPA supersedes state law, and ensuring that districts are no longer coerced into violating parents’ rights.
California Family Council will continue working with parents, school districts, and allied organizations to ensure full compliance with federal law and to restore transparency, trust, and accountability in California’s public schools.
For a history regarding efforts to pass a Parent Notification Policy in CA, visit: https://www.
