If parents think the radical sex education activists, including pushers of the transgender agenda, have relaxed their efforts to groom children, they should think again.

Despite the Trump Administration’s Executive Orders and enforcement of parental rights laws, many schools across the country have continued to secretly transition students and successfully hide their activities from parents. In July, the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) partnered with the U.S. Justice Department to take “enforcement action” against two school districts in violation of FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act: Maryland’s Anne Arundel County Public Schools and Michigan’s Ann Arbor Public Schools.

In Maryland, the SPPO determined that the Anne Arundel district was “improperly classifying information about a student’s so-called ‘gender identity’ as ‘confidential medical information’ that cannot be shared with parents.” In this case, the upset parents of one student discovered that their daughter’s school administrators and teachers were helping her “pretend to be male” during the school day. When the parents confronted school officials, the principal “declined to provide details about the student’s ‘gender transition,’ and the assistant principal refused to turn over the child’s relevant records” in violation of parental rights under FERPA.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division (CRT) vowed to take “appropriate enforcement action” against the school district, including “applicable judicial proceedings and potential loss of federal funding.”

In Michigan, the Ann Arbor district’s policy also violated FERPA by “requiring school employees to hide a child’s ‘transgender status’ from his or her parents,” which put the district in the crosshairs of the SPPO. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon reminded district leaders that “FERPA is not optional, and any districts that attempt to bypass or distort its requirements should expect immediate federal action. In partnership with the Department of Education, the Department of Justice will initiate enforcement proceedings with districts that fail to comply.”

FERPA was enacted in 1974 to provide parents and students access to education records and allow for requests to correct inaccurate information. The law applies to K-12 and post-secondary educational institutions that receive federal funding. Violations of FERPA are referred to the U.S. Education Department’s SPPO.

Last March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Mirabelli v. Bonta to overturn “the stay of the permanent injunction by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing the lower court action to proceed.” (See Education Reporter, March 2026.) The case ultimately landed in the high court after parents filed suit against a school in California for secretly transitioning their daughter, who then tried to commit suicide.

As background, below are links to two related decisions (issued the same day) in favor of the parents by U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez: 757886.307.0 and 757886.308.0.

The notoriously liberal Ninth Circuit of Appeals had blocked that decision, but the Supreme Court lifted the block, thereby allowing Judge Benitez’s ruling to remain in effect while it is being appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

Now the case is pending before the Ninth Circuit again, as described at this link. The parents’ brief was filed on Aug. 26, shown as document #69 on this website, or may be viewed directly at this link.

The docket shows that numerous other briefs were filed on both sides — some supporting the parents, and some against.

At some point there will be an oral argument before a 3-judge panel, but that date has not been determined yet, nor is it known which judges will sit on the panel.

Just one year prior to Mirabelli, the SPPO sent a “Dear Colleague Letter (DCL)” to state school superintendents “reminding them of their compliance obligations under FERPA and designating the practice of hiding a child’s ‘gender identity’ from that child’s parents as a ‘priority concern’ for SPPO.” Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, added a cover letter reminding superintendents that “by natural right and moral authority, parents are the primary protectors of their children.”

Many parents and parents’ rights organizations hoped that the Mirabelli decision although not final, would bolster years of push-back by parents’ groups, state legislatures, and court rulings, against secret efforts by school district personnel to transition minor children without parental knowledge or consent. And yet these schemes persist, with activists, mental health “experts,” and some teachers and administrators continuing their efforts to groom youngsters anyway.

Advocates for Youth

What is fueling school districts’ drive to flout parents’ rights laws despite the specter of losing federal funding and other potential penalties at both the federal and state levels?

Doubtless there are many factors, including an increased public tolerance for radical ideas, at least partially as a result of decades of Marxist influence, particularly in higher education. Then there are busy parents who often don’t realize what’s going on in their children’s classrooms, or are unaware that in many cases they can opt them out of objectionable curricula.

But no one should ignore the impact of extreme-left organizations like Advocates for Youth, whose tentacles reach into hundreds of K-12 schools across the country. These organizations offer so-called “honest, affirming, inclusive sex education; access to confidential, universal sexual health services; and the economic, educational, and social power to exercise their bodily autonomy and make informed decisions regarding their health and well-being.” In other words, these curricula facilitate complete sexual autonomy for minors whose brains are still developing, with complete disregard for the rights and responsibilities of parents.

In fact, Advocates for Youth’s stated mission is to “partner with young people and their adult allies to champion youth rights to bodily autonomy and build power to transform policies, programs and systems to secure sexual health and equity for all youth.” (Emphasis added.)

Note the deliberate reference to “adult allies,” not parents, which likely refers to school administrators and mental health personnel. Another statement sheds further light on what this organization is about: “Society has the responsibility to examine and dismantle systems of oppression that drive sexual health disparities and other inequities and to instead champion community initiatives, programs, policies, and systems that ensure equity and justice for all young people, their families and communities.”

Interestingly, Advocates for Youth has attracted the attention of Kirk Cameron, the former child actor turned outspoken Christian activist, writer, and parents’ rights defender. Cameron is partnering with the conservative legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom, urging parents to sign a petition calling on Advocates for Youth “to stop pushing its explicit curriculum.”

Cameron posted a video “reel” on Facebook warning parents that this group “has co-opted what used to be called the 3 Rs, ‘Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic’ and replaced it with ‘Rights, Responsibility, and Respect.” But he warns that the curriculum is not about these ideals; rather, it “exposes young children to graphic sexual images” and shows videos of older children telling them that “having romantic feelings for all genders” is perfectly normal.... [Emphasis added.]

While these types of explicit curricula are not new, and obscene LGBT books have been on both school and public library shelves for years, organizations like Advocates for Youth appear more obvious than ever in their promotion of an explicit sexual agenda.

For example, posted on its website are “toolkits and curricula” containing subject matter such as “Birth control access/LGBTQ+ Health and Rights/Racial Justice/Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice/Transgender Youth Health and Rights, Trans-Affirming resource guides, LGBT-Friendly school posters, and student guides to Youth Organizing.” Absent from these topics is any reference to teaching biological facts that might actually educate students.

In sum, while there have been some positive recent signs that parents’ rights are making gains in the education arena, observers worry that if conservatives are replaced by radical socialists and progressives in future elections, the floodgates will open for even more egregious violations of parental rights.

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