Liberty Counsel filed a federal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education on behalf of parents whose minor daughter was secretly treated like a boy by Pennsylvania’s Pennsbury School District. The complaint states that school district officials adopted a male name, pronouns, and maintained records, communications, awards, yearbook materials, and social media content reflecting a male identity for the student for nearly three school years without the parents’ knowledge or consent.

The complaint states the district’s actions interfered with the parent’s ability to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their child and contributed to deterioration in the parent-child relationship. Since the Pennsbury School District receives federal funds, the complaint requests coordinated investigations by the Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office and the Office for Civil Rights for violations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and Title IX. 

According to a “privacy” provision in Pennsbury Board Policy 253.1, students have the “right” to keep their gender status private, while another provision indicates parental involvement before updating records with any unofficial name change. However, the complaint states the school district did not involve the parents at any point and created “a separate, false identity for their daughter’s use at school.”

The parents did not discover the school’s secret actions until near the end of their daughter’s junior year. After the parents formally objected, the school district agreed to use their daughter’s given name and pronouns and corrected the school’s electronic and public records with her proper name and sex designation. To prevent other parents from becoming victims of the same policy, the parents with help from Liberty Counsel proposed new language for Board Policy 253.1. The proposed language essentially states that district employees should not “conceal” gender confusion from a student’s parent or legal guardian and that school officials must facilitate communication with parents before any gender-related changes are instituted. However, the Pennsbury School Board has not amended the language nor the secret “transition” policy, which continues to place other parents at risk of being denied critical information about their child and experiencing associated relationship harms from that denial.

The complaint alleges violations of:

• FERPA, by denying parents knowledge of their child’s gender confusion and their consent to changing the child’s school records.
• PPRA, by allowing school personnel to evaluate and socially “transition” the student without parental consent.
• Title IX, by implementing a policy that permits secret social “transitions” of gender-confused students.

To resolve the issue, the parents’ requests to the Department of Education include:

• Investigate Board Policy 253.1 for compliance with FERPA, PPRA, and Title IX.
• Require removal or amendment of every provision authorizing secret social “transitions” or concealment of records and information from parents.
• Require notice to parents whose children have been subjected to similar practices.
• Require appropriate FERPA, PPRA, and Title IX staff training. 

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The deliberate concealment of gender confusion and harmful social ‘transition’ of minors ignores morality, biological reality, and parental rights. Parents have the fundamental right to know what is happening with their children at school. Government schools are to educate children and have no business putting a wedge between parents and their children. Federal law protects parental access to educational records and requires transparency and accountability from federally funded schools. Pennsbury School District should amend its policies to protect children and honor parental rights.”