Parental Rights in Education

Trump‑aligned America First Legal has filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education accusing Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools of running an 'elaborate system' that lets staff keep students’ gender‑identity changes secret from parents deemed insufficiently 'supportive.' The group cites the district’s 'Gender Identity in Montgomery County Public Schools' handbook, which instructs staff to first 'ascertain the level of support' a student has at home before deciding whether to notify parents about requests for new names, pronouns, or rooming with the opposite biological sex on overnight trips. The handbook also directs that a key 'Gender Support Plan' intake form, Form 560‑80, be stored outside a student’s cumulative or confidential file and not accessed by most staff, a step AFL argues is designed to evade parents’ rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. AFL alleges the policies violate the Constitution’s Free Exercise, Free Speech and Due Process clauses as well as FERPA by conditioning parental involvement on school judgments about a family’s views and by shielding records from lawful parental access. The district declined to comment on the complaint itself, citing a policy against discussing pending litigation, while the filing is already circulating in conservative media and on social platforms as a test case in the broader national battle over parental rights and school handling of student gender transitions.