Education Department’s Probe Into Anti-Parent California Law Could Help Affected Families, Legal Group Hopes

Aurora Regino was the last to know that her daughter’s school district was secretly helping the 11-year-old identify as a boy.

An elementary school guidance counselor at Chico Unified School District in California started referring to the little girl with a boy’s name and boy’s pronouns. Regino said her daughter told the counselor that she wanted to tell her mother about the counseling sessions and her struggles with her gender identity, but the counselor ignored her. 

The Center for American Liberty first filed a lawsuit against the Chico Unified School District in January 2023. A federal district court dismissed the case, and the Center for American Liberty, a free speech nonprofit, appealed the case to the federal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where it is currently pending.

A year-and-a-half later, the state codified how the school counselor handled the Regino family’s situation into state law. Assembly Bill 1945, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom over the summer, requires school districts in California to hide minors’ gender identity from their parents.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education launched an investigation Thursday into the California law, saying it violates the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA), which gives parents the right to access their children’s educational data.

The Center for American Liberty is seeking an injunction against anti-parental secrecy policies like the one that allowed Chico Unified School District to transition Regino’s daughter, and the Education Department’s investigation into AB 1945 goes hand-in-hand with that goal, according to Mark Trammell, the center’s executive director and general counsel.

“This is a really important step for the Department of Education to take,” said Trammell, one of Regino’s lawyers, “and I think the result of it is going to be including parents and the decisions, the educational decisions and the emotional well-being of their children, which is a good thing.”

The Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office has reason to believe that numerous local educational agencies in California may be violating FERPA to socially transition children at school, according to the press release.

“Teachers and school counselors should not be in the business of advising minors entrusted to their care on consequential decisions about their sexual identity and mental health,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “That responsibility and privilege lies with a parent or trusted loved one.”

The process of hiding gender identity from parents in California appears to be widespread.

Burbank Unified School District uses Gender Spectrum’s model for a Gender Support Plan, a document that establishes steps to hide a child’s new gender identity from his or her parents.

Capistrano Unified School District, in California’s southern Orange County, allows a student to change his or her name and gender in school records without parental permission.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District forces students to choose between rooming with a transgender-identifying student or missing out on an overnight school field trip, The Daily Signal first reported.

Newport-Mesa does not require staff to inform parents that their child is socially transitioning, and it keeps records of the transition in a “locked drawer” in an administrator’s office, according to an email obtained by The Daily Signal.

“Parents know their kids better than unelected bureaucrats in Sacramento or in Washington, D.C., and so it’s bizarre that the state of California would be doing this, also in violation of FERPA,” Trammell said.

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