The Department of Education (ED) on Wednesday announced that a Massachusetts school district violated federal parental rights laws by ignoring parent requests to opt their children out of a “sexually explicit” survey in 2025.
ED’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) investigated Burlington Public Schools and concluded the district violated the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) by requiring student participation in the survey after their parents requested opt-outs. SPPO said the survey was aimed at students as young as 7th grade and asked questions about sexual encounters, substance abuse, and “gender identity.”
“Parents must always have the final say when it comes to their children – not schools,” said Frank Miller, Director of the SPPO. “We will not stand idly by as schools violate federal law, disregard parents’ clear instructions, and expose young students to disturbing information and invasive questions. The Trump Administration will always enforce parental rights laws and hold school districts accountable when they fail to comply.”
According to ED, the school district admitted that it administered the 2025 “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” to students despite several families choosing to opt their students out. SPPO has proposed a “Resolution Agreement” to “voluntarily resolve” the violations, or else the district will risk “imminent enforcement action,” the department said.
The proposed Resolution Agreement requires the district to send all parents copies of the 2025 survey questions, issue apology letters from the superintendent to the families who filed complaints, bring district policies into compliance with federal law, and submit all future surveys that may be explicit to the department for review.
Superintendent Eric Conti confirmed in a statement to the Boston Herald that the district has received SPPO’s “letters of finding.”
“The District appreciates the efforts of the Student Privacy Policy Office in reviewing these matters,” Conti said. “The District identified and addressed this matter in 2024 and 2025, and we no longer have a contract with the outside vendor that drafted the original survey in question. We will now review the findings and the Proposed Resolution Agreement, and will respond expeditiously.”
Per the Herald report, Conti admitted after the investigation opened last summer that “errors and mistakes did occur” when the survey was given to students whose parents had requested opt-outs. He said the district would “cooperate fully with the investigation.”
ED opened the investigation in August 2025 after Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center submitted a complaint to the department on behalf of several parents over the 2025 “Youth Risk Behavior Survey.” Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center filed its complaint after sending a letter in April to the district making them aware of parents’ concerns and asking for a change in policy and a commitment to uphold the PPRA. That letter, included in the department’s initial news release announcing the investigation, contains more specific allegations and screenshots of the 45-minute survey, which was purportedly sent to every student at Marshall Simonds Middle School and Burlington High School in March.
The survey included questions like: “Which of the following terms best describes your current gender identity?” and “What sex were you assigned at birth, on your original birth certificate?” The survey also asked students questions about sexual abuse, alcohol consumption, smoking habits, and overall sexual experiences.
The survey included items explaining gender identity and sexual orientation to students before asking them questions.
“Gender identity is how you see yourself. You can see yourself as male, female, a mix, or both, or neither. It can be the same or different from the sex you were assigned at birth,” the survey reads, before explaining terms like “cisgender,” “transgender,” “nonbinary,” and “genderqueer.”
The letter to BPS alleged that students were told they were required to take the survey unless they were on a list of students whose parents opted them out. However, “many students who had, in fact, been opted out were not on the opt-out list,” the letter alleged.
“These students were told by their teachers that they needed to complete the survey. In at least one case, when a student protested and told the teacher that she had been opted out and that she did not want to take the survey, her teacher made her take the survey anyway since she was not on the opt-out list,” the letter alleged.
“Unsurprisingly, many parents were extremely upset that the school violated the assurances that it had given them about opting their children out of the survey. These parents made their voices heard through messages to the administration and by engaging in public comment at the April 1st School Committee meeting. Despite further assurances from the administration that this kind of incident will not happen again, however, BPS has not taken any concrete steps to prevent future violations,” the letter continued.
The letter further alleged that “this is not the first time that Burlington Public Schools have violated the rights of parents and students,” and pointed to alleged incidents of the district pushing DEI and LGBTQ+ propaganda onto students.
“While this most recent survey incident may have been a genuine accident, it was no accident that it happened in Burlington. Rather, it was the predictable result of an educational culture at BPS that does not take parental rights seriously and does not see a problem with foisting radical ideologies upon minor students. Changes must be made,” the letter read.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement at the time that “parents must be the primary decision-makers in their children’s education,” and called the allegations “unconscionable.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
