The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it followed through on its vow to uphold parental rights in public schools. Under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the administration has put an end to the Topeka Public School District’s gross violation of parental rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
The department announced a resolution with the district that prioritizes parental rights over “gender transition” initiatives perpetrated by school staffers. Educators are no longer allowed to create “gender support plans” for students, and all previously created plans must be shared with parents.
Previously, school leaders had instructed educators to conceal information about students’ so-called “gender identity” from their parents. Trump’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) is now intervening in teacher and administrator training programs to ensure observance of a strict understanding of parental rights. Every school policy that barred parents from information about their children will be removed under the threat of losing federal funding, according to an agreement SPPO reached with the Topeka Public School District.
In March, McMahon sent letters to state superintendents across the nation, “reminding them of their compliance obligations under FERPA. In the letters, McMahon reminded the schools that “by natural right and moral authority, parents are the primary protectors of their children.” In April 2026, the U.S. Department of Education exposed four Kansas school districts for allegedly violating federal law; each had policies that allowed schools to conceal children’s so-called “gender transition” from their parents.
Under school policy, children were allowed to use different names and inaccurate pronouns without notifying parents, “even if the parent requested their child’s records.” In some cases, school diplomas were printed with trans-identifying students’ new names, the department said, blindsiding parents who had intentionally been left in the dark.
Additionally, the Kansas school districts were allegedly violating Title IX by enforcing policies that allowed men in female restrooms and locker rooms, and some of the districts let male students participate in female sports based on claimed identities. In June, the Office of Civil Rights issued an enforcement letter to four districts, giving them 10 days to comply with federal law.
Despite the Trump administration’s success with the Topeka Public School District, the Olathe and Shawnee Mission Public School Districts have reportedly refused to comply with federal law. The Department of Education announced its intent to pursue “enforcement measures” against these districts, potentially removing their federal funding.
Several states are still trying to derail the Trump administration’s attempts to secure parental rights. Both Washington and California have refused to provide updates on their compliance with FERPA. Both states appear to have continued to hide students’ trans-identifications from their parents, even in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling Mirabelli v. Bonta, which reaffirmed that parents have priority over public schools in raising their children. This year, lawsuits reprimanding schools for violating parental rights have cropped up in Michigan, Illinois, and Virginia.
Earlier this year, the Anne Arundel Public School system in Maryland was caught “secretly helping” a girl “pretend to be a male at school,” referring to her by a different name and male pronouns. Parents only discovered that the school was encouraging her to transition after receiving an email where she was referred to as a “he.”
In January, the Department of Education announced it found a list of 300 students in California whom schools had put on “gender support plans.” At the Skaneateles Central School District in New York, school staffers persuaded a seventh-grade girl to use different pronouns at school than at home. Although her parents pulled her from the school, school officials continued to meet with her without parental knowledge.
For parents preparing to send their children back to school this autumn, the Trump administration’s action in Kansas is a victory to celebrate and — replicate. The left often argues that trans-identifying students represent a very small minority of any school’s population, but “gender dysphoria” in teenagers is typically the result of peer pressure and cultural encouragement. Usually, kids first learn about it online, with platforms like TikTok and Instagram glamorizing the “trans lifestyle.”
For easily impressionable young people, it is often easier to make the absurd claim that they were “born in the wrong body” than to deal with the discomfort of puberty. As a result, they begin pretending to be the opposite sex in the one place where they think their parents can’t see them: School.
When leftist teachers encourage students to change their gender, names, and pronouns, they are giving young people permission to deny reality. The social contagion can only be stopped when responsible adults interfere for the good of those young people.
The Trump administration’s success in Kansas is a concrete example of adults in government doing just that. FERPA was designed to protect families, whereas left-wing educators attempted to skirt it to divide families and foment lies. Every school district in America should strive to uphold transparency between students and their families and end the charade that school staffers have a greater right to a child than their parents do.
