Blue school district hit with federal complaint alleging it ‘sidestepped’ law depriving parent of transparency
FIRST ON FOX: A pro-Trump legal group has filed a federal complaint against a Maryland school district alleging that parent access to review classroom materials was slowed or denied, in violation of federal law.
In a letter sent to Montgomery County Public Schools and the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Division, America First Legal alleges that a parent in the school district, Mom’s For Liberty director of development Rosalind Hanson, submitted a request to inspect her child’s school curriculum, in accordance with the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, and that MCPS staff “incorrectly processed” the request “rather than following the PPRA’s federally mandated parental inspection procedures.”
The complaint states that PPRA has established a “federal right” for parents to inspect “all instructional materials” being disseminated to their children and that “The Family Life and Human Sexuality curriculum” in this case “clearly falls within this definition, as it consists of lesson plans and resources used to instruct students as part of the educational program.”
“This is not a state records issue — it’s a federal violation,” Alice Kass, counsel for America First Legal, told Fox News Digital. “Parents have a right to know what their children are being taught, and Montgomery County cannot hide behind procedural loopholes to avoid transparency.”
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America First Legal, in a press release, alleged that MCPS “buried the request in bureaucratic red tape” and processed it through an open-records law request which they say not only “sidestepped” federal law but “imposed unlawful delays and fees, and denied a parent the right to review their child’s curriculum.”
The letter calls on the Maryland school district to reclassify the parent request as a PPRA investigation as opposed to a Maryland Public Information Act request, provide full access to instructional materials without charge, and clarify its procedures for processing PPRA requests in the future.
In the press release, Kass added that “federal law cannot be clearer” on the issue.
“Montgomery County’s refusal to process a parent’s request under the PPRA is not just wrong, it’s unlawful. School districts do not get to hide curriculum materials behind state records procedures. Parents have a federal right to inspect, and MCPS must immediately comply.”
Fox News Digital reached out to MCPS for comment.
America First Legal has placed a heavy emphasis on the rights of parents through PPRA and unveiled a toolkit earlier this year aimed at helping parents understand their rights while equipping them with a template letter to send to schools requesting full transparency on what their children are being taught.
“Schools do not raise children — parents do. This resource makes clear that schools answer to parents, not the other way around,” America First Legal President Gene Hamilton told Fox News Digital at the time. “The Constitution protects that relationship, and we will ensure no bureaucracy or activist agenda can undermine it.”
Montgomery Public Schools found themselves in national news headlines this summer when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that parents can exclude their children from the school system’s lessons that contained themes about homosexuality and transgenderism if they felt the material conflicts with their religious faith.
The Maryland parents who sued said in their petition to the high court that the school board introduced books to their elementary school students that promoted “gender transitions, Pride parades, and same-sex playground romance.”
The parents said the school board initially allowed parents to opt their children out of lessons involving those books but then ceased doing that.
Hanson and Moms for Liberty were involved in that case as well, with Hanson saying at the time in an interview with Fox News Digital, “The majority of states across the country have said you can have an opt-out for these very sensitive issues and topics, especially because of the religious component, but also because of the age appropriateness.”
Fox News Digital’s Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.
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