President Trump’s Education Department is opening multiple investigations into school districts where officials allegedly concealed child gender transition attempts from parents, according to an exclusive report by The Daily Wire. The districts are Albuquerque Public Schools and Santa Fe Public Schools in New Mexico, along with Pine-Richland School District and Pennsbury School District in Pennsylvania. An Education Department official described the alleged behavior as “abhorrent.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said parental rights and classroom transparency are central to the administration’s education agenda. She said, “Policies designed to conceal or hide the most sensitive information about a child’s well-being not only violate federal law but also educators’ moral obligation to let parents be the first decision-makers in their child’s lives,” and added, “We will vigorously investigate these allegations and hold districts accountable to bring parents out of the dark.”
The New Mexico cases focus on policies that allegedly prevent staff from sharing information about a child’s claimed gender identity or transition with parents. In Albuquerque, a district social worker was allegedly blocked from discussing a child’s revelations because Procedural Directive PJ30 requires staff to use a student’s preferred name and pronouns, regardless of biology. The policy also directs schools to keep gender identity information out of permanent records that parents might review.
In Santa Fe, officials allegedly asked students about preferred names and pronouns without parental knowledge or consent. Parents have also alleged that the district created gender support plans and a “Name & Pronoun Info Sheet.” The form reportedly tells students teachers will not tell their parents and asks what pronouns should be used for the child in front of them. That is a remarkable amount of paperwork for a process parents were supposedly not allowed to know about. Apparently, transparency is invited only after the forms are filled out.
In Pennsylvania, the Education Department says Pennsbury helped a young girl socially transition and present publicly as a boy for three years without her parents’ knowledge or consent. The alleged effort included using a male name and pronouns and maintaining records, communications, awards, and social media posts reflecting a male identity. The district reportedly had a policy saying students could keep gender identity hidden from parents, while another policy required parental involvement in school-record changes. Investigators say the district created a “separate, false identity” for the girl.
The Justice Department is partnering with the Education Department on the Pine-Richland investigation. According to agency background, district policies allegedly direct staff, including nurses and school psychologists, to help children obtain gender transitions without parental knowledge or consent, raising questions under FERPA and PPRA. The district allegedly provided taxpayer-funded “gender transition teams” and required schools to base names, pronouns, bathrooms, and sports teams on perceived gender identity rather than biological sex. One parent was allegedly denied notification if her child requested gender-transition resources.
The investigations are being led by the Education Department’s Student Privacy Policy Office. It will examine whether the districts violated FERPA, which gives parents access to their children’s education records, and PPRA, which requires notice and written parental consent for surveys or evaluations about sensitive topics, including religion or sexual matters. Violations can lead to the loss of federal funding. The Education and Justice departments also sent letters to every state attorney general in early October reminding them of the law.
The cases involve allegations, and the investigations will determine what happened and whether federal law was violated. The central dispute is straightforward: parents say they should not be the last people informed about major decisions involving their own children. When schools create hidden records, new identities, and transition resources while keeping parents outside the room, the argument over parental rights stops being abstract. It becomes a question of who is responsible for a child’s welfare, the family or an institution that treats parental permission as optional.
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