Federal Investigation Finds California Department of Education Violated FERPA by Keeping Secrets from Parents
The U.S. Department of Education announced this week that its investigation into the California Department of Education found that state policies that pressure schools to keep secrets from parents violate federal law.
Specifically, the DOE said the “California Department of Education (CDE) is in continued violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)—a federal law granting parents the right to access their child’s education records—for policies that pressure school officials to conceal information about students’ ‘gender identity.’”
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the CDE “egregiously abused its authority.”
“Children do not belong to the State—they belong to families,” McMahon said in a press release. “We will use every available mechanism to hold California accountable for these practices and restore parental rights.”
The federal investigation was initiated in March 2025 in response to a complaint filed by CPC’s California Justice Center, which cited California Assembly Bill 1955 as evidence that the CDE was violating FERPA.
“We’re thankful that the Trump Administration has made it clear to California politicians that parent secrecy policies violate federal law,” said Emily Rae, president of the California Justice Center. “Parents have a legal right to access their child’s education records, including records that relate to changes to their child’s gender, and no state law can override that.”
AB 1955 was signed into law by Gov. Newsom in July 2024 to stop local school boards from adopting “parental notification policies” after school districts across the state had passed these pro-parent policies to protect students and parental rights.
As lawsuits challenging the state’s secrecy rules and defending parental rights policies made their way through the courts, Democrats realized they were on the losing side of the law, and quickly passed AB 1955 in an attempt to codify their secrecy policies and preempt a court loss.
CPC’s California Justice Center filed the complaint with the U.S. Dept. of Education on January 31, 2025.
The U.S. Dept. of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) has offered CDE “the opportunity to voluntarily resolve its FERPA violation” by taking specific action, including notifying all school superintendents and administrators that “gender support plans” and related documentation directly related to a student “are considered education records under FERPA and are subject to parental inspection upon request” — and that there is no “unofficial records” exception to FERPA.
The CDE must also add FERPA training content approved by SPPO to state training for teachers and other certificated employees.
“Parents and school board members across California have taken a courageous stand to protect students and uphold parental rights,” said Lance Christensen, Vice President of Government Affairs and Education Policy at the California Policy Center. “Gov. Newsom and Attorney General Bonta should stop undermining those rights and follow the law.”