by Adam Shelton
Across the country, parents are discovering that public school systems increasingly claim authority over deeply personal decisions once understood to belong to families.
Who gets to decide the upbringing of our children?
Across the country, parents are discovering that public school systems increasingly claim authority over deeply personal decisions once understood to belong to families. Schools are hiding controversial lessons from parents, not informing them about critical mental health concerns involving their kids, and retaliating against parents when they speak out.
If the Supreme Court doesn’t act soon, Americans may find themselves forced into a kind of co-parenting arrangement with local school districts -- not by choice, but as a matter of school policy.
No one may represent this growing national trend more than Amber Lavigne. She had no idea a school social worker was secretly aiding her 13-year-old in a “gender transition.” Worse still, public school officials supported a plan to keep Amber in the dark. The Goldwater Institute is now asking the Supreme Court to protect Amber’s constitutional rights and to clarify that public schools cannot deliberately exclude parents from consequential decisions about their own children.
In early December 2022, Amber was helping clean her child’s bedroom when she discovered a chest binder -- an undergarment used to flatten breasts so the wearer appears more masculine. She soon learned the binder had been provided by a social worker at Great Salt Bay Community School in Maine. According to Amber, the counselor told her child to keep it a secret. Rather than acknowledging a breach of trust, school officials defended the social worker’s deception, insisting no policy had been violated by providing a middle schooler with a chest binder while withholding that information from her parent.
This was completely inappropriate. The Supreme Court has long recognized parents’ fundamental right to guide their children’s development. That right does not end at the schoolhouse gate, and it is incompatible with policies that authorize secrecy between government officials and children on matters of identity, mental health, or values without parental knowledge or consent.
Yet that principle was ignored here.
Amber’s case is not an outlier. Similar disputes are emerging across the country, and multiple parental-rights petitions have asked the Supreme Court to weigh in.
In Massachusetts and Florida, parents challenged school protocols that allowed staff to socially transition students -- using new names and pronouns -- without parental notification or consent. Taken together, these cases point to a growing assertion of school authority in areas once reserved for families.
It is not just on issues of gender, either. What links these disputes is not subject matter, but government overreach. All over the United States, school districts and state officials are advancing policies that elevate institutional discretion over parental authority, often justifying secrecy as “protection” even when no evidence of abuse or danger exists.
In Indiana, for example, a mother was banned from her daughter’s middle school after speaking out about an alleged safety incident involving a bus driver. Rather than investigate the complaint, school officials issued a sweeping no-trespass order.
In Pennsylvania, a school district attempted to classify its diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum and teacher training materials as “trade secrets,” arguing that parents had no right to review them. A court rejected that claim, affirming that public-school indoctrination cannot be hidden from parents under the guise of proprietary information.
The result of this government secrecy is not safety, but eroded trust -- among families, between parents and institutions, and around the constitutional limits that safeguard individual liberty. Schools are charged with educating children, not raising them. Parental rights do not end at the schoolhouse gate simply because administrators find them inconvenient.
The Supreme Court recently affirmed this right in a ruling centered on school curriculum. In Montgomery County, Maryland, parents challenged a policy that eliminated opt-outs from elementary classes using LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks. Last year, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the parents were entitled to a preliminary injunction. The decision confirmed that educational goals do not override parental authority.
The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to restore clarity, and it should take it. Protecting parental rights does not require hostility toward students or indifference to their struggles. The Constitution requires something far more foundational: honesty, transparency, and respect for parents.
As the Supreme Court considers whether to take up Amber’s case, the Goldwater Institute will continue fighting to ensure that public schools cannot usurp the role of parents behind closed doors. The Constitution does not permit government officials to keep secrets from parents, and the Court shouldn’t allow schools to cut parents out.
Image: Pixabay
Adam Shelton is a senior attorney with the Goldwater Institute.
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/02/parents_not_schools_should_raise_our_kids.html
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