School districts around the country trying to circumvent parents rights after SCOTUS ruling

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School districts around the country trying to circumvent parents rights after SCOTUS ruling

Published: Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 @ 11:32 am
By: John Steed ( More Entries )

The US Supreme Court struck a huge blow in favor of parents rights last summer in the landmark decision of Mahmoud v. Taylor, which specifically dealt with schools promoting the LGBTQ and transgender agendas. It ruled that parents had to be notified of any such instruction and be given the opportunity to opt their children out,

Rather than accept that ruling, many school systems are trying to circumvent it.

In Lexington, Massachusetts, site of the famous opening battle of the Revolutionary War, school officials demanded that parents identify the specific matters to be opted out but refused to give them access to the materials to be able to identify such issues. They also claimed that if a lesson was couched in terms of "tolerance" that allowed them to get into LGBTQ and trans issues. The Mahmoud decision does not create any such exemption for the schools.

In California, their leftwing state attorney general claims that the state can still impose a law that prohibits schools from disclosing children's gender identity issues to their parents, claiming that since this does not involve curriculum, it is okay.

Colorado's Cherry Creek School District is setting up "lunch with a teacher" to discuss LGBTQ and trans issues with students, without notifying parents or allowing opt outs.

The New Richmond School District in rural Wisconsin maintained a secret policy of allowing students who claimed to be "transgender" to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite biological sex, and intimidated students to not tell their parents. When it got out anyway, they blasted the parents for being "bigots" and misrepresented the laws involved.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/school-district-circumvents-parents-inviting-kids-lgbtq-discussion

https://thefederalist.com/2026/02/16/5-things-to-know-about-the-secret-wisconsin-school-trans-bathroom-policy/

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Comments

Conservative Voter said:

( February 17th, 2026 @ 7:46 pm )

Does this information in the comment below have something to do with retired teachers running against Rader and Shreve? I understand that Walker was involved in recruiting both of those challengers. Does she want to try to keep all the power in teachers hands instead of parents? Is that the reason for those two challengers? Her leading opposition to parents rights on that school board policy seems to point to that.

Ex-teachers on a school board would be too much under the sway of school bureaucrats and teachers unions, not looking out for the interests of parents, citizens, and taxpayers, which is who the board is supposed to represent. It botders on being a conflict of interest.

Steven P. Rader said:

( February 17th, 2026 @ 5:15 pm )

We do not have any of this nonsense going on in Beaufort County Schools, As long as we keep conservative representation on the Board of Education, we will have a team that will be on the lookout for it if it appears.

Where we do have a problem is that some of our Board members are not yet fully on board with the parental rights landmark Supreme Court ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor. This showed up when I offered motions to amend our existing written school board policies covering how we handled materials that were controversial with parents and the community. For example, we have an existing policy that says decisions on controversial materials will be made based on opinions of educational staff. My motion was to change this to say that they would be made on the basis of the opinions of both parents and educational staff. Charles Hickman seconded my motion. Carolyn Walker spoke against it, saying we should rely only on the opinions of teachers. She got five votes for her position, which is a majority of the nine members of the board.

After that meeting, I emailed all of the other board members several articles explaining the Supreme Court's ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor plus a full copy of the court's decision. I expect to bring this key parents rights issue back to the board in the future.

Under the Mahmoud decision, all issues dealing with anything that could touch on religion are decided solely on the position of parents. The court ruled that issues related to homosexuality and transgenderism are related to religious beliefs but did not rule on any other issue areas yet. On those issues, schools are required to notify parents of any such content and allow parents to opt their children out of those activities that contain such materials or presentations. When it comes to any matter touching on religion, the Supreme Court has completely frozen out educational experts and left it 100% up to parents.

As long as I am a member of the school board, I will continue to stand up for parents rights.

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