Every Action Can Take Us One Step Closer to Education Reform

It’s important to recognize that federal law allows parents to (1) review the curriculum used to instruct their children in public schools, and (2) prevent schools from asking highly personal questions about students’ sex lives, drug usage, and matters of that nature without parental consent. This law, the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), 20 U.S.C. § 1232h, is one important—but until now little-used—tool for holding administrators and teachers accountable. First passed in 1974 and then expanded several times, the PPRA provides parents with legal rights to review curriculum, and, in some circumstances, to opt out of certain activities at any school that receives federal funding.

Parents must be vigilant and must be willing to fight for their children. The PPRA is an important resource in this fight. Used properly, the PPRA empowers parents to make a meaningful difference in their children’s futures.

WHAT DOES THE PPRA COVER?

The PPRA provides parents the right to review curriculum used to teach their children at school. It also provides parents an extensive set of rights to review, and opt out of, certain surveys and studies that probe into the children’s lives and attitudes. Importantly, the Department of Education’s PPRA regulations require prior parental consent before a child may be subjected to nearly all forms of critical race theory, gender, and/or social emotional learning activities currently being carried on in many K-12 public schools across our country.

Curriculum

Parents have the right to inspect “any instructional material” used as part of the education curriculum for the student. The parent who wants to exercise this right must request the material; the school does not have to provide access to the material without being asked first. Parents should demand that schools disclose teacher training materials designed to affect or direct student instruction as “instructional material.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s regulations require prior written consent from parents or a legal guardian before a child may be subjected to any method of obtaining information, including a group activity, that is not directly related to academic instruction and that is designed to elicit information about attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs or feelings. These regulations also have implications for the planned, systematic use of methods or techniques that are not directly related to academic instruction and that are designed to affect behavioral, emotional, or attitudinal characteristics of an individual or group. The regulations specifically cite the following categories:

• Political affiliations or beliefs of the student of the student’s parent;
• Mental and psychological problems of the student or the student’s family;
• Sex behavior and attitudes;
• Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior;
• Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the student has close family relationships;
• Legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers;
• Religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student, or the student’s parent;
• Income (other than that required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under such program).

In many cases, school activities related to or informed by critical race theory, gender ideology, or social emotional learning will trigger the prior consent requirement.

For opt-out letter templates, click here and here and here.

This is for general informational purposes only. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and Mead Vision.