Student Privacy
USED Ramps Up PPRA Enforcement
USED found a Massachusetts district violated the law and opened three new investigations.
On July 28 and 29, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education's (USED) Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) opened investigations into Bethel School District in Washington State, Denver Public Schools in Colorado, and the Minnesota Department of Education, for allegedly violating the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). USED also announced it had found Burlington Public Schools in Massachusetts in violation of PPRA. The announcements were part of a series the Department tied to National Parents' Day (July 26), promising "significant actions ensuring the enforcement of federal parental rights laws" throughout the week. The Department closed the week by demanding that the California Department of Education and Washington's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction detail their plans to revise policies on disclosing student records to parents, citing recent court rulings.
These aren't isolated cases, but part of a broader pattern: USED, working in step with the Department of Justice (DOJ), has built a fast enforcement pipeline for parental-rights and gender-identity issues using FERPA, Title IX, and PPRA, moving on advocacy complaints and news reports alike.
This post focuses on how that pattern is playing out under PPRA: the pace of the investigations, the role of advocacy complaints, and DOJ's growing involvement in the Bethel and Denver investigations and the Burlington enforcement action.
PPRA Overview
PPRA has been on the books since the 1970s, but has often been overlooked until recently. The law protects students from having to reveal sensitive personal information in school surveys. Its strongest protection, a requirement of affirmative written parental consent, applies to surveys funded by USED programs. A broader notice-and-opt-out regime applies to any district that receives USED funds, whatever the survey's funding source.
The heart of the statute is a list of eight protected categories:
- Political affiliations or beliefs of the student or their parents
- Mental or psychological problems of the student or their family
- Sex behaviors or attitudes
- Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior
- Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the respondent has a close family relationship
- Legally recognized privileged relationships (with lawyers, physicians, ministers, etc.)
- Religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs
- Income, except where needed to determine eligibility for a financial-assistance program
Whenever a required survey, analysis, or evaluation asks students about any of the eight protected categories, schools must notify parents and obtain affirmative written consent (not just an opt-out!) for their child to participate. On August 26, 2026, USED announced “that SPPO will consider” surveys revealing sensitive categories of information under PPRA to be “‘required’ when administered by an educator, counselor, or other school official and that an opt-out policy is not sufficient to secure parental consent.” This announcement changed PPRA interpretation to require parental opt-in for all surveys at school that address one of the eight protected categories of information (before this announcement, the standard for optional surveys was to provide notice and an opportunity to opt-out).
PPRA also requires direct annual notice to parents, gives parents the right to inspect instructional materials and surveys in advance, and covers non-emergency invasive physical exams. For more information on PPRA, see this blog.
Burlington
Over the past year and a half, USED has opened investigations into many school districts for allegedly violating FERPA, Title IX, or Title VI. PPRA has been a rare tool by comparison. Before last week, the Department had pursued only two PPRA matters*: an investigation into Burlington Public Schools, opened last summer, and a joint USED-DOJ investigation of Washington State's own education agency, underway since April 2025 under Title IX, FERPA, and PPRA together. Then, in one week, USED opened three new PPRA investigations and found that Burlington had violated the statute. What is still unclear is how hard the Department will push each of the new investigations. Burlington is the furthest along, and it offers the clearest picture of what a PPRA case looks like in practice.
In August 2025, SPPO opened an investigation into Burlington Public Schools in Massachusetts after the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center filed complaints on behalf of parents alleging the district ignored opt-out requests for a 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The survey touched several PPRA-protected categories, including: drug and alcohol use, mental health, sexual history, and sexual orientation and gender identity. The complaint alleged Burlington not only failed to honor written opt-outs, but that the district also administered the survey to students who protested that their parents had opted them out. The complaint also alleges that because students weren't told participation was voluntary, the survey effectively became mandatory, which under PPRA requires affirmative parental consent.
On July 29, 2026, USED announced their determination that Burlington Public Schools violated PPRA. The press release states that SPPO "determined that Burlington Public Schools (the District) in Massachusetts violated the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) by requiring student participation in a survey containing sensitive, sexually explicit questions after parents expressly requested that their children not partake." Additionally, the release claims that "The District admitted that it administered the 2025 'Youth Risk Behavior Survey' to students despite receiving opt out notices from several families."
USED's allegations appear to be factual, as Burlington's website includes the following statement acknowledging the flaws in the opt-out process:
Burlington Public Schools acknowledges that during the administration of the 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), there were areas for improvement, particularly in the opt-out process and delivery of the proctor script. We recognize the importance of clear communication with families regarding student participation in surveys of this nature.
In the July 29 press release, USED stated that it had "proposed a Resolution Agreement to voluntarily resolve the District's violations of the PPRA," requiring the following corrective actions:
- Sending all parents copies of the 2025 survey questions that were improperly administered to ensure families understand the survey's content and have the opportunity to discuss it with their children;
- Issuing apology letters from the superintendent to the families who filed complaints;
- Ensuring districtwide policies fully comply with federal parental rights laws; and
- Submitting all future surveys that may contain explicit information or sensitive questions to the Department for review.
Burlington is useful for two reasons. First, it's a clear public example of what a PPRA violation finding could require as proof: a specific survey, a specific opt-out failure, and a district admission. Second, its resolution agreement is now the closest thing to a template for what USED asks districts to do once a PPRA violation is confirmed, which matters for analyzing the newer cases.
Washington, Colorado, and Minnesota Investigations
Bethel School District (WA) and Denver Public Schools (CO): SPPO is investigating reports that a Bethel high school Pride Month display "exposed students to vials of testosterone," and whether the district honors parents' rights to view instructional materials and opt children out of covered surveys and evaluations. In Denver, SPPO is investigating allegations that a teacher "required students of the same sex to kiss each other in front of the classroom as part of a class assignment" and whether notice and opt-outs were honored; OCR is separately examining the district's response under Title IX. Under PPRA, nearly everything turns on the existence of a "survey, analysis, or evaluation." Whether a graded classroom assignment is an "evaluation" for PPRA purposes, or whether a hallway display triggers instructional-materials or opt-out obligations, is not answered by the statute's text, and no court has answered it. The releases do not say either; the Denver announcement simply calls the assignment a "student evaluation."
Minnesota Department of Education: Defending Education, an advocacy group whose complaints have driven several of SPPO's parental-rights investigations, alleged that parents were "not notified or given the opportunity to opt their children out of an activity that used 'transgender dolls' in the classroom"; SPPO opened an investigation into MDE days later. It is just as unclear how the dolls program would fall under PPRA: MDE and several districts that responded to news outlets' inquiries said they have no connection to the program and no plans to use the dolls in classrooms, its creators describe a therapeutic tool for licensed clinicians rather than a classroom activity, and a doll program is not an obvious "survey, analysis, or evaluation" in any event.
Separate from Defending Education's complaint about MyGender Dolls, the organization put out an investigative report in May 2026 identifying 229 districts (roughly 1,600 schools and over 700,000 students) using a model "Protection and Privacy of Pupil Records" policy that lets districts withhold student data from parents at a student's request. This hasn't yet been packaged into a formal complaint to USED and is only the group's own policy audit. But it's the kind of systemic, boilerplate-policy finding that has previously converted into federal action once formally filed. If Defending Education or an allied group turns this into a formal complaint, USED's recent actions (see DOJ & USED collaboration section below) suggest a response wouldn't be far behind, potentially in collaboration with DOJ.
DOJ & USED collaboration
USED's parental-rights enforcement increasingly runs alongside the Department of Justice. USED has not said DOJ is a party to its PPRA investigations, but the two agencies are openly coordinating on related legal issues:
- Joint Title IX task force: In April 2025, USED and DOJ formed a Title IX Special Investigations Team to speed up Title IX enforcement, with the DOJ describing the goal as using "the full power of the law to remedy any violation of women's civil rights."
- Interagency agreement: In June 2026, USED and DOJ announced the Student Privacy Protection Partnership, an interagency agreement (IAA) that gives DOJ's Civil Rights Division a role in enforcing FERPA and PPRA in coordination with USED. The agreement itself cites both statutes and pairs its commitments to them item by item: protecting parents' access to education records and curricula, securing student data, and safeguarding parents' right to decide whether their children take school-administered surveys. (The public-facing fact sheet, unlike the agreement, does not name either law.)
- Kansas FERPA enforcement: In April 2026, USED found that four Kansas districts, including Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools, maintained policies that violate FERPA. When Kansas City refused to voluntarily comply, USED announced in June 2026 that SPPO and DOJ's Civil Rights Division would jointly pursue enforcement, including possible litigation and loss of federal funding. In September 2026, DOJ and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas filed a lawsuit against KCKPS alleging FERPA and PPRA violations.
- Maryland and Michigan: On July 27, 2026, USED and DOJ announced enforcement actions against Ann Arbor Public Schools and Anne Arundel County Public Schools for issues similar to those cited in the Kansas enforcement action referenced above. For Anne Arundel, SPPO and DOJ's Civil Rights Division said they will "take appropriate enforcement action, including applicable judicial proceedings and potential loss of federal funding"1; Ann Arbor was given until August 10 to demonstrate why the agencies should not move forward with enforcement. Secretary Linda McMahon said "ED and DOJ are working together to vigorously uphold parents' federal protections," while Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon warned that "the Department of Justice will initiate enforcement proceedings with districts that fail to comply."
- DOJ's independent priorities: Separately from any joint action with USED, DOJ's Civil Rights Division has used the Supreme Court's decisions in Mirabelli v. Bonta and Mahmoud v. Taylor to justify its own investigations, including investigations into 36 Illinois public school districts over sexual orientation and gender ideology (SOGI) curriculum and opt-outs, and a review of four California districts over similar opt-out notification questions.
DOJ's role in these matters has expanded quickly. Over the past 15 months, USED and DOJ have moved from a shared Title IX task force to a signed agreement giving DOJ's Civil Rights Division a role in FERPA and PPRA enforcement, and they now act together across overlapping issue areas. That trajectory suggests DOJ's involvement in PPRA enforcement is likely to keep growing, even in cases like Bethel and Denver where USED has not named DOJ outright.
What Comes Next?
Taken together, these threads hint at how the open PPRA investigations are likely to unfold and what to watch for:
- DOJ could join formally. While DOJ hasn't been named in any of the PPRA cases, the Kansas-to-Michigan/Maryland trajectory suggests that DOJ involvement may come later depending on how the investigations develop and if additional enforcement action is taken.
- Burlington sets the template; the other cases are still thin. Unlike Burlington, the Department's press release about the Bethel and Denver investigations didn't link a specific complaint or provide enough detail to determine the facts at issue or whether the incidents actually gave rise to a PPRA violation. Burlington shows what the end of that process can look like, down to the specific corrective steps (parent disclosure, apology letters, policy compliance, prior review of future surveys), as well as establishing a timeline that the investigation and enforcement process can take the better part of a year. We'll have to wait and see whether Bethel, Denver, or MDE actually reach that point, and on what timeline.
- Watch for the next action or policy that could trigger the same pattern. Given how quickly USED moved once a PPRA complaint was filed, districts, parents, and advocacy groups alike should be watching for the next survey, curriculum decision, or policy that could be read as infringing on parental rights or violating PPRA. The pipeline from complaint to investigation has proven fast and repeatable, the open question is simply which action or policy triggers it next.
This post is one of four in PIPC’s coverage of USED and DOJ enforcement. The other three are the USED student privacy actions timeline, the Kansas FERPA enforcement action, and the USED–DOJ interagency agreements.
* In September 2025, SPPO initiated a PPRA enforcement action against Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia. The Department has since marked that press release as historical content. Unless and until there is more information released by the Department, we are not including it in our count of active investigations.