<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1660663463802,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017c-b7e3-d26e-affc-fff3c2490000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1660663463802,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017c-b7e3-d26e-affc-fff3c2490000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_60663458", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1075624"} }); ","_id":"00000182-a741-d7a6-ab9f-af4377730000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video Embed
Attorneys for a group of New Jersey parents are demanding answers from the Department of Education after filing a complaint with the agency against their local school district last year.
The letter sent by America First Legal on Tuesday demands the department respond to complaints filed last year on behalf of seven parents with children enrolled in public schools in Cedar Grove School District in New Jersey.
THIS LAW CAN HELP PARENTS EXPOSE CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN SCHOOLS, CONSERVATIVE GROUP SAYS
The complaints were filed under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, a law first passed in 1974 that ensures parental access to school materials and the ability to opt out of school surveys.
The group of parents had filed the complaints against Cedar Grove last year, claiming the school district administered several intrusive surveys to their children between the ages of 8 and 10 and did not provide the parents with adequate notice in order to opt out.
The surveys included questions about the children’s sexual activity, gender identity, religious adherence, and family demographics.
An administrative law judge in New Jersey and the state’s commissioner of education, in response to separate complaints, found the district had violated state law. But the federal complaint has gone unheeded.
“Your office is charged with enforcing the PPRA to protect parents and children,” the letter says. “By imposing unnecessary bureaucratic delays, it has apparently chosen not to do so. This is unlawful. There is simply no reason for a year to have passed without official action from the Department on our clients’ complaints.”
The letter demands the department respond by Aug. 29.
“We haven’t seen much action taken by the Department of Education on these complaints,” America First Legal senior adviser Ian Prior told the Washington Examiner. “They’re obligated under the law to investigate and come to a resolution within a reasonable time, and certainly in this particular case, they have not done so.”
Prior said a main concern with the department’s lack of action on the complaints is an apparent hostility to the enforcement of parental rights by the Biden administration.
“We’ve seen over the past two years, parents are pushing back on these woke ideologies that are being infused in public education,” Prior said, noting that the Biden administration is “all for the wokeification of the public schools in America.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“When parents start pushing back on that, [the Biden administration] is going to remain hostile to it because it goes against what their agenda is,” he added.
The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.
