How can a school district be so out of touch with the responsibilities associated with sex-education instruction?
Yes, Burlington public schools, the district that’s facing a federal investigation for a “graphic” student survey, has admitted long after the fact that “errors and mistakes did occur” when a survey was given to youngsters despite their parents’ specific opt-out instructions.
The U.S. Department of Education this week announced that the agency launched an investigation into Burlington Public Schools for allegedly failing to comply with parents’ written requests for their children not to take a survey that asked questions about sexual activity and gender identity.
Burlington’s school superintendent in response said the district will “cooperate fully with the investigation and will respond within the time required.”
According to the Trump administration, the district may have violated parents’ rights under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, which allows parents to excuse their children from participating in certain school surveys.
The controversial “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” earlier this year was given to both middle- and high-school students – a wide age range in different stages of their sexual knowledge and development – in Burlington Public Schools. The survey included questions about sexual intercourse, sexual orientation, gender identity, sexting, experiences with sexual assault, and alcohol use, among other subjects.
Students whose parents had opted them out of the questionnaire were still required to take the survey, leading to the filing of complaints with the federal government.
“The School District also previously emailed all families acknowledging that errors and mistakes did occur and that the School District recognized the critical importance of having clear communication with families, especially regarding parents and students’ rights to opt-out of such surveys,” the Burlington superintendent wrote.
“The School District previously acknowledged to the community that it was able to confirm five instances of students whose parents opted them out were allowed inadvertently to participate in the survey,” he added.
“This is not a new issue, and the District has gone to great lengths to be transparent and forthcoming about the problems, unintentional as they were, with the 2025 YRBS.”
Then why did it apparently take parents pursuing this issue as far as the federal government before the public at large learned of this blatant disregard of those individuals’ rights?
Deciding to give this blanket survey to children as young as 10 or 11 not only shows a lack of common sense – in abundant supply among some educators – but contrary to at least the spirit of Department of Elementary and Secondary Education guidelines.
In 2023, DESE adopted a Comprehensive Health and Physical Education framework that provides standards and program guidance for effective comprehensive health and physical education programs.
It states that Massachusetts has no state mandate for sex education, but if a district chooses to so, it must adhere to DESE’s updated 2023 CHPE framework, which includes instruction on healthy relationships, consent, and age-appropriate information on sexual orientation and gender identity.
It’s all information that the Burlington Public Schools administration should have taken into account before agreeing to this survey.
Perhaps, had our state Legislature adopted a law in line with education department guidelines, school officials would be more likely to ensure that such administrative blunders wouldn’t occur.
Sentinel and Enterprise
