Parents should be aware of the dangers of the Internet especially now that children as young as 5 are using iPads and Chromebooks in school. See our additional sections on Internet Safety for Children and EBSCO, GALE and MN ELibrary for helps to monitor and keep your child safe.
Privacy Rights
- Protect Your Right to Parent Your Children.
American First Legal Foundation offers The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment: A Toolkit for Parents explaining your legal rights in an easy-to-understand toolkit covering PPRA, curriculum, surveys and more.
- The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and
The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA)
FERPA, a federal privacy law, that afforded parents the right to:
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- Have access to their children’s education records,
- Confirm the accuracy and seek to have the records amended,
- Review and appeal the information, and
- Consent to the disclosure of personally identifiable information.
What Is FERPA (PDF), provided by the Capitol Resource Institute, explains what each of these rights meant. The newer PPRA amendment protects against data that isn’t required.
The Student Data Privacy Project explains more about FERPA and also provides parents with sample templates and letters to request your child’s data from school.
What you need to know.
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- The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was originally a strong bill that blocked any school from disclosing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from a student’s educational records to any non-school official without parental notification or consent.
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- In 2008 and 2009 the bill was amended and consequently left useless by allowing schools to share data with third party companies and organizations.
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- Medical and counseling records included in your child’s education records are not protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
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- The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) protects students from having to reveal personal information without parental consent IF it is required, funded by the federal government, and collects data such as political affiliations and religious beliefs.
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- Most surveys given to students are NOT required and therefore are not protected by PPRA.
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- Schools are only required to notify parents of a survey being given and allow parents to opt their children out.
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- Schools often slip this information in with multiple forms or handbooks in the beginning of the year to meet federal requirements and often goes unnoticed by parents.
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- PPRA gives you the right to stop the data mining of your child, but you have to enforce it. Excerpt from page 6 of Data Mining Your Child (PDF)
- How well do you know your rights?
Take the Parental Rights quiz.
- Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Technology is moving so fast but is it eroding our privacy? EPIC seeks to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values in the information age and is a good resource concerning privacy issues.
- Privacy and Mental Health Research on Child Harm and Legal Liability
©The Reisman Institute 2019
Authors: Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D. and Mary E. McAlister, Esq.
Child Protection League has released and published this landmark, comprehensive and exhaustive scientific and legal research on the harm done to children when their privacy is violated.
Please use this thoroughly documented report as a resource for legislation, administrative policies, school policies, lawsuits, and business policies being considered or challenged. This resource is useful for research, writing, forums, debates and campaigns for public office. Please always give proper credit to the authors.
This comprehensive white paper equips lawmakers, administrators, judges, juries, educators, business leaders, and the public with a previously unavailable type of research. Adults responsible for the health and well-being of children must account for policies, practices, and curricula that threaten the emotional, physical, mental, and immunological health of children in their care. This paper provides the necessary evidence that these unjustified, antiscientific privacy invasion experiments must be ceased immediately before one more child is harmed. [p. 61]
Data Collecting
- Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Data Collection/Assessments
Each child’s responses are collected in a “data dashboard” and measured to see whether the child demonstrates change in regard to attitudes, feelings and behaviors. The results are entered into a national SEL data bank, often to third party vendors. Find additional information under Assessments at Social and Emotional Learning.
- Is Your Child Unsafe at the Doctor’s Office? Invasive Teen Questionnaire
The HealthPartner’s policy is one of many who are now requiring clinicians to administer a pre-teen/teen invasive health questionnaire answered only by the adolescent. The parent is then asked to leave the child alone with the clinician so the clinician can engage the child “one-on-one” about the answers and personal concerns.
With whom is this data being shared? State law allows the Minnesota Department of Health to require providers and health plans to “provide patient health records and claim files.” M.S. 62J.321 Data Collection & Processing Procedures
Beware of doctors that won’t let you as a parent accompany your child to the clinical area. The HIPPA Privacy Act is supposed to protect us from tyranny or any unethical deeds done by doctors and any other outside parties. It is absurd to think that a child’s privacy is being violated by having their own parent with them.
Please read the following for details so you can protect your child!
• Is Your Child Unsafe at the Doctor’s Office?
• Questionnaire (PDF)
• Letter: Parents beware of new health survey (PDF)
• When the Sign Says “No Parents Allowed”
Opt Outs
What is the one thing any parent can do to help stop indoctrination? Opt your child out of in-class surveys this school year!
Our CPL email update, Refuse the Surveys!, gives an overview including samples of the data schools are collecting and the importance of opting your child out.
- FOIA/Open Records Requests
It is your right to view public records. If you are having difficulty being allowed to see school records such as the surveys given to your child, the curriculum used, etc., submit what is called an Open Records or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Use the link to help you with the process….
- Parental Non-Consent Forms
Courage is a Habit Form
Another excellent resource is the Data Mining Your Child (PDF) guidebook from Courage is a Habit that explains how they collect the data and what they do with the data.
Courage is a Habit Opt Out Fillable Form (PDF)
Parents Notice to Schools Form
Dr. Miriam Grossman, author of You’re Teaching My Child What? and her newest book Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness, urges parents to use the fillable parent notification form to give to your child’s school. Visit Miriam Grossman MD to learn more.
American Defense Legal Form
The attorneys at American First Legal created a detailed fillable parental consent letter to arm parents to combat sinister woke agenda in American public schools partnering with Courage is a Habit.
Liberty Council Forms
This form prepared by The Liberty Council law firm, Lynchburg, VA, may be used by Minnesota parents in their local schools concerning curriculum that they object to. The purpose of this form is to put the school on notice regarding what is/is not acceptable for your child and that you must be provided preemptive notice. The introductory letter explains how to use this form and recommends that you fill one out for each of your children. Liberty Council states that they are prepared to assist and provide guidance in this area.
- Minnesota Student Survey
Did you know that there is an invasive survey that the schools administer every three years to students that ask intimate questions of your child? The test is administered January to June.OPT OUT your children from this Minnesota Student Survey!
The Minnesota Student Survey is run by a partnership of four state agencies: the Minnesota Departments of Education, Health, Public Safety, and Human Services. Read our 2022 CPL Article about these surveys then go to the Minnesota 2022 Student Survey site for contact information. The survey is voluntary but who makes that decision – you need to let them know NO for your child.
Do you trust the schools with intimate details about your child? Read the “versions that are available to review” below to see what kind of questions they ask—read to the very end!
- Comprehensive Sexual Health Education (CSE) and Your Rights as a Parent
You have a legal right to know what health curriculum and resources your school is using. Please check with your own school. Many have been surprised to learn that their own schools have already adopted CSE curriculum. Take it before other parents, your school administrators and your school boards if necessary. CSE is not a MN mandate…yet. You still have a voice and you still have parental rights in directing the education of your children.
- Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Mindfulness Training
Sample letter to opt out a student from SEL mindfulness and Buddhist meditation training provided by Jan Markell with Olive Tree Ministries. (attached in both Word and PDF)
- Keep Your Children Home on the Day of Silence
Each year, usually in April, schools across the country allow students and teachers to refuse to speak all day. The Day of Silence is a tool of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to force all school children, their parents, teachers and administrators to support and affirm this ideology by remaining silent. By refusing to speak, they marginalize those who disagree
Gender & Privacy Policies
The gender ideology is in most of our schools indoctrinating our children even at the elementary level. What is the pronoun mandate? Are your children safe when male students can use female restrooms and locker rooms because the male student decides he now identifies as a female despite his male biological body? Be aware of these policies in your schools and communities that embrace this dangerous new trend.
- Title IX
The controversy over women’s sports, men in women’s bathrooms, gender pronouns and more is wrapped up in the attempt to redefine the word sex to include gender in the 1972 Title IX legislation. Go to Title IX Sex Discrimination Rules for more details.
- School Counselors – Sources of Indoctrination
The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) trains school counselors to hide students’ sex and gender preferences from parents. What you can do.
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- Do not allow your child to have any sessions with school counselors without your presence.
- Fill out the 3-day demand form to ensure your participation in your child’s wellbeing.
- The “Toolkit” Agenda
Despite strong opposition, the Toolkit to Ensure Safe and Supportive Schools for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students was passed in Minnesota by an unelected, governor appointed Minnesota Department of Education committee. It’s not just about bathrooms and locker rooms. It’s about indoctrination into a dangerous gender ideology. The pronoun mandate is the most dangerous part of the Toolkit. Use this extensive resource to educate yourself on the issues.
- A Critical Review of Schools In Transition Guidebook (PDF)
CPL published review of the guidebook Schools in Transition (PDF) recommended by the MN Department of Education (MDE) as a credible resource. Radical gender activist groups such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Gender Spectrum, and the LGBT & HIV Project published this guidebook for schools across the country to use in setting school policies that endorse and promote transgender ideology.
- Disturbing video shows risk to girls & women posed by co-ed restrooms & locker rooms (23 minutes)
from the Illinois Family Institute