An attorney has voiced concern that the Maine Department of Education may be taking advantage of state law to allow social workers to establish a “confidential relationship” with a child to prevent parents from accessing and reviewing education records related to their child’s counseling.
An attorney for a Maine mother who sued her daughter’s school after a social worker provided the 13-year-old with a chest binder says the instance is not the only time a district within the state concealed information about a child’s gender dysphoria from parents.
Amber Lavigne filed a federal lawsuit against the Great Salt Bay Community School Board after finding a chest binder in her daughter’s room in December 2022. Lavigne also learned that school officials had helped her daughter “socially transition” by using a different name and pronouns when referring to the girl, all without her mother’s consent.
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Lavigne filed the federal lawsuit with help from the Goldwater Institute, and the First Circuit Court of Appeals is currently hearing her case.
In a Tuesday op-ed for Fox News, Adam Shelton, a staff attorney at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation, said it’s “no surprise” that the Trump administration is investigating the Maine Department of Education.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Education announced an investigation into reports that districts are using privacy laws to hide information about students’ mental health from their parents.
The federal government has taken issue with school districts allegedly creating “gender plans” for trans-identifying students, which some districts claim are not available for the parents to review.
The attorney argues that his client’s case is an example of a school using the law related to social workers to conceal information from parents, which would be a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal privacy law that gives parents the right to access their children’s education records.
“Amber requested all the records from her daughter’s sessions with the school social worker. But Superintendent Lyndsey Johnston refused to hand them over, citing the Maine statute,” Shelton wrote in the op-ed.
“The Great Salt Bay Community School has not only refused to take responsibility for its actions, its leaders have criticized Amber for continuing to ask for information about her daughter,” he added.
Shelton wrote that the DOE’s investigation “highlights the need for state-based policies to promote parental rights and academic transparency in public education.”
The Great Salt Bay Community School and the Maine Department of Education did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
