“Schools should never deliberately hide vital information from parents, yet that’s exactly what the Rockford Public School District did,” Anderson said. “District employees didn’t even notify Dan and Jennifer — let alone seek their consent — before beginning to call their young daughter by a masculine name and male pronouns.”
Anderson told CNA that the parents were regularly working with school staff after their daughter was diagnosed with autism to discuss how the school could best serve her.
Despite this regular contact, she said the school district withheld information about the school’s efforts to socially “transition” the child and that school officials actively worked to deceive the parents in conversations as well as by altering official records.
Although teachers and staff were using male pronouns and a masculine name during school hours and in official school records, they would use her given name and female pronouns “in their conversations with her parents,” according to Anderson.
When the school shifted the girl’s name and pronouns “on official records,” they would allegedly mislead the parents by “erasing and replacing names and pronouns” when sending information to her parents.
Anderson said the parents “found out inadvertently” after “a period of months” when school officials forgot to alter one of the documents before sending it to her parents. The Meads withdrew their daughter from the school after learning of the alleged deception.