Jessica Richardson, director of research and engagement for Massachusetts Family Institute, says middle and high school students in the Burlington Public School district were forced to take a graphic survey about their sex lives.
"We heard about this first from parents who had opted their children out of this survey," she relays. "Their children who were middle school aged were forced to take it anyway. This is completely outrageous."
Among other things, the children were asked, "Which of the following best describes your sexual orientation?" One question fully described anatomy and actions and asked students to share whether they had engaged in any of the explained activities.
The question then gave six age options for when the "intercourse" began, starting at age eight.
"This is grossly inappropriate for any minor, but especially middle schoolers," Richardson insists. "We're talking about kids as young as sixth grade."
Just to give an idea of how young these children are, Paul Runko, director of strategic initiatives at Defending Education, says one concerned dad said his 11-year-old who took the survey still writes letters to Santa Claus.
"It's completely unacceptable to expose middle schoolers … to what is quite frankly pornographic descriptions and definitions of sex and very invasive personal questions, especially without the expressed consent from parents," Runko asserts. "In some cases, the parents actually did say, 'No, you are not allowed to give my child this survey.'"
On that note, he points out that under the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), schools must notify parents and give them a chance to opt out before administering any survey that includes questions about sex, mental health, illegal behavior, or religious beliefs.
"Forcing students to take a graphic sex survey without parental opt-out is a clear and outrageous violation of federal law and an attack on parental rights," Runko summarizes.
Burlington School District's superintendent and other district leaders have yet to clarify some key details, including whether the school did give parents the option to opt their children out, if students were given the survey anyway, and more.
One parent, David Hanafin, says the school did send him an opt-out form about a month before the survey through an app called Parent Square, but he did not see it. But as such content is persistently presented to his kids at school, he and his wife had previously requested a perpetual opt-out from all such material.
Hanafin's high school children recognized the graphic content of the survey and were permitted to leave the room, but his seventh grader answered the questions.
In an op-ed for the Boston Herald, attorney and victims' rights advocate Wendy Murphy explains that one survey question asks children if someone has ever forced them to do sexual things that they did not want to do.
"To the uninformed," she says, "this might seem like a reasonable question, but notice how it only asks whether the student did not 'want' to do the act. Implicit in this phrasing is the idea that a child can choose to be raped. Nothing in the survey informs children that they are too young to consent."
She also wonders why any school official would intentionally describe an act of violence against an eight-year-old child as "intercourse."
In response, parents are in what one report calls an "open rebellion" against the public school district. A few LGBTQ advocates say there was nothing wrong with the survey, but Murphy's op-ed notes that even homosexual parents are outraged "because the issue is childhood — not gayness."
Defending Education encourages parents to learn from this story the importance of being educated on these issues and laws like PPRA. Runko advises parents to contact their local schools and find out if their children are being subjected to any sort of survey. If so, they should opt them out and tell those schools that these surveys should not be given in school at all.
Massachusetts Family Institute has stepped in to help the Burlington parents file legal complaints through the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center.
Richardson agrees that this case should serve as an example of why parents need to be vigilant about what is going on in their kids' schools. She points out that this survey is a form of the federal Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which mean what happened in Burlington, Massachusetts could technically happen anywhere.
