School district being sued by parents who claim they deliberately concealed middle-school daughter's transition

ROCKFORD, MI - Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) have filed a lawsuit on the behalf of a Michigan couple who are claiming that they found out school officials with the Rockford Public School District had secretly transitioned their middle school daughter without their knowledge or consent.

According to Fox News, ADF filed the lawsuit on behalf of Dan and Jennifer Mead in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan's Southern Division. The lawsuit alleges that district employees began treating their middle-school daughter as a boy, actively taking steps to conceal those actions from the parents.

The Meads allege that employees in the school district altered their daughter's official records to remove references to the district's actions before sending the records home, which was only discovered after an employee unintentionally failed to completely alter a report about their daughter before sharing it with them.

When asked for a comment, Rockford Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Steve Matthews, declined to provide one, telling Fox News Digital, "We will respectfully decline to comment and let the legal process run its course."

According to the Meads, their daughter started sixth grade at East Rockford Middle School in August of 2022, but as the school year progressed, they said she began to struggle academically. Prior to finding out that their daughter had "transitioned," the Meads started working with the school to help find ways to best help their daughter academically after she had received an autism diagnosis. 

After that, their daughter met with a school counselor over the next two years, who freely shared information about those meetings with the Meads, including changes to their daughter's well-being. Jennifer said, "Most days, she was pretty sad and we were feeling a little bit desperate. What can we do to help our daughter? So, I was working with the counselor, who was then explaining all of this information to the teacher, sharing information from them, confidential information. So, the counselor and I had a relationship and I trusted her."

According to the parents, in May 2022, their daughter sent a message to the school counselor asking her to email her teachers, telling them to start calling her by a masculine name. During that time and through the end of the school year, the counselor regularly corresponded multiple times with Jennifer about her daughter, but seemingly failed to mention that the now eight-grader had requested teachers to use a masculine name and male identifying pronouns.

When their daughter started eighth grade, her parents claim that district employees began referring to her by the masculine name without the Meads' knowledge or consent. ADF Senior Counsel and director of ADF's Center for Parental Rights Kate Anderson said in a statement, "This social transition went on for several months before the Meads realized what was happening. They found out when the counselor went through to change documents, she missed one and so one went home with the male name and male pronouns."

The suit alleges that even though the counselor had given regular updates to Jennifer about their daughter, the district deliberately chose not to tell them about this specific request. The Meads initially thought the information was a mistake, until realizing it was not. They immediately asked district employees to refrain from using the masculine name and male pronouns. The Meads said that the district employees refused to comply with their requests and when confronted about it, district officials said "it was their policy to do so." 

Anderson said this is something that they are seeing around the country. She added, "I think a court's going to step in and stop that because schools shouldn't be making these decisions for parents. You really see with the Meads' daughter how that [policy] affected her and they can speak to that."

As soon as they realized that their daughter had been "actively encouraged" to hide what was going on with her, they immediately pulled her out of the district. Jennifer said, "This was hurting our daughter, without this critical information, we were not able to help her like we should have been able to. We know our daughter best, we love our daughter more than anyone and that was very important for us to know that, so that we could help her thrive and they were hiding this from us. This is critical information. This is life-changing information that they were keeping from us intentionally."

Anderson said that it is unconstitutional for a school to hide information from parents about their child, adding, "Parents have the fundamental freedom to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed that. That means that parents need the information to be able to do that well."

Since leaving the school district, Dan and Jennifer say that their daughter is doing great and no longer identifies as a boy. Jennifer explained, "She knows her identity. She knows that she is female, she knows the truth and she was confused because of her autism. She struggled with finding her identity in that, so she is on the road to healing. We are on the road to healing as a family."

Dan added, "We have our daughter back."

Jennifer said that the lawsuit they are bringing against the school district serves as a reminder to parents around the country that they have rights and deserve to know what is going on with the children. She said, "Schools have no right to make critical decisions for the well-being of my child or anybody else's child. We know our children best. We love our children more than anyone will."