A Massachusetts mother has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education because her children's school conducted a sex survey without parents' written consent.
Fitchburg Memorial Middle School conducts the survey with "passive" parental consent in most cases, which means consent forms are sent home with students, but most parents never see them.
"What the schools say is that [if] they don't receive the note back with the parents saying they can't do it, they go ahead and do it anyway," reports John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute.
So the explicit surveys are given to students as young as 10 or 11 years old, asking questions about sexual behavior that many students have probably never engaged in and may not even understand.
"Here's the problem -- I think kids will probably go on the Internet and see what those things mean," Whitehead warns. "So I think just asking these questions raises some things that children should not be thinking about. If I asked these same questions in my neighborhood to local kids, the police would be at my door in 30 minutes, suspecting me to be a pedophile."
He concludes that "presuming" parents have given their tacit permission violates the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment. So The Rutherford Institute has proposed a policy that would require the school to obtain written parental consent.
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