Same statute, opposite readings: AACPS says FERPA required staff to keep quiet. Now the U.S. Department of Education and DOJ are investigating whether that same law required them to speak up.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Anne Arundel County Public Schools is now the subject of a federal investigation that could put its funding at risk — and the paper trail shows it didn’t come out of nowhere.
On Sunday, July 26, 2026 — National Parents’ Day — Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” that the Department of Education has “turned over” a Maryland investigation to the Department of Justice, alleging AACPS “found that transgender activities were in place, and that parents not only were not informed, but it was being hidden from parents.” The following day, Monday, July 27, Fox News Digital reported the formal enforcement action in a written exclusive, quoting McMahon: “As a mother and a grandmother, it is unconscionable that any school district would hide the most sensitive information about children in their care from their own parents.” A companion investigation is underway in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which has until Aug. 11, 2026 to justify its gender-identity records policy to the Department of Education or risk losing federal funding — no equivalent public deadline has been reported for AACPS.
McMahon’s federal probe is built on the same underlying facts as a private lawsuit filed three weeks earlier — and both point back to a single Board of Education regulation that has quietly governed AACPS practice since 2021.
The policy at the center
Same statute, two incompatible readings, and now a federal test of which one controls.
Regulation JQ-RA, “Safe and Inclusive Environments for LGBTQ+ Students,” was adopted June 16, 2021, and last revised October 31, 2023. It grew out of a 2019 AACPS guidance document, “Students and Gender Identity: Guidelines for Support.”
The regulation instructs staff to use a student’s “preferred name and pronoun” regardless of legal records, grants access to opposite-sex facilities and sports based on self-identified gender, and requires no medical or legal documentation to do so.
On disclosure to parents, the regulation is explicit — and this is the crux of the current federal fight:
“The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act generally prohibits the disclosure by schools that receive federal education funding of personally identifiable information from a student’s education records. Accordingly, school staff may not disclose any information that may reveal a student’s gender identity unless legally required to do so with the proper authorization.”
In other words: AACPS cites FERPA — the same federal student-privacy law now driving the Department of Education’s investigation — as the legal basis for withholding gender-identity information from parents. The department’s inquiry is examining whether that withholding itself constitutes a FERPA violation. Same statute, two incompatible readings, and now a federal test of which one controls.
AACPS cites FERPA as the legal basis for withholding gender-identity information from parents.
The Maryland State Department of Education’s own guidance backs the district’s original reading. MSDE’s “Providing Safe Spaces for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Youth” guidelines state plainly that “no provision of state or federal law requires schools to affirmatively disclose this sensitive information to parents,” and that “sensitive information related to gender identity generally need not be disclosed without the student’s consent.” An MSDE spokesperson told Capital News Service in 2024 that this guidance is advisory — individual districts set their own policies, and Anne Arundel is one of several counties that has adopted disclosure practices in line with it. Carroll County is a notable exception, requiring parental notification by policy.
The lawsuit that came first
The federal probe tracks closely onto Doe v. Anne Arundel County Board of Education (Case No. 1:26-cv-02690-RDB), filed July 8, 2026, in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland by America First Legal and Consovoy McCarthy PLLC on behalf of pseudonymous parents “John and Jane Doe.”
The 35-page complaint lays out a specific, dated sequence of events at an AACPS high school:
- Dec. 10, 2025 — A staff member emailed the Does using a male name for their daughter, “Mary,” then sent a message attempting to recall it, followed by a corrected email — and a fourth message falsely claiming the original had been “sent to the wrong addresses.” When the Does called the next day, the staff member admitted to lying and explained that AACPS staff privately ask each student their preferred name and pronouns at the start of the semester.
- May 1, 2026 — A second staff member sent a field-trip logistics document to all parents on the trip. Mary’s legal name was omitted from the chaperone list; the same male name appeared instead, paired with the Does’ surname — effectively disclosing her gender identity to every other parent on the email. Confronted again, the staff member first claimed it referred to “another student,” then admitted that wasn’t true.
- May–June 2026 — The Does filed a series of written records requests: the policy permitting staff to solicit preferred names/pronouns, documentation of conversations with their daughter, and any records reflecting alternate names in her file. An assistant principal invoked Regulation JQ-RA by name as “the law” and declined to produce most of what was requested. A $334.90 field-trip refund was denied.
- June 6, 2026 — Responding in writing, the school’s principal reinterpreted the regulation’s provision that staff “work with a student and the student’s parent(s)/guardian(s) to develop an appropriate plan” — telling the Does that this language means staff “may help families navigate conversations,” not that parents receive notice or a role in the decision. On the Does’ records request, the principal directed them to a formal FERPA process to review official records, while stating that internal staff emails, notes, and communications would require “appropriate legal process, including a subpoena.”
AACPS spokesperson Bob Mosier has said the district is aware of the Doe litigation but does not comment on pending cases. On the separate federal investigation, Fox News Digital reported it “reached out to the school districts in Maryland and Michigan for comment but did not hear back at time of publication” — meaning AACPS has not yet responded on the record to the federal probe specifically, a distinct question from the private lawsuit.
What’s actually being litigated
The federal ED/DOJ investigation and the Doe lawsuit are separate legal tracks converging on the same regulation.
The Doe complaint doesn’t ask a court to referee FERPA. It’s a constitutional claim: that Regulation JQ-RA violates the Does’ First Amendment free-exercise rights and Fourteenth Amendment due-process rights to direct their daughter’s upbringing, plus parallel claims under Articles 24 and 36 of the Maryland Constitution. It leans heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2026 decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta, which the complaint says held that “unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition” by a school can violate parents’ constitutional rights.
Two different bodies of law, two different plaintiffs, converging on the same regulation.
The federal ED/DOJ investigation is a separate track, proceeding under FERPA’s disclosure requirements rather than the Constitution — meaning AACPS could in theory prevail on the constitutional claims in Doe while still facing federal funding consequences on the FERPA question, or vice versa. Two different bodies of law, two different plaintiffs (private parents vs. the federal government), converging on the same regulation.
AACPS could prevail in court while still facing federal funding consequences—or vice versa.
This report is based on primary documents obtained and reviewed directly: the complaint in Doe v. Anne Arundel County Board of Education, No. 1:26-cv-02690-RDB (D. Md., filed July 8, 2026), provided by America First Legal and Consovoy McCarthy PLLC; Anne Arundel County Public Schools Regulation JQ-RA, “Safe and Inclusive Environments for LGBTQ+ Students” (adopted June 16, 2021, revised Oct. 31, 2023), published on AACPS’s board policy site; and the Maryland State Department of Education’s “Providing Safe Spaces for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Youth: Guidelines for Gender Identity Non-Discrimination,” published via marylandpublicschools.org. Additional reporting draws on Fox News Digital’s July 27, 2026 article by Ashley J. DiMella, which carried Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s on-the-record statement and confirmed that AACPS did not respond to a request for comment by publication; McMahon’s July 26, 2026 interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo; and secondary confirmation of the Doe lawsuit’s filing and AACPS spokesperson Bob Mosier’s no-comment-on-litigation position via The Baltimore Banner. Background on Maryland’s county-by-county variance in gender-identity notification policy, including Carroll County’s contrasting parental-notification requirement, is drawn from Capital News Service’s Dec. 10, 2024 reporting.
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