Community High School District 128, a suburban Chicago school district, had an Overnight Trip Policy requiring girls to share sleeping quarters with biological males who identify as female. The district also maintained separate Gender Support Guidelines instructing staff on how to handle student gender transitions — without notifying parents.
They didn't just do it. They built a system to make sure parents didn't find out.
The Liberty Justice Center's PARENTS Initiative sent a demand letter to District 128 Superintendent Marc Schaffer on behalf of families who discovered the policies after the fact. Counsel Kathryn Cosgrove didn't leave room for interpretation. "These are not optional protections, and District 128 will be held accountable," Cosgrove said. The letter invokes Title IX, the First Amendment, and the 14th Amendment — arguing that forcing girls into mixed-sex sleeping arrangements while concealing the policy from families violates federal law on multiple fronts.
This isn't a hypothetical. The district put the policy in writing. Staff were given guidelines for managing gender-related decisions about students — housing, pronouns, names — and told to keep parents out of the loop. A school district decided it had more authority over children's overnight arrangements than the people who are legally responsible for those children.
The Illinois situation follows a pattern that just played out in New Jersey. The Chathams School District, a suburban New York City district, faced two months of litigation from the Thomas More Society over a similar secrecy policy. Senior counsel Christopher Ferrara fought to eliminate the district's gender concealment guidelines entirely. On September 14, the Chathams board voted to replace the policy. By October 12, a settlement was announced.
"Now that policy is gone for good, every teacher and counselor in the district will receive a copy," Ferrara said. He added that any district still enforcing similar policies "can explain themselves to a federal judge."
Chathams board member Mike Ryan complained about the backlash. "We don't deserve death threats that we're getting now every day, about a reckless lawsuit," Ryan said. Board Vice President Susan Ross insisted, "Our schools are not secretly making decisions about children behind their parents' backs."
The settlement agreement says otherwise.
The Supreme Court has moved decisively on this ground. The Mirabelli decision addressed gender secrecy policies directly. Mahmoud established that parents have a right to notice and opt-out regarding LGBTQ curriculum. Both built on Yoder, the 1972 ruling affirming parental control over children's education. The legal terrain is not ambiguous.
The Department of Justice has been investigating Illinois school districts over similar policies for six months. District 128 is now facing both a federal civil rights complaint and the DOJ's broader inquiry simultaneously.
Moms for Liberty CEO Tina Descovich framed the stakes plainly. "The parents behind this case endured doxxing and harassment simply for asking their school district to respect their role as their children's primary educators," Descovich said.
The Chathams district concealed its policy until parents sued. District 128 concealed its policy until parents found out on their own. The New Jersey School Boards Association provided the "model policy" both districts followed.
Two states. Two districts. The same playbook.