[May 14, 2026] Today, the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), a national nonprofit of top attorneys that regularly defend constitutional rights, filed a cert petition to the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to hear the case of Stovall v. Jefferson County Board of Education, which argues public schools should not be allowed to give secret surveys to minor school students and then block parents from obtaining copies.

SLF first filed the lawsuit on behalf of Miranda Stovall, a Kentucky parent who requested access to secret school surveys being given to her child in public school. The school denied Stovall’s request for a copy of the survey and claimed that “copyright laws” prevented the school from sharing it with parents or taxpayers because they could be sued by the education curriculum company that writes the surveys.

The content of the Kentucky public school surveys in this case were non-academic and pertained to emotional issues, which Stovall believes would usually be something left to parents. She was not comfortable with the school giving emotional questions to her child and then concealing them from her and the public.

SLF argues that the concealment of the surveys from Stovall is a violation of federal copyright law and her constitutional rights, which allow copies to be reproduced for fair use like public discussion. Schools and curriculum companies will stop at nothing to keep these surveys from parents – it is wrong and must stop.  Parents should always be able to access and speak out against surveys and other invasive school curriculum if they deem them inappropriate. And when schools stonewall them, parents should be able to turn to our federal courts to make things right.

SLF lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to hear the case to bring full transparency between public schools and parents of minor students, which would shed light on the practice of keeping parents in the dark about secret surveys.

SLF President Kim Hermann said, “There’s no other way to put it, Miranda was stonewalled and kept away from emotional well-being questions presented to her own child. It is a complete and total outrage and every parent in America should be horrified that instances like this are happening across the country because it sends one message: public schools are in charge of your kids, not parents.

It is essential that the Court hears this case because a message to all school systems needs to be heard: schools have no right to play parent. These surveys are invasive because as soon as schools claim copyright, they could be questioning kids on anything they want, keeping parents in the dark. We need the Court’s help to put an immediate halt to ‘secret surveys’ and hold schools accountable when it comes to being transparent with families, taxpayers, and the public.”

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