Investigates Palo Alto Unified over student privledge survey

The U.S. Department of Education on Monday opened an investigation on three California school districts, including Palo Alto Unified, to determine whether they violated federal laws by issuing a student “Wheel of Privilege” survey.

School Superintendent Jason Glass said the district will fully cooperate with the investigation and has already begun the process of investigating its practices, he wrote in a message to this publication. Palo Alto students are not required to participate in the privilege surveys, he wrote.

“Both of our high schools have confirmed that students are not asked to complete the ‘Wheel of Power/Privilege’ or ‘Mapping My Identities’ activities named in the Department’s letter,” Glass wrote. “The wheel appears in our Ethnic Studies Syllabus only as a teacher example used for class reference, and it is labeled that way.”

The department alleged that the Palo Alto Unified School District, North Monterey County Unified School District and San Francisco Unified School District violated federal parental rights laws by requiring students to reveal “intimate” family information in the surveys without parental consent, according to a statement it issued Monday.

Parents said that the privacy concerns stemmed from new and controversial required curricula – an ethnic studies graduation requirement. They alleged that districts were not responsive to questions about the curriculum and coursework, including the privilege surveys, according to the statement.

“These invasive questionnaires require students to identify personal information such as their sexual orientations, gender identities, mental and physical health conditions, family economic status, race and more,” the statement reads. “Students are then asked to determine their ‘privilege status’ based on the information they provide.”

Glass, who only joined the district this summer, said the district is reviewing how the lessons mentioned in the complaint were distributed, whether personal disclosure was required and how parent requests to view instructional materials were handled, he wrote.

If the district finds wrongdoing, he wrote, it will work to fix the issue.

“Parents have a right to know what their children are learning and to make decisions about sensitive personal matters,” Glass wrote. “We take that seriously, along with our responsibility to teach ethnic studies well. Those commitments are not in conflict.”

Although parent complaints were recently elevated to the Department of Education, debates over the ethnic studies requirement are anything but new. Many Palo Alto educators and community members fought to adopt the course, while others opposed it completely, calling it extreme and legally irresponsible.

After Governor Gavin Newsom signed in 2021 California Assembly Bill 101, mandating districts to create a new ethnic studies graduation requirement by 2025, educators across the state began the laborious process of establishing the new class.

Palo Alto Unified formed an ethnic studies committee composed of high school teachers who reviewed hundreds of pages of state documents, set guidelines for the course and connected with local schools like UC Berkeley, which has worked for years to create ethnic studies courses.

When the district was preparing to approve the course in 2025, former Superintendent Don Austin asked leaders to pull the plug on the program. That year, districts all over the state threw out their courses when they learned Newsom had not appropriated required funding to implement the course. Other districts, like Palo Alto Unified, had already adopted or were close to adopting the class and decided to proceed anyways.

The Board of Education adopted the new requirement 3-2 in January 2025, which was cause for celebration for the parents, students and educators who believed ethnic studies would provide a fuller picture of U.S. history. Those who opposed the program called it “divisive” and said that the adoption process was not transparent.

The federal Department of Education’s latest investigation is yet another hurdle for districts that moved forward with an ethnic studies requirement. Department leaders claimed California schools have collected private student data under the guise of the course, undermining parental rights.

It also stated that parents should not be treated “like ‘domestic terrorists’ as they were by the Biden Administration,” the statement reads.

Palo Alto parents can view ethnic studies course materials online and request specific coursework by contacting their child’s teacher or principal, Glass wrote in a statement.

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Lisa Moreno is a journalist who grew up in the East Bay Area. She completed her Bachelor's degree in Print and Online Journalism with a minor in Latino studies from San Francisco State University in 2024.... More by Lisa Moreno