Burlington Superintendent Pledges Transparency in YRBS Survey Flap, Then Withholds PRR Documents
They broke the law, and now the BPS is being transparently non-transparent. The world is watching. Will they finally come clean?
A couple weeks ago we told you about an outrageous survey given to middle school and high school students in the Burlington Public Schools. This survey, the “Middlesex League” version of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), asked students many age-inappropriate and graphic questions, such as: “Sexual intercourse includes vaginal sex which is when a penis goes inside of a vagina, oral sex which is contact between the mouth and genitals, anal sex which is when the penis goes inside an anus (butt), and use of toys or props (vaginal or anal). Have you ever had sexual intercourse?” But more outrageous than the questions themselves was the fact that many parents opted their minor children out of this survey - and the district made them take it anyway.
(Missed our first post about Burlington? Click the link below!)
Burlington Parents Opted Kids Out of Explicit Sex Survey. Their Middle Schoolers were Forced to Take it Anyway.
Over the last weekend in March, we learned that something very disturbing had happened in the Burlington Public Schools (BPS). Through the Massachusetts Informed Parents FB group, BPS parents alerted us that their middle and high school students had been given a sexua…
This story, propelled by the strong public comments made by the parents, the shocking nature of the questions themselves, and the unambiguous lawlessness of the school’s actions, thrust the Burlington YRBS - and the Burlington Public Schools - into the national spotlight.
Fox News covered the story HERE and HERE.
The Boston Globe covered it HERE.
The Boston Herald covered it HERE.
Burlington parents and Attorney Sam Whiting from Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center were interviewed on the Howie Carr Show HERE and the Todd Starnes Show HERE. Still more Burlington parents were interviewed on Nightside with Dan Rea HERE and HERE. And we know that more media coverage is coming.
But while we love it when the media picks up on what’s happening in MA education and helps shine the light on the things that need to change, getting press attention isn’t our goal. Our goal is to equip parents with good information so they can get involved, protect their kids, and ultimately bring change in their community.
When something goes very wrong in a school district, like pictures surfacing of a drag queen dancing on a table for kids in a school library, or middle schoolers are forced to take a survey that teaches them about anal sex even after their parents opted them out, everyone wants to know the answers to two questions: “How did this happen?” and “Who is responsible?” Public records requests are an excellent tool to get these answers. With that goal in mind, the Massachusetts Family Institute submitted a public records request to the BPS on April 8th which asked for the following items:
Emails and communications sent from Burlington Public Schools administrators (or their designees) to BPS staff pertaining to the administration of the 2025 YRBS including, but not limited to, instructions to staff on how to administer the survey and lists of students opted out of the survey (with student names redacted).
Emails received by Burlington Public Schools (school committee members, administrators, or staff) from non-district emails concerning the YRBS, from March 6, 2025, to the date of this request.
Emails and communications between Wellness Committee members and/or Mental Health Team members concerning the 2025 YRBS.
A copy of the 2025 YRBS, as reviewed by the Wellness Committee prior to March 25, 2025.
You can download MFI’s full public records request here:
While MFI waited for the response to this neatly tailored and specific request, the BPS’s Superintendent, Dr. Conti, sent out a letter to parents about the YRBS. This letter, seen below, was sent via ParentSquare on April 16th, 2025.
The link in the letter took parents to a newly-minted page on the BPS district website.
This page offers the district’s version of the history of the YRBS and their view of the benefits of the survey, along with some “FAQ’s.” While parents will find a dab here and there of accountability language, the page stops far short of demonstrating a real understanding of how offensive and damaging the administrative failures were, or the (very obvious) downsides of asking middle schoolers leading questions about sex, gender identity, and substance use.
The page is helpful in some ways, though. It provides copies of the surveys from several past years, along with some relevant documents. It sheds light on what the administration uses the survey data to promote (“continued support for inclusive student clubs and groups,” and “Review and potential expansion of health education at younger grade levels,” are two such priorities). It also reveals that the activist group The Trevor Project was consulted, which resulted in adding language about sex toys. According to JSI, the company contracted to create and facilitate the survey, which was done because the previous language “was not inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community.”
(Side note: Even aside from the YRBS specifically, there are multiple telling pieces of information on this page that we think Burlington parents should revisit in the future. It speaks volumes about the priorities and posture of your district leadership - and not in a good way. Bookmark that page and come back to it later, BPS mom and dad.)
Ultimately while this page is helpful in some ways to the 2025 YRBS post-mortem, it leaves many questions unanswered. It also very clearly attempts to present the survey in its most favorable light while passing the buck for the groomer questions to JSI, as if it wasn’t still the BPS’s responsibility to vet the questions (spoiler alert: it was). But Dr. Conti’s letter said, “We remain committed to transparency…”, so one would assume that more information is forthcoming.
Yet on April 22nd, Attorney Whiting received the following response from Dr. Conti regarding MFI’s public records request.
It seems the “committed to transparency” Dr. Conti wants to charge MFI $875 for the documents they requested!
These documents should not be difficult to obtain. In fact, if the BPS is serious about investigating their own shortfalls, they should have most of these documents in hand already.
MFI has appealed Dr. Conti’s response to the Secretary of State’s office. That appeal is pending.
We think that, in the meantime, Burlington parents should make their own appeal to Dr. Conti and their school committee at their school committee meeting tonight (Tuesday, April 29th) at 7. You can watch it live HERE. The YRBS is on the agenda.
Parents should ask: If the BPS is really committed to transparency, why would they charge for a reasonable, targeted request for public information? What are they trying to hide?
If the BPS isn’t trying to hide anything, Dr. Conti could direct his staff to turn over the documents to MFI today, fee-free.
Another option is that Dr. Conti could offer to cover the fee himself. He’s not obligated to do so, of course, but given his salary in next year’s budget is closing in on $300k, he may conclude that $875 is a nominal price to pay in order to demonstrate his stated commitment to transparency.
Will Dr. Conti step up to the plate and release the documents? We think he should. And if he doesn’t, the people of Burlington (and their school committee) should take note. Any administrator or government official who pledges transparency and then doesn’t rush to provide actual transparency when a problem occurs is transparently NOT transparent.
Regardless of when MFI’s requested documents are released, the Burlington school committee has some decisions to make. The main issue is still the 2025 YRBS debacle, who must be held accountable, and what steps the school committee will take to ensure something so egregious never happens in Burlington again.
Will BPS take responsibility for this law-violating failure, hold their administration fully accountable, and pass policies to prevent any possibility of reoccurrence? Or will they continue to sexualize kids through gross survey questions while allowing their nearly-triple-six-figure earning, taxpayer-funded admin to dish out (what we can only thus far assume are) disingenuous claims of transparency? Do they want to rebuild trust in Burlington? Or do they want to further alienate parents and attract more negative attention to their district? It’s time for them to pick a path forward. We hope they choose the path that protects the innocence of kids and the rights of parents, not the one that protects the feelings of paid employees and the agendas of activist organizations.
Burlington school committee, like a Burlington YRBS survey question, the choice is yours. And you can’t opt out.
The world is waiting to see what you decide.
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