Alpine School District's $107 million in federal funding could be at risk after the U.S. Department of Education warned K-12 schools nationwide that hiding student records from parents violates federal law.

For families in Alpine, Highland, Cedar Hills and Lehi, the dollar figure is real: the district received $107 million in federal revenue in the 2021-22 school year, about 12% of its total budget, according to National Center for Education Statistics data compiled by Ballotpedia. A more recent estimate from USAFacts pegged the federal share at 9.3% for 2022-23.

The warning came in a "Dear Colleague" letter dated Aug. 26 and publicly released Wednesday, Sept. 2. Frank Miller, director of the department's Student Privacy Policy Office, signed the letter, which was addressed to chief state school officers and district superintendents.

The letter reminded schools that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requires them to let parents inspect and review all education records for their children. That includes records some districts have labeled "unofficial," such as gender support plans kept in separate filing systems.

"Parents know what is best for their children," Miller said in a department release. "Yet we continue to see schools adopt policies that shut parents out of their children's lives at school."

The department said the letter followed "rampant reports" of schools withholding information from parents, including maintaining gender-related records separately to keep them hidden. The agency also announced a finding against the California Department of Education for creating secret "gender support plans" and warned the state it could lose $4.9 billion in annual federal education funding if it did not take corrective action.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit in February 2026 challenging the department's enforcement, alleging the agency was interpreting federal parental rights provisions "that far exceed the scope of the statute."

The letter also tightened rules on student surveys. Under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), parents must give written consent before students take any survey touching eight protected areas, including political beliefs, mental health, sexual behavior and religious practices. The department said it would treat all such surveys as "required" and therefore subject to advance parental notification and consent, including mental health screenings.

Miller wrote that a focus of enforcement this school year would be ensuring schools communicate annual parental-rights notifications clearly through websites, newsletters and student handbooks.

The district has not publicly responded. Superintendent Shane Farnsworth and district officials had not commented on the letter's implications by Wednesday.

Alpine School District, which projected enrollment of 84,774 students for the 2024-25 school year, is scheduled to dissolve June 30, 2027. Three successor districts, Lake Mountain, Central and Timpanogos, will begin operations July 1, 2027, following a voter-approved split in November 2024. Each new district will independently need to comply with FERPA and PPRA requirements.