Divorce alone doesn’t change that: under 34 CFR § 99.4, either parent has full rights unless a court order, state statute, or legally binding document specifically revokes them. FERPA gives a student under 18 no independent right to the file, but § 99.5(b) lets schools give students more access. Ask.

Without it, a college is allowed to share with parents in three main cases: you are their dependent for federal tax purposes (§ 99.31(a)(8)); there is a health or safety emergency (§ 99.36); or you are under 21 and the college has determined you committed a disciplinary violation involving alcohol or a controlled substance (§ 99.31(a)(15)). Allowed is not required, so read your college’s policy.

Records can also follow you: a school may send them to a school or college where you seek or intend to enroll, and may share what’s needed to decide your financial aid.

A court order or subpoena can reach your records, but the school generally must make a reasonable effort to notify you or your parents first. In an emergency, a school may tell appropriate parties what they need to know when there is an “articulable and significant threat” to someone’s health or safety. A police officer who simply asks for your file, with no listed exception, isn’t entitled to it under FERPA.

A private K-12 school that takes no Department of Education funds sits outside the law; there, your enrollment contract, the handbook, and state law control. And FERPA covers records only — whether a school can go through your phone is separate law, covered in our guide to school phone searches.

How you sit matters. Quiet and still is what the cases protect. Talking or using your phone can be treated like any other disruption.

If you are told to leave anyway, go. The remedy comes afterward, in writing.

Appeals courts have treated parent rules differently. In Frazier v. Winn (2008), the Eleventh Circuit upheld Florida’s parent-request rule as written, without deciding how it applies to any particular student. In Circle School v. Pappert (2004), the Third Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania rule that made schools notify parents in writing when a student declined the pledge. If your state has a parent-request statute, have the request sent before you sit out.

Kneeling quietly during the classroom pledge fits the same reasoning, though the court was ruling on a raised fist. The national anthem at a school game is less settled. The federal anthem statute, 36 U.S.C. § 301, says people present “should” stand and lists no penalty, but Florida’s statute also tells students to stand at attention when the anthem is played.

Treat pressure through a grade or classroom comments like formal discipline: write it down that day and have a parent raise it in writing.

What you say and carry out there is a separate matter. Peaceful signs and speeches are expression, and the school needs more than a general fear of trouble to punish the expression itself. A school may choose to allow a short gathering on campus; that is a choice, not a legal duty.

On a public street you are an ordinary member of the public, so stay on sidewalks and follow lawful directions from police. A parent signing you out through the front office usually means you did not leave without permission, but whether the absence is excused still depends on state law and district policy.

These laws excuse an absence. They do not cover leaving without telling anyone, disruption or damage.

This rule comes from Tinker‘s reasoning, not from a decision about walkouts. The Court said that “the prohibition of expression of one particular opinion,” without evidence that it is needed to avoid substantial interference with school, “is not constitutionally permissible.” Courts apply that case by case.

Extra penalties count even when they are not suspensions. In Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021), the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 that a school violated the First Amendment when it suspended a student from the junior varsity cheerleading squad for a year over protected off-campus speech.

Public colleges are bound by the First Amendment too. In Healy v. James (1972), the Supreme Court wrote that “state colleges and universities are not enclaves immune from the sweep of the First Amendment,” while confirming that a college may require students to follow reasonable campus rules.

In Jacobs, a Nevada eleventh grader was suspended five times for repeatedly breaking the uniform policy, at least once by wearing a shirt with a religious message. The Ninth Circuit ruled for the district, finding the policy content-neutral.

One caution for schools: in Frudden v. Pilling (2014), the same court held that strict scrutiny, the hardest test to pass, applied to an elementary school uniform printed with the motto “Tomorrow’s Leaders.” A required slogan is compelled speech, the idea behind your right not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Two Supreme Court exceptions matter for clothing. Bethel v. Fraser (1986) lets schools prohibit vulgar and lewd expression, and Morse v. Frederick (2007) lets them restrict messages reasonably regarded as encouraging illegal drug use.

The hard cases sit between those rules. The Third Circuit protected “I ♥ boobies! (KEEP A BREAST)” breast cancer awareness bracelets in B.H. v. Easton Area School District (2013). The First Circuit let a Massachusetts middle school bar a “There Are Only Two Genders” shirt in L.M. v. Town of Middleborough (2024), and on May 27, 2025, the Supreme Court declined to review it, with Justices Alito and Thomas dissenting. The Sixth Circuit let a Michigan middle school bar “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts as a slogan reasonably understood as vulgar in B.A. v. Tri County Area Schools (2025). The Supreme Court declined to review that ruling on October 5, 2026.

Peltier is binding only in the Fourth Circuit, and courts elsewhere are free to disagree. Still, it gives students a useful question: can the school explain its sex-based rule without relying on a stereotype? The same question applies to a neutral rule enforced almost only against girls.

Four examples that reach schools: California Education Code § 212.1, as amended effective January 1, 2025. New York Education Law § 11, which defines race to include hair texture and protective hairstyles. Illinois’s Jett Hawkins Law, Public Act 102-0360, effective January 1, 2022, which covers public, charter, and nonpublic schools. And Texas Education Code § 25.902, effective September 1, 2023, which covers district dress and grooming policies.

There is no federal CROWN Act. The House passed one on March 18, 2022, but it did not become law. New bills, S. 751 and H.R. 1638, were introduced on February 26, 2025, and referred to committee. As of October 2026, neither has passed either chamber.

Some statutes write the exemption in directly. Illinois excuses a student from a uniform or dress code policy when a parent gives the school board a signed statement of religious objection. If a rule conflicts with your faith, ask in writing for an accommodation.

Each week of the season, the names of 10% of the athletes were drawn. A positive sample was tested a second time to confirm it. The student then chose between a six-week assistance program with weekly testing and a suspension from athletics for the rest of that season and the next one. Results went to a limited group of school staff and were not turned over to law enforcement.

The Court stressed the limited consequences: “the only consequence of a failed drug test is to limit the student’s privilege of participating in extracurricular activities.” After a first positive test, the school met with a parent, and the student could keep participating by showing proof of drug counseling within five days and taking a second test in two weeks. A second positive meant a 14-day activity suspension, four hours of counseling, and monthly tests. A third meant suspension from activities for the rest of the school year or 88 school days, whichever was longer.

New Jersey’s statute allows random testing of students in grades 9–12 who join extracurricular activities “or who possess school parking permits,” and its Supreme Court upheld one such program in 2003. A Pennsylvania policy that covered parking permits met a different result: that state’s Supreme Court refused to approve it without proof that it was needed.

The stakes are different too. The limits in Earls — activity suspension only, results kept from police — were features of that district’s random-testing policy. A suspicion-based test is usually part of a discipline investigation, so your district’s code of conduct and your state’s law decide what a positive result costs. If a police officer starts asking questions, see the rules on police questioning a minor without a parent.

If your district announces a policy that tests every student, ask for it in writing and have a parent ask the district which legal authority it relies on.

It also isn’t limited to class time. The statute says “during the school day” without defining the phrase, and the Texas Education Agency’s model policy language defines it as the first bell of the day to the last — which takes in lunch and passing periods.

Longer holds have survived in court. In Koch v. Adams (2010), the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled against a student who sued after his phone was kept for two weeks under his district’s rule. In Laney v. Farley (2007), a school’s code called for a 30-day hold; the trial court dismissed the claim about keeping the phone, and the federal appeals court never ruled on that part.

Fees are where Texas changed. Before 2025, § 37.082 let a district charge an administrative fee of up to $15 before releasing a confiscated device. House Bill 1481 deleted that language. TEA’s guidance says the bill “removed the explicit authority to charge an administrative fee of up to $15 for the retrieval of a confiscated device.”

The statute does still let a district dispose of a confiscated device — but only after giving the student’s parent 90 days’ prior notice in writing.

Texas also has a general barrier. The Texas Tort Claims Act — the law that allows some damage suits against government bodies — says: “Except as to motor vehicles, this chapter does not apply to a school district or to a junior college district.” If a phone comes back damaged, show the front office before you leave campus, and have a parent report it in writing that day.

The exception works best on paper. If your phone runs a glucose monitor or is part of your accommodations, get it written into the plan. If a teacher asks for it anyway, say calmly and right away that the device is covered by your plan, and ask for the nurse or the office to be called.

What confiscation does NOT include: a license to open it. Holding the container and searching the contents are different legal acts — the entire rest of this article lives in that gap.

The red flag to recognize: a search hunting for anything rather than something. A phone search without a specific target isn’t investigation — it’s browsing, and browsing is what the Fourth Amendment exists to stop.

The polite refusal that keeps everything intact: hand over the locked phone, decline the passcode, ask for your parents. You’ve complied with confiscation and preserved every argument.

And whatever gets said while the phone sits on the desk is its own minefield — questioning is J.D.B. and Miranda territory, separate from the search itself. Two sets of rights, both yours.

“Protected” doesn’t mean adults will be happy. It means a public school punishing you for it is breaking the Constitution — the thing Brandi’s case exists to stop.

The pattern to internalize: the further a post moves from “opinion about school” toward “attack on a person” or “attack on the school’s operations,” the more punishable it becomes. And a genuine threat of violence isn’t a school-discipline issue at all — in most states it’s a crime called making a terroristic threatTerroristic threat: the criminal charge many states use for threats of violence — including threats against schools posted online. Prosecutors don’t accept “it was a joke” as a defense., and it brings police, not just principals.

But be honest with yourself about scale: the bigger and meaner the splash a post makes inside the building, the thinner the “it was off campus” shield gets.