Parents in Burlington, Massachusetts, are in an uproar after their children were sent an explicit survey without their consent in March. 

In interviews with IW Features, two moms detailed a growing trend of politicization and sexualization in their school district that culminated in their children being questioned about graphic sexual acts in a survey funded and influenced by major left-wing organizations.

The survey, known as the Massachusetts Youth Health Survey (MYHS), asked students as young as sixth grade about their “gender identity,” saying that it could be “same or different as the sex you were assigned at birth.” The survey also listed a series of “helpful terms” for how a child could identify, such as “transgender” and “genderqueer.” It went on to ask questions about bullying in the school, including whether the student felt that he or she was “treated badly or unfairly” due to their “gender identity” or sexual orientation. 

A series of questions asked only of 7th and 8th graders dealt with even more explicit topics and included questions such as, “Have you ever had sexual intercourse?” It was complete with a detailed explanation of intercourse, including vaginal, oral, and anal sex.

One Burlington mom, Tammy Sterling*, said parents have been aware of these surveys for the past few years.

“In 2022, I sent an email to the principal at Marshall Simonds Middle School and said that my daughter is not to participate in any of these surveys,” Sterling told IW Features. “I permanently opted her out — my view was not going to change.”

But then this year, jammed into about 30 other updates from the school district to parents, was a quick heads-up that the survey would be going out to students again, which Sterling and her husband missed. As a result, her daughter was made to take the survey and even missed a crucial tutoring block to complete it. 

Adrianne Simeone, another local parent, told IW Features her son was also made to take the survey without her knowledge — even after she had opted him out. 

“When the school brought the survey out to the students, there was supposed to be a script that the teachers were supposed to read, and in that script, it was supposed to say to them that this survey is optional and that they had the right to opt out of it and could stop taking it at any time,” Simeone said. “I didn’t tell my son he was opted out because, I mean…the opt out is supposed to work, right? If I’m opting him out, I shouldn’t have to tell him that he’s opted out.” 

Now, Sterling and Simeone have filed a PPRA (Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment) complaint with the Department of Education.

“You know, they really picked two of the worst parents to do this to,” Simeone said. “We’re not scared of them, and we have our facts behind us.”

The school is claiming that Jon Snow Inc. (JSI), the group that created the survey in conjunction with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), changed the questions without their knowledge, since it was last administered in 2023. JSI is a nonprofit research firm that, in its own words, “collaborate[s] with government agencies, the private sector, and local nonprofit and civil society organizations to identify and implement solutions to public health and education challenges.” A copy of the questionnaire for the 2023 survey available online does not show questions about “gender identity” being asked. 

The Burlington public school district’s website acknowledges that “there were areas for improvement [in the 2025 survey], particularly in the opt-out process and delivery of the proctor script.” And although district officials claim the changes to the 2025 survey were made without their knowledge, the district’s website admits the survey is “reviewed biannually by Burlington’s Wellness Committee to ensure relevance and value.”

Regardless, the school district does not seem concerned with the underlying issue: the survey’s updated, invasive questioning itself. In fact, in an effort to defend the survey to parents, the school argued the questions about intercourse and “gender identity” are necessary in order to promote intersectionality and prevent bullying. 

In a list of frequently asked questions on the webpage, Burlington Public Schools admitted these questions were included at the behest of the left-wing Trevor Project and JSI’s Center for Health Equity. 

“In past survey administrations, schools have provided feedback that students are not always aware of what is considered to be sexual intercourse,” JSI said of the survey change. “To collect the most accurate data, a detailed definition for sexual intercourse is provided. In the development of the 2025 YRBS survey for the Middlesex League, multiple schools expressed concerns that the existing definition of sexual intercourse was not inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community, and the definition was modified to be more inclusive of this community.”

A copy of the contract between JSI and the Wilmington Public Schools Department, obtained by IW Features, shows the survey being administered in nine other neighbouring school districts besides Burlington. 

JSI was paid $70,000 for the survey in 2023, amounting to $7,000 per school district. Most of that cost, however, was assumed by benefactors such as the Lahey Hospital Medical Center (LHMC) in Burlington, which agreed to pay $3,000 towards each district’s price tag. Another $20,000 was donated by the Mystic Valley Public Health Coalition (MVPHC), a public health coalition between five of the districts involved. 

Lahey Hospital’s Gender Health Program provides mastectomies, hysterectomies, and other cross-sex genital reconstructive surgeries. The hospital’s Transgender Health Program boasts more than 400 patients and a staff that uses “pronoun buddy badges” as well as “gender inclusive” bathrooms. In an interview to mark 2023’s “Transgender Awareness Week,” Lahey’s medical director, Dr. Jenny Reske-Nielsen, said that “the program aims to increase cultural awareness and competency across Lahey.”

Simeone told IW Features the survey isn’t the first time parents have had issues with divisive and sexual issues being discussed in Burlington’s public schools. When Simeone first pulled her kids out of private school and put them in Marshall Simonds Middle School, she said she and a friend found that the school’s sex-ed curriculum included teachings about the “genderbread person,” a popular lesson used by gender activists to teach young children about “gender identity.” The genderbread person was created by activist Sam Killerman, who says the educational tool is, “based on the deconstruction of gender into identity, expression, and sex.”

While the school has claimed that the genderbread person lesson is not being used anymore, Simeone said she was also concerned about a “spectrum club” in the school for “LGBTQ kids as young as 11.” 

IW Features reached out to Marshall Simonds Middle School and the Burlington Public School District for comment, but they did not respond.

Simeone, who is also an expert in child sexual abuse prevention, said that every parent, regardless of their political beliefs, should be concerned with the district’s actions. Introducing children to sensitive sexual topics without their parents’ knowledge or consent is a surefire way to worsen cases of abuse, she argued. 

“It definitely desensitizes children to make them more susceptible to grooming, you know, but [activists] don’t want to admit that part,” she said. “The answer from the Left and all these progressive sex education people is that, well, if kids are engaging in more sexual behaviors, and they’re doing more violent kinds of sex, and the rise of STDs in kids is off the charts, then their idea is that you just teach them how to do these things safely.”

She added, “That’s like saying, ‘My 12-year-old keeps taking the keys to my car and driving it. You know what? I’m just gonna let him do it. I’m actually gonna give him a sports car, and I’m going to put him in F1 [racing].’”

*Name has been changed to protect storyteller’s identity.