CHICAGO — A mother from Chicago's far northwest suburbs has lodged a lawsuit against her child's public school district, accusing Community Unit School District 300 of allegedly attempting to secretly transition her child's gender and of blocking the parent's attempt to learn more about what was happening and be involved, even when the student struggled with suicidal thoughts and required hospitalization for mental health purposes.
However, the class action lawsuit also seeks to more broadly overturn policies at the district and potentially throughout Illinois, which the mother and her lawyer claim trample parents' constitutional rights.
On May 10, attorney Ajay Gupta, of Naperville, filed suit in Chicago federal court against District 300.
Based in the village of Algonquin, District 300 ranks as the sixth largest public school district in Illinois, has a student population of more than 20,000 students from communities within a 118 square mile radius in Chicago's northwest suburbs mostly in Kane County, near the McHenry County line.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a named plaintiff, identified in the complaint only as S.K. According to the complaint, she is the mother of a student at one of the district's three high schools. District 300 high schools include Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville, Harry D. Jacobs High School in Algonquin, and Hampshire High School in Hampshire.
The complaint does not identify which high school the student attended.
According to the complaint, staff at the student's school allegedly began in 2022 using "alternate name and pronouns" for S.K.'s child, identified in the complaint only as T.K.
The complaint asserts the student at that time "experienced declining mental health and difficulty completing schoolwork."
Those struggles then prompted the mother to contact her child's teachers and other school staff to "discuss concerns surrounding T.K.'s academic performance and struggles with mental health."
However, amid those discussions, the mother say school staff hid from her the alleged "social transitioning" of her child ongoing at the school.
The complaint asserts the school maintained its silence attempt to keep her in the dark about her child's condition and treatment at school, even when the student was hospitalized for "suicidal ideation" in 2023.
According to the complaint, the school later set her child on a "gender support plan" help the student "socially transition at school."
According to the complaint, S.K. ultimately "received an invitation to attend a meeting regarding the development of this gender support plan." But the school allegedly pressed forward with the plan over her objections and requests for a delay "due to T.K.'s mental health condition and his inability at that time to make informed decisions regarding such supports."
According to the complaint, the school secretly "completed a formal plan with T.K. regarding a social gender transition at school" in February 2024, months after ceasing all communication with the mother about the process and her child.
According to the complaint, the school in 2025 rejected multiple requests from the mother for information about her child's "gender support plan." The school further denied her request to cease talking with her child about the "gender support plan" without her present.
According to the complaint, the mother ultimately obtained a copy of the "support plan," but only after she filed a complaint under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
In the meantime, the complaint asserts, school staff continued the work of "socially transitioning" T.K. at school, including "using an additional alternate name, along with alternate pronouns."
In December 2025, the mother said, District 300 issued a "final determination" claiming the school had attempted to involve her, but she had "declined to participate in relevant decisions."
The mother has now filed her lawsuit, accusing District 300 of violating her constitutional rights to due process and accusing the district of "significant interference with her fundamental right to direct the care, custody, and upbringing of her child."
The plaintiffs are seeking to expand the action to include all children enrolled in District 300 schools who may be subject to similiar policies.
The lawsuit seeks a court order barring the school district from continuing to carry out similar "social transitions" without the informed consent and involvement of parents.
Insofar as District 300's policies are based in Illinois state policies or law, attorney Ajay Gupta said they intend to seek to strike down those, as well.
“We believe that so-called non-regulatory guidance issued by the Illinois Department of Human Rights and the Illinois State Board of Education is forcing school districts across the state to usurp parental authority and endanger vulnerable children’s physical and mental well-being," Gupta said in a statement emailed to The Record. "This guidance clearly violates federal law, and we will prove as much in court.”
The action comes about two months since the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a potential landmark ruling in favor of parents’ rights. In that case out of California, the high court ruled 6-3 that policies enforced by the state of California and a local school district to keep parents in the dark about their children’s gender status and attempts to “socially transition” children violate parents' religious freedom rights and their rights to so-called "substantive due process."
The new complaint against S.K. does not reference that ruling. But it may be used in later proceedings to support the case against D300 and potentially against Illinois state student gender transition guidance and policies.
Spokespeople for District 300 did not respond to requests from The Record for comment on the lawsuit.
