A Girl, a Hotel Room, and Parents Who Were Never Told

Imagine sending your 11-year-old on a school trip and learning later that the district assigned her to share a hotel bed with a boy.

That is what Joe and Serena Wailes say happened to their daughter during a 2023 Jefferson County school trip in Colorado.

This month, their fight reached the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

The question on the table is whether a school can make that call and leave parents in the dark.

The Waileses say JeffCo did exactly that.

Their 11-year-old daughter went on a class trip, only to discover that her hotel roommate (and expected bedmate) was a boy.

Today we’re representing them & other CO parents at the 10th Circuit. Kids deserve privacy on overnight trips. Parents deserve the chance to protect them. pic.twitter.com/DIMVuguLbg

— Kristen Waggoner (@KristenWaggoner) May 12, 2026

Alliance Defending Freedom summarizes the case background and timeline this way:

Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado is violating parents’ fundamental right to make decisions about the upbringing and education of their children. A school district policy directs that students should be “assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share the student’s gender identity” rather than rooming by sex, and the district refuses to give parents truthful, pertinent information about their children’s overnight accommodations, thus hampering parents’ ability to make informed decisions about their children’s education and privacy.

December 2023: ADF attorneys sent a demand letter on behalf of Joe and Serena Wailes, asking JeffCo to clarify whether it would be honest with all parents so that they can decide whether their children should share overnight rooms with opposite-sex students. January 2024: ADF attorneys sent a second demand letter to the district.

September 2024: After JeffCo refused to allow parents to make informed decisions about their children’s privacy, ADF attorneys filed a lawsuit against the district on behalf of the Waileses, the Rollers, and the Perlmans. A motion for preliminary injunction was also filed.

August 2025: A federal district court dismissed the families’ lawsuit. ADF appealed to the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. May 2026: The 10th Circuit heard oral arguments.

Their lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom argue the district rooms students by gender identity rather than sex, and refuses to give parents honest answers about who their kids are sleeping next to.

This is a decision about an 11-year-old girl’s body and privacy, made by adults who decided her mom and dad did not need to know.

The legal path got here the slow way.

ADF sent JeffCo a demand letter in December 2023, then a second in January 2024, asking the district to simply be honest with parents about overnight rooming.

The district refused. So in September 2024, ADF filed suit on behalf of the Waileses and two other families.

A federal district court dismissed the case in August 2025. ADF appealed, and the 10th Circuit heard arguments this month.

That is the heart of it. A mother who handed her child to the school and trusted them to keep her safe.

The families’ attorney made the same argument to the judges.

You do not have to be a lawyer to see the principle here.

A school can decide what time the bus leaves and what museum the kids visit. It does not get to decide that an 11-year-old girl shares a bed with a boy and then hide that from her parents.

The federal government has already weighed in on the substance.

The President Trump administration launched a Title IX investigation into the district. In March, the U.S.

Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found that Jefferson County Public Schools violated Title IX.

The hearing this month was the first since that investigation wrapped. So the appeals judges are looking at a district that a federal civil rights office has already said broke the law.

READ: “No school district should be making consequential decisions about a child’s care.”

ADF defended parental rights in Colorado yesterday.https://t.co/ECrU3gBzC4

— Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) May 13, 2026

For Christian parents, this reaches past one trip or one district.

Scripture hands the raising of children to mothers and fathers, not to a school administrator with a rooming chart. The fundamental right ADF is defending is older than the 10th Circuit.

It runs straight through the family.

When a school decides it knows better than parents about something this personal, and then refuses to even tell them, it is not protecting kids. It is replacing the people who are supposed to protect them.

The Waileses are not asking for anything radical. They want the truth, and they want the chance to say no.

A free people used to take that for granted. Now it takes a federal appeals court to sort it out.

What do you think the 10th Circuit should do here, and how far should parents have to go just to get a straight answer from their own school district? Tell us in the comments.