A legal battle over parental rights here in New Jersey is also drawing national attention.

A father is suing his child's school district, claiming they violated his parental rights by socially transitioning his daughter without telling him.

Now, a conservative legal group is appealing the case backed by a 23-state coalition.

Senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has the latest on the case and the surprising twist it's taken.

The lawsuit centered at Delaware Valley Regional High School, where last year a freshman girl will call Jane Doe, asked teachers to call her by a male name and pronouns but without informing her father, Christin Heaps.

The school complied, Heaps' attorney says.

It went on for a few months without telling him.

He found out that they were treating her as a boy at school because another parent referred to her as a boy.

And he said, "Who are you talking about?"

And they said, "Oh, don't you know, you know, your daughter's being socially transitioned at school."

And that was shocking to him.

Heaps sued.

The school board here had adopted Jersey's controversial policy 5756, which protects a student's gender identity as a matter of safety.

But counselors did urge Jane to tell her dad.

The school board's attorney says.

We want to respect, obviously, parents' rights, right?

I'm a parent myself.

But also treat with dignity and respect the students who are coming to the school with an issue and asking the school to resolve it for them.

That's the issue and that's the conundrum facing school districts, not just, I think, in New Jersey, but probably across the country.

Schools are in a hard position because they need to protect the student's identity.

Sometimes the disclosure in the school environment can lead to self-harm of the student or, as we've seen in too many cases, actual violence against students.

Districts in education law aren't surprised the case ended up in federal court, where Judge Georgette Kastner ruled the district properly followed its policy.

Plaintiff Heaps has not yet established a likelihood of showing that the board defendants have interfered with plaintiff's right to make medical decisions for Jane, Kastner wrote, finding no harm or violation of her dad's constitutional parental rights under 5756.

The court denied his request for a preliminary injunction to block the policy.

Heaps appealed.

The argument is the judge got that constitutional question wrong and that's where the irreparable harm comes in, is the harm to the constitutional rights.

Because the school has said, this is the policy, we're going to continue enforcing it against parents.

But the case took an unexpected turn.

Jane, who had been removed from school and instructed at home during the legal battle, apparently announced she no longer wants to transition.

And yet the lawsuit continues.

So from our standpoint, we said, well, that means that the student can come back to school and we can put at least this part of the litigation aside.

The student never returned.

And I think you have to ask yourself why?

Why haven't they come back if this is not an issue anymore?

Jane's father says he won't let her return to public school unless the district provides her with a personal monitor.

But critics see a different motive.

Because yes, they absolutely want to bring a test case before the Supreme Court, putting the challenge of parents' rights versus the government's compelling interest in protecting the safety and health of children.

An LGBTQ rights advocate points out the dad's lawyers are from the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and that their suit will include an amicus brief from a 23-state coalition that asked the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the U.S. district court's decision and allow parents, not school boards, to direct the upbringing of their children.

We're talking about a whole bunch of organizations whose basic premise is LGBTQ is wrong.

It's against religious precepts.

It's against God.

And we have to do whatever we can to eliminate this community and strip them of all their rights.

I mean, we're dedicated to defending parental rights, marriage and the family, religious freedom, free speech and life from conception to natural death.

Those are our focuses.

And sometimes that interacts with issues like gender identity and LGBTQ issues.

But those are our focuses.

The Alliance Defending Freedom claims it's a smear tactic to call them a hate group and that they do hope the Supreme Court takes up a case like Jane's.

It's already ruled in two transgender cases, supporting a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and siding with parents who want to opt their kids out of class with gender-inclusive books, with more cases on the docket this fall.

I'm Brenda Flanagan, NJ Spotlight News.

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