Outraged Utah parents say autistic son, 13, was ‘drastically changed’ by school survey asking if he was transgender or thought about sex too much
Angry parents nearly got into a fistfight with a school official after their autistic son was given a questionnaire asking about trans identity, sex, suicide and violence.
McCall and Jon Nelson claimed their son Hut, 13, was so badly affected by the quiz that he constantly worried that his friends hated him and stopped playing football.
His mother said they had the same conversation with him hundreds of times because he couldn’t move on and it “dramatically changed his life.”
The questionnaire was given to him by administrators at Mount Logan Middle School in Logan, Utahon Feb. 7 as part of a psychological evaluation.
Jon Nelson criticized officials during a May 28 Logan City School District Board of Education meeting after his son Hut was given a controversial questionnaire
Some of the 122 questions included: “I think about sex too much,” “wish I was the opposite sex,” or “threaten to hurt people.”
Students with special needs should be reassessed every three years to confirm their eligibility and tailor their educational support.
The Nelsons signed a consent form for the school district to assess social, behavioral and academic factors, but claimed they were not told about the quiz.
Some of the 122 questions included: “I think about sex too much,” “wish I was the opposite sex,” or “threaten to hurt people.”
Jon and McCall criticized officials during a May 28 Logan City School District Board of Education meeting.
They said a meeting with district superintendent Frank Schofield became so heated that McCall had to prevent her husband from getting into a fistfight with him.
“Frank pounded his fist on the table, called my husband a loser, and got out of his chair to come at my husband, and I had to get between them,” she said.
“I have never felt so humiliated, as a mother or as a member of this district, in my life and I am absolutely ashamed of what was done to my son.”
The parents said a meeting with district superintendent Frank Schofield (pictured) became so heated that McCall had to stop her husband from getting into a fistfight with him
McCall described how her son got into the car after school and said, “I took a quiz today that asked if I was transgender.”
“My husband told him, you can’t ask questions like that at school and he said that was the case, and I was the only one in my class who had to take the quiz,” she said.
“If you’re familiar with autism, you know that wasn’t the end of the conversation: hundreds of questions, hundreds of hours of repeating the same things.
‘Do my friends think I’m gay? Why would they ask me if I would commit suicide?’
Jon stood up to speak after his wife and said Hut told his parents that the quiz asked him “if he wanted to be trans, asked him why he was a pervert and thought too much about sex.”
“It was asked if he wanted to be a school shooter and kill people and then kill himself,” he continued.
The questionnaire does not discuss school shootings, but does ask whether the child is “thinking about suicide,” “physically attacking people” or “intentionally trying to hurt myself or commit suicide.”
The questionnaire was given to him on February 7 by administrators at Mount Logan Middle School in Logan, Utah, as part of a psychological evaluation.
Jon said the last question amounted to ‘a self-indictment without’ [legal] representation’.
“What kind of questions are these to ask a 13-year-old boy on the spectrum?” he said.
‘These questions are unnecessary. By simply observing Hut’s behavior, you know that he is not violent, that he has been bullied all year and has not shown any violence.’
Jon was also upset about the sexuality questions, such as “I think about sex too much” and “I wish I was the opposite sex.”
“When was it allowed to ask these questions to a 13-year-old without fully informing the parents?” he said.
“Yes, they gave us a behavioral consent form. Are the school district and administration willing to say that transsexual identity is behavior? I do not think so.
“Frank admitted he didn’t get full permission, then called me a loser and told me to shut up and listen to him.”
Jon was also upset about the sexuality questions, such as “I think about sex too much” and “I wish I was the opposite sex.”
Jon said he and McCall had numerous conversations with the school and district, but they still refused to admit the questionnaire was a mistake.
“The district continues to double down, they think they’re excluded from this evaluation because they’re not going to add it to his eligibility,” he said.
“I’m sorry, the damage has already been done. Our son does not belong to this school district, he belongs to us.
“We spent thousands of hours on treatment, tens of thousands of dollars on private education, on brain mapping and therapy – and you took it away from me.”
Jon then turned to the audience sitting in front of the board members and angrily pointed at what appeared to be Schofield.
“You took it from me, and we haven’t started fighting yet,” he said.
Jon and McCall claimed that giving Hut the questionnaire without telling them violated several Utah laws and was therefore illegally administered.
They want this removed from future evaluations, or at least for parents to be able to edit questions they think are harmful to their children.
The questionnaire is a standard ‘youth self-report’ in the Achenbach system of empirically based assessment.
The assessment is used to evaluate who may qualify for special education with certain disabilities and the quiz appears in other assessments at schools across the US.
