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HR 4986
Introduced Re-checks Congress.gov for new actions and updates the bill's status, and fills in any sponsors, committees, or related bills that are missing. It does not re-pull sponsors/cosponsors/committees/related — those rarely change — and it skips all work if nothing has changed upstream, so it's cheap to click.

Parents Opt-in Protection Act

To amend the General Education Provisions Act to ensure that a student is not required to submit to a survey, analysis, or evaluation that reveals personal information about such student or their family without prior written consent.

Introduced Aug 15, 2025

Latest action (Jul 21, 2026) Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 18 - 15.

Policy area
Issues
Technology & Privacy

Summary

  • Requires schools to obtain prior written consent (rather than just verbal consent) before students can be required to complete surveys, analyses, or evaluations that reveal personal information about the student or their family.
  • Specifies that consent must be obtained separately for each specific survey, rather than allowing a blanket consent to cover multiple surveys.
  • Requires that for minor students, parents must provide the prior written consent before a student can be required to submit to personal information surveys.
  • Allows adult students and emancipated minors to provide their own written consent for personal information surveys.

AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.

Sponsor (1)

Money behind the sponsor

Top reported contributors to Mary E. Miller’s campaign committee (2024 cycle) — who funds the bill’s sponsor, not a claim about this bill. Data from FEC.

  • NULL $22,349
  • SAULSBURY INDUSTRIES $13,200
  • THOMPSON THRIFT DEVELOPMENT $11,600
  • KASPAR LAW COMPANY $6,600
  • INDECK ENERGY SERVICES $6,600

Organizations whose employees gave the most — itemized individual contributions grouped by the donor’s reported employer (FEC Schedule A). Full finance for Mary E. Miller → · Outside spending →

Actions (4)

  1. Jul 21, 2026 Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 18 - 15. · house
  2. Jul 21, 2026 Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held · house
  3. Aug 15, 2025 Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce. · house
  4. Aug 15, 2025 Introduced in House

Similar bills (6)

Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.

Text versions (1)

  • Introduced in House · Aug 15, 2025

Only one text version is on file, so there’s no earlier version to compare against yet.

Committee action

What happened to this bill in committee — the meetings where it was considered and every recorded vote taken on it.

  • Education and Workforce CommitteeJul 21, 2026report measure▶ watch

    As published:Roll Call Vote #2 | H.R. 4986 | Motion to Report as Amended | Passed (18y-15n)

Meetings where this bill was on the agenda

Full text

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

August 15, 2025

Mrs. Miller of Illinois (for herself, Mr. Cloud, Mr. Harris of Maryland, Ms. Boebert, Mr. Self, Mr. Fulcher, Mr. Babin, Mr. Burlison, Mr. Higgins of Louisiana, and Mrs. Harshbarger) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce

A BILL

To amend the General Education Provisions Act to ensure that a student is not required to submit to a survey, analysis, or evaluation that reveals personal information about such student or their family without prior written consent.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Parents Opt-in Protection Act”.

SEC. 2. PROTECTION OF PUPILS’ RIGHTS.

Section 445 of the General Education Provisions Act (20 U.S.C. 1232h) is amended—

(1) in subsection (b)—

(A) by striking “prior consent of the student” and inserting “prior written consent of the student”; and

(B) by inserting before the period at the end the following: “, for such specific survey, analysis, or evaluation”; and

(2) in subsection (c)(2)(A)—

(A) by striking “and” at the end of clause (i);

(B) in clause (ii), by striking “subparagraph

(C).” and inserting “clause (i) or (iii) of subparagraph (C); and”; and

(C) by adding at the end the following:

“(iii) not require a student to submit to a survey described in subparagraph (C)(ii) without the prior written consent of the student (if the student is an adult or emancipated minor), or in the case of an unemancipated minor, without the prior written consent of the parent, for such specific survey.”. <all>

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