dereference a scalar variable ?

I have Dynamic Drop downs working but am having a hard time to capture the values selected for further processing in CF.
I get the following ColdFusion error:

"You have attempted to dereference a scalar variable of type class java.lang.String as a structure with members."


Summary of issue

- Two drop down lists connect to a MS-SQL database, making the second drop down dynamic list based on the choices in the first drop down.. This works just fine...

- But Im having trouble at the processing page to reuse the selected values for further processing. Below is a snippet of my code for the form and the processing page.
I want to reuse the values parent.rb and child as from the drop down lists.

=== Form ===
<tr>
<td><div class="contentheader">District*</div></td>
<td><label>
<select name="parent" size="1" id="parent" onChange="WA_FilterAndPopulateSubList(child_WAJA,MM_findObj('parent'),MM_findObj('child'),0,0,false,': ')">
<option value="value">- Select One -</option>
<cfoutput query="parent">
<option value="#parent.rb#">#parent.district#</option>
</cfoutput>
</select>
</label></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><div class="contentheader">Web Site*</div></td>
<td><label>
<select name="child" size="1" id="child">
<option>- Select One -</option>
</select>
</label></td>
</tr>

--- Processing page

<cfquery name="districtinfo" datasource="dbxyz (commented out)" dbtype="ODBC">
Select rb, district from districts
where district = #parent.rb#
</cfquery>
<CFOutput query="districtinfo">
<CFSet districtout = #district#>
</CFOutput>