The U.S. Department of Education is demanding that Washington’s education agency change its policies on how schools share student records with their parents, part of the federal government’s effort to “enforce parental rights laws across the country.”
The request, announced Thursday, demands Washington and California provide the federal agency with information about how each state shares student records with parents, citing recent federal court decisions on related issues.
The Department of Education’s statement contends that Washington and California’s existing policies “pressure schools and educators to hide student records from parents” and that California’s policies in particular “require educators to hide” a student’s gender transition from their parents.
It alleges those policies conflict with the current administration’s interpretation of federal policy and laws, including Title IX and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. The statement notes that “violations of FERPA can result in the termination of an educational institution’s federal funding.”
The demand comes amid ongoing efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to roll back legal protections for transgender people, particularly in schools, bolstered by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld laws in Idaho and West Virginia barring transgender women and girls from competing in school athletics with cisgender women and girls.
The department referenced a separate Supreme Court ruling and another federal court ruling that it says, collectively, “bolster the legal rights of parents.” The statement goes on to demand that Washington and California “immediately detail their plans to revise their policies and practices in light of these legal rulings.”
“Schools must end the practice of concealing vitally important information about students from parents who love them,” wrote Frank Miller, the director of the Department of Education’s student privacy policy office.
State Superintendent Chris Reykdal lambasted the department’s demand as a “sham announcement” and “media stunt.”
The demand is part of an ongoing federal probe into how the Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction enforces antidiscrimination laws, which Reykdal’s statement called a “lengthy fishing expedition on the taxpayer’s dime.”
“To the surprise of no one, the Trump White House is playing the worst kind of politics by threatening to withhold federal funds from states that don't comply with their political ideology,” Reykdal wrote.
Reykdal said the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has been complying with all requests from the federal government, noting that since the investigation began last year, his office has turned over “tens of thousands of documents.”
“While my office has provided every single record that (the department) has requested, we have not heard anything substantive from their office in months about the status of their efforts,” Reykdal said.
Washington state has several long-established protections for transgender people and students.
The state’s broad antidiscrimination statute — the Washington Law Against Discrimination — includes sex, gender identity and gender expression as protected classes. Other state laws also allow public school students in the state to use new names and pronouns, according to the ACLU of Washington website.
The fight over parental rights will also appear on the ballots of Washington voters in November. Initiative 001 will ask voters to expand the kinds of school records that parents can request on their children, and it would allow parents to opt out of additional academic activities that address sexuality, gender, religion and mental health.
Voters will also consider whether transgender girls should be prevented from competing on school sports teams alongside cisgender girls, under Initiative 638. Both initiatives are backed by hedge-fund manager Brian Heywood’s conservative political committee, Let’s Go Washington.
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