Last week, Spotsylvania County Public Schools became the first district in Virginia to adopt Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s controversial “model policies” for the treatment of transgender and nonbinary students.
However, schools in Northern Virginia, including Fairfax, Prince William, and Arlington counties are beginning the school year without implementing the new policies that were introduced by Youngkin’s administration in September 2022 and finalized this July. A spokesman for Loudoun County Public Schools said the new model policies are currently under review.
ACLU of Virginia’s senior transgender rights attorney Wyatt Rolla says it’s unclear whether the new transgender policy has the teeth to require school districts to comply.
“The law does not include an explicit enforcement mechanism,” Rolla said. “So, when school districts fail to adopt the model policies, it’s not clear what, if any, consequences there are for those districts.”
Rolla said Virginia Code 22.1-23.3 “tasks the Virginia Department of Education with creating model policies on the treatment of transgender students in Virginia public schools, and then local districts are to adopt policies that are consistent with, or are more comprehensive than those model policies.”
When former Gov. Ralph Northam introduced more progressive policies that were adopted in September 2021, only about 10% of districts implemented them, said the ACLU.
“The really important distinction between 2021 and currently with certain districts, what they’re saying is that they are in compliance with federal and state and nondiscrimination law, currently.”
Rolla said exceptions in the Youngkin administration policy are making it near-impossible for the school systems to comply.
“The Youngkin administration’s Virginia Department of Education has put school districts in an impossible position by finalizing model policies that have a myriad of provisions that are in fundamental conflict with nondiscrimination obligations,” said Rolla.
Rolla said districts that implement the new state policy may be in conflict with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.
Asked to comment on the state’s commitment to enforcing the policy, Victoria LaCivita, director of communications with the Virginia Attorney General’s office says, “Attorney General Miyares expects the school boards to follow the law.”
Virginia’s Department of Education did not immediately respond to WTOP’s request for comment.
