In February this year, the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education announced that it would be opening an investigation into potential Title IX violations in five K-12 public school districts in Northern Virginia, including Fairfax County Public Schools, the largest district in Virginia and the ninth-largest in the nation.
America First Legal, in a letter dated February 3, 2025, had informed the Office of Civil Rights that Fairfax County Public Schools’ code of conduct violates President Trump’s Executive Order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” The Executive Order stated, “Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority […] My Administration will enforce the law to ensure that recipients of Federal funds providing K-12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights.”
Despite the district’s apparent desire for those federal funds, as well as its dependence on them, its leaders are ignoring federal law. Contrary to the Executive Order, Fairfax County Public Schools’ code of conduct for the 2025-2026 academic year continues to mandate that bathroom and locker room use be based on gender, rather than sex, and further requires that students use preferred pronouns even when they are contrary to the student’s biological sex.
The district’s superintendent, Michelle Reid, and the 12 Democratic-endorsed school board members appear to be operating under the assumption that ignoring President Trump’s Executive Order does not have financial consequences, despite the government having informed them otherwise.
It’s a risky gamble for a district that’s so financially strapped. In fiscal year 2025, Fairfax County Public Schools received $168.1 million in federal funds. The district, which has a projected student enrollment of approximately 182,000 students in fiscal 2026, was forced to make cuts to its proposed budget when faced with a local funding gap of $121 million for the upcoming year. Some of Fairfax County’s school board members, for example, seemed to be surprised to learn from Reid in a meeting earlier this month that the Department of Education is reviewing $13 million in previously allocated federal education funds to ensure that “taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities.” Reid said that those funds subsidize teacher training and services for English language learners—but it is abundantly clear that these materials are violating the law of the land.
Consider, for example, the district’s mandatory teacher training titled “Gender Expansive and Transgender Students.” The required annual training, obtained by IWFeatures, alerts teachers and staff that it is mandatory to use students’ preferred pronouns and that students must have access to bathroom and locker room facilities that correspond to their gender identity. “Gender expansive” and “transgender” identifying students are also, according to the training document, granted overnight accommodations for “an instructional, extra-curricular, or athletic event… that are consistent with their gender identity.”
The guidance document encourages teachers to “model sharing pronouns,” defines terms such as “gender expression,” and illustrates the “gender unicorn.” It further provides instruction to teachers and staff about how to support students’ gender transitions at school without their parents’ knowledge. It states, “Prior to notification of any parent or guardian regarding the transition process, school staff should work closely with the student to assess the degree to which, if any, the parent or guardian will be involved in the process and must consider the health, well-being, and safety of the transitioning student.”
Julie Perry, a Fairfax County Public Schools teacher who delivered a school board testimony on September 15, 2022 detailing her religious objections to the district’s gender identity policies, told IWFeatures, “I think that this training is highly inappropriate because it encourages adults in the education system to brainwash students that are truly struggling instead of helping them.”
Perry added, “This has nothing to do with helping students receive a better education. It’s time to get back to focusing on education and getting the indoctrination out of schools.”
Many teachers in Fairfax County join Perry in objecting to both the district’s gender-over-sex policies and the continuing gender ideology indoctrination of students.
Due to justified fears of retaliation from the district’s leadership, some teachers have spoken with IWFeatures under the condition of anonymity. One of them informed IWFeatures that earlier this month, the “Gender Expansive and Transgender Students” training was listed as a required annual training for the 2025-2026 academic year in the teachers’ “My Professional Development and Evaluation” online system. While some teacher trainings are required only once, Fairfax County Public Schools’ leadership prioritizes its gender training and requires teachers to repeat it each year.
Meanwhile, according to a Fairfax County Public Schools’ teacher, a training that has not been required for teachers is one on the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). Fairfax County Public Schools is currently under investigation for violating PPRA, an important federal statute and parental rights tool that allows parents to view their children’s curricula and opt them out of surveys.
Last week, IWFeatures submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all of the district’s “mandatory teacher training lessons and materials for 2024-2025 and 2025-2026.” As of the date of publication, the FOIA request has not been fulfilled.
On July 23, however, one of the district’s teachers informed IWFeatures that the “Gender Expansive and Transgender Students” training that had been available on July 1 and mandated for the 2025-2026 academic year was no longer visible on the “My Professional Development and Evaluation” teacher training system. It is unclear if the removal of the once-mandatory gender identity training is related to the FOIA request.
IW Features contacted FCPS for comment shortly before publication. This report will be updated if a response is received.
Fairfax County Public Schools’ leaders are considered to be among the most politically left-leaning in the country. The Trump administration’s reaction to their attempts to shirk Title IX and President Trump’s Executive Orders will undoubtedly serve as a warning to other ideologically motivated school district administrators considering their next move, and ensure that the law is followed everywhere it applies.
