This op-ed was written by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared in The Federalist.
Last week, the United States Department of Education found five public school districts in Northern Virginia in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The department’s press release says these divisions — Alexandria City Public Schools, Arlington Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and Prince William Public Schools — are “subject of several lawsuits, informal complaints, and reports, which allege that students in the Divisions avoid using school restrooms whenever possible because of the schools’ policies.”
As the Department of Education summarized, these districts’ policies allowing “students to access intimate, sex-segregated facilities based on the students’ subjective ‘gender identity’” violate federal law. Leaders in districts like Fairfax have also mandated preferred pronouns that run contrary to students’ biological sex. Fairfax District leaders further require annual training for their teachers regarding these policies and focus on facilitating social gender transitions at school, as they often keep this information secret from parents, a FCPS teacher who requested anonymity told me.
The district required an annual teacher training for the 2025-2026 school year titled, “Gender Expansive and Transgender Students,” as I reported in IW Features. The obtained guidance 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.”
The Dangers of ‘Transgender Inclusive’ Policies
Such so-called “transgender inclusive” policies not only violate many families’ religious beliefs but also have had devastating consequences. In 2021, Appomattox County High School did not notify a then-14-year-old girl’s parents when she began identifying as a boy at school. As The Federalist previously reported, the school’s decision to exclude the teen’s mother from such critical information meant it “participated in a chain of events that led” to the girl becoming the victim of sex predators and being trafficked to another state.
Appomattox County is not one of the five Northern Virginia districts that the Department of Education mentions in its investigation. In other words, there likely are many other K-12 public school districts in Virginia that are violating federal law.
In its administrative complaint to the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights, which conducted the investigation, it’s clear why America First Legal would highlight Northern Virginia’s public school districts. Many of them have been the recent subject of national news.
Loudoun County became the epicenter for both transgender insanity and parental rights. In 2021, a student named Hunter Heckel sexually assaulted two girls at two different high schools — one of whom he assaulted in a girls’ bathroom, reportedly while wearing a skirt. The victim’s father was then arrested at a school board meeting when he raised the assault after district leaders tried to conceal it.
In 2024, in nearby Arlington County, an adult male sex offender, Richard Cox, allegedly exposed his naked body in girls’ locker rooms at Washington Liberty High School and Wakefield High School. One woman reported that she called the Arlington School Board to notify them of the situation at Washington Liberty High, but that the board did not respond to her. One mother said she and her young daughter witnessed him in the school’s girls’ locker room last year and similarly contacted the Arlington Public Schools Aquatic Center director, but did not receive a response. Cox now faces 20 charges “related to exposing himself in women’s locker rooms.”
In Fairfax County, at the beginning of multiple academic years, teachers have given students surveys requesting their preferred names and pronouns without notifying parents. District leaders further guide teachers to “model” using their own preferred pronouns, as I previously reported.
Following his responses to the Student Experience Survey, which was supposed to be “confidential,” one student said he was pulled out of class and publicly approached by a school counselor for objecting to district policy and violations of President Trump’s executive orders.
The list of examples suggesting Virginia public school district leaders’ willful violation of students’ and parents’ rights and federal and state laws goes on and on. So, when will the Youngkin administration do something about it?
The ‘Parents Matter’ Administration Must Act
In November 2021, in a tight race, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governorship on a “Parents for Youngkin” campaign approach. While he passed apparently non-binding executive orders and his Department of Education has released model policies for students that base bathroom use on sex, not gender identity, his commitment to parents’ rights has lacked a clear implementation phase.
Despite many attempts at contact, for example, the Youngkin administration has not soiled its hands with most of Virginia’s parents’ problems. For example, my sons still have 39 days of illegal mask suspensions that school district leaders refuse to expunge. Fairfax County’s public school district also has many potential violations of state Freedom of Information Act law, which the Youngkin administration has not addressed.
While Fairfax County Public Schools seem bent on defying Youngkin’s executive orders on divisive concepts and mask freedom and his model polices, he substantially increased their state funding even as his office admitted the student population declined.
Other states have been more effective in implementing their policies regarding public education. For example, in June 2025, a California state auditor’s report found Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools in Sacramento guilty of wasteful spending and hiring teachers lacking “appropriate credentials.” The report also said the school acquired $180 million in wrongly received funds. Each of the members of the school’s board of directors subsequently resigned or was removed.
Additionally, in 2023, Temecula Valley Unified School District board members rejected California’s curriculum materials for including Harvey Milk, a known pederast. In fact, the school board president referred to Milk as a “pedophile,” and instructed “the district to reject any materials shipped from the state.” In response, Governor Gavin Newsom, D, fined the district $1.5 million for what he said was a “willful violation of the law.” While it’s deplorable that Newsom’s heart project seemed to be pushing curriculum referencing a known pederast and LGBT activist into California’s K-12 public schools, at least he isn’t afraid to implement his agenda.
If Newsom can take such actions, why can’t Youngkin? Fairfax County’s public schools received about $168 million from the federal government in fiscal year 2025 and about $1 billion from the state government the same year.
The Youngkin administration should explore creative tools to address Virginia’s leftist public school district leaders’ apparent willful violation of state and federal law — perhaps including individual financial or criminal liability.
Youngkin explicitly acknowledged the dangers of the Virginia school districts’ violations of the law in a post on X July 25: “These school divisions have been violating federal law, neglecting student safety, privacy and dignity, and ignoring parents—all enabled by the Biden administration.” He also boasted about asking the state attorney general to investigate one of the counties in a press release last week.
Fortunately, Joe Biden is no longer in power. It’s time to recognize the dangers of similar policies in school districts across Virginia, not just in Northern Virginia. Youngkin and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — the Republican candidate for Virginia’s upcoming gubernatorial race in November — should act now in the name of justice and parental rights. It’s unseemly to sit around applauding, waiting for the Trump administration to clean house in Virginia.
If Youngkin and Sears genuinely believe that parents matter and that these leftist school districts’ policies are dangerous and violate the law, it’s time for them to step up and go beyond holding impassioned interviews on Fox News.
