U.S. Department of Education Begins Process To Take Away School Funds
Approximately $1.2 million of funds exposed in the district
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BAR HARBOR—On Friday, April 11, the U.S. Department of Education laid out consequences for its Title IX investigation into Maine, consequences that will likely impact the schools in the Mount Desert Island region.
A press release from that department stated that it “will initiate an administrative proceeding to adjudicate termination of MDOE’s federal K-12 education funding, including formula and discretionary grants.”
It also referred the investigation to the U.S. Department of Justice for further action.
How much the Mount Desert Island regional schools will be impacted by the Friday decision wasn’t clear.
“Our total exposure across all 10 entities in the district is $1,215,689. It all depends on what funds the administration targets. I do not see a scenario where all are revoked, as that would take an act of Congress, particularly in special education (IDEA) and Title I,” School Superintendent Michael Zboray said Tuesday morning.
Federal funds that could be impacted include REAP, IDEA (special education), Title IA, Title II, Title IV, and E-Rate.
“There’s been a lot in the news about MaineDOE and the U.S. Department of Education,” Zboray said during an AOS meeting Monday evening, stressing that the schools are following laws. “All MDIRSS schools abide by the Maine Human Rights Act.”
Executive orders do not undue the laws and only Congress does, he said and added that people with specific questions could feel free to give him a ring. The school system also has a Title IX page.
“Maine is working with thirty other states in response,” to the federal actions, Zboray said.
Maine received 10% of its total school budget or $358 million in federal funding for K-12 schools in 2021-22. Approximately 47% of those funds went to Title I (assistance to districts with a higher percentage of low-income families), special education, and child nutrition programs (school lunches). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government typically funded approximately 6% of Maine’s school budget.
“The Department has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state’s leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students’ safety, privacy, and dignity,” said U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “The Maine Department of Education will now have to defend its discriminatory practices before a Department administrative law judge and in a federal court against the Justice Department. Governor Mills would have done well to adhere to the wisdom embedded in the old idiom—be careful what you wish for. Now she will see the Trump Administration in court.”
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
President Trump issued a February 5 executive order entitled Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports, which the administration says is meant “to protect female student athletes from having ‘to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.’”
Officials in Maine have said, and continued to say Friday, that the state would not ban transgender athletes in high school sporting competitions. The Maine Human Rights Act protects gender identity. That act makes it illegal to discriminate in educational programs and extracurricular activities because of gender identity and other characteristics. The Maine Principals’ Association complies with that state law.
Back in March, The U.S. Education Department determined that the Maine Department of Education was in violation of Title IX because of transgender participation in sports. A highly publicized verbal exchange between Gov. Janet Mills (D) and President Donald Trump surrounding the issue occurred in February.
On March 31, Maine was ordered to comply within 10 business days, which was Friday, April 11.
In a letter to the federal Department of Education, Maine assistant attorney general Sarah Forster wrote, “Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams,” Forster's letter stated. “Your letters to date do not cite a single case that so holds.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights concluded earlier this year that Maine, Maine Principals' Association, and Greely High School violated Title IX. That separate case and proceedings has also referred Maine to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Also on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock, Jr., gave an order that called for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release funds withheld from the state due to the Title IX issue. The temporary restraining order was granted, Woodcock wrote, because the funding was frozen by the USDA “without following the process required by federal statute.”
The USDA action is separate from the U.S. Department of Education action and the U.S. Department of Health and Human services actions against the state.
Cover image made with unattributed photo from MDIRSS website.
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