Two districts, different stages of action

The U.S. Department of Education has opened a new front in the national dispute over how public schools respond when students seek to use a different name, pronouns or gender identity at school than at home. On July 27, the department said its Student Privacy Policy Office had determined that Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland was not substantially complying with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. It also gave Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan until August 10 to explain why enforcement should not proceed against that district.

The cases are related in subject matter but are procedurally different. In Anne Arundel County, the department said it would work with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on enforcement, including possible litigation and potential loss of federal funding. In Ann Arbor, the agency has made a preliminary determination that district practices may violate FERPA and has requested a response before deciding whether to take comparable action.

That distinction matters. Neither announcement itself resolves every factual or legal dispute surrounding individual students, district policies or the rights of families. But the actions make clear that the administration is attempting to use a long-established student-records statute as a vehicle for changing school practices involving gender identity.

The central legal question

FERPA applies to educational agencies and institutions that receive Education Department funding. For parents of most pupils under 18, the law provides a right to inspect and review their child’s education records, generally within 45 days of a request. It also limits disclosure of personally identifiable information to third parties, subject to exceptions. Those rights ordinarily transfer to the student at age 18 or when the student attends a postsecondary institution.

The issue in these cases is not simply whether a parent should be told about a student’s identity or request to use a different name. It is whether information held, recorded or used by school staff constitutes an education record to which a parent is entitled to access — and whether a district can place some information in a confidential or separate system.

The Education Department argues that Anne Arundel County improperly treated information about a student’s gender identity as confidential medical information that could be withheld from parents. Its announcement refers to parent complaints alleging that staff used a masculine name and pronouns for a student at school and did not provide requested information.

FERPA’s treatment of health-related material is significant here. Health records held by an elementary or secondary school can generally be education records if they meet the statutory definition: records directly related to a student and maintained by the school or a party acting for it. The department’s own longstanding guidance says that such records do not become exempt merely because they concern health. That does not mean every staff observation or informal conversation is necessarily a record, but it does put the maintenance, classification and accessibility of school-held information at the heart of the dispute.

What the Anne Arundel policy says

Anne Arundel County’s published gender-identity guidelines illustrate why the federal challenge reaches beyond a single parental complaint. The guidelines state that every student has the right to be addressed by a name and pronoun corresponding to the student’s gender identity, without a court-ordered change of name or gender marker. They also say that, at high-school level, decisions about notifying parents should be made case by case in consultation with the student and with attention to the student’s wellbeing.

The same document says that information regarding a student’s gender identity, legal name or sex assigned at birth may constitute confidential medical information within the educational record. It directs the district to keep medical information relating to gender identity confidential and to restrict access to its student-information system, while also requiring documentation of a student’s preferred name in that system.

Supporters of such policies have argued that schools need flexibility to protect students who fear rejection, harassment or harm at home. The guidelines themselves refer to risks associated with notification in some circumstances. Critics, including the current Education Department, argue that this approach can improperly exclude parents from information about their minor children.

The coming enforcement process may therefore turn on practical questions: what information exists, where it is held, who can see it, what a parent specifically requested, and whether the district’s procedures amount to a policy or practice of denying access rather than an effort to protect information from inappropriate disclosure.

Ann Arbor and the separate-records issue

For Ann Arbor Public Schools, the department has focused on two alleged practices: requiring employees to conceal a student’s transgender status from parents and keeping gender-identity-related records in a separate filing system. The agency has asked the district to justify both practices by August 10.

The separate-system allegation is particularly consequential for districts nationwide. Schools commonly use multiple systems for academic records, counselling notes, health information, discipline, special education and day-to-day administrative communications. The federal government’s position suggests that a record’s location or label will not by itself determine whether it is subject to parental inspection under FERPA.

That could require districts to review policies that differentiate between official records, working files, medical information and informal staff notes. They will also need to assess whether staff members have been trained to respond consistently to record requests. A policy designed to reduce accidental disclosure to other students, families or employees may still face scrutiny if it impedes a parent’s lawful access to records concerning their own child.

A wider shift in federal education policy

The FERPA actions are part of a wider change in the federal government’s approach to gender identity in education. The administration has separately used Title IX enforcement, investigations and funding-related measures to challenge school policies governing athletics, facilities and transgender-student protections.

FERPA differs from Title IX in both purpose and mechanism. Title IX concerns sex discrimination in education programmes, while FERPA principally addresses education-record privacy, access and disclosure. Yet the two areas now overlap in school policy: a district’s effort to support a transgender student can involve pronouns, facilities, sports, counselling and records, each of which may raise different legal obligations.

For schools, the immediate lesson is not that all confidential handling of sensitive student information is unlawful, nor that federal law mandates a single model for every family situation. Rather, the new actions signal that the Education Department will closely examine any policy that limits parental access to records about a minor student’s gender identity.

The Anne Arundel case may establish how aggressively the administration is prepared to pursue that position through litigation or funding sanctions. Ann Arbor’s response will show whether districts can defend procedures that distinguish between records, privacy safeguards and parental notification. Together, the cases could shape how school systems balance student trust, parental involvement and records law well beyond Maryland and Michigan.

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