State Superintendent weighs in on Mead School Board letter to feds: ‘Follow state law, follow state law and then if you’re not sure, follow state law’

With the Mead School Board saying it’s caught in a “legal dilemma,” Washington Superintendent Chris Reykdal cautioned the board to follow his guidance as the Trump Administration’s executive orders continue to contradict Washington civil rights laws.

In a recent letter, the Mead school board told federal officials it felt it was in a double bind – conflicting state and federal directives meant risks to funding when following either directive.

President Donald Trump’s orders on transgender athlete participation or bathroom access, for example, are not law until Congress passes such policies or the courts weigh in his favor, Reykdal said in a press call with reporters Thursday.

“There’s no evidence yet that the Trump administration is pulling money out of states when you’re not in compliance with their view of the world, because I think they know they don’t have a legal authority to do that, short of Congress making those laws,” Reykdal said.

Mead school board members wrote that if they complied with Washington anti-discrimination laws, they’d be disregarding executive orders and risking federal funding that constitutes more than 5% of their budget.

If they complied with any of Trump’s executive orders, which Reykdal contends don’t hold the weight of law, they’d fall out of line with Washington civil rights law. Noncompliance here could jeopardize state allocations worth more than 80% of their budget.

“What I would say is, follow state law, follow state law, and then, if you’re not sure, follow state law,” Reykdal said.

Pulling funding is within Reykdal’s enforcement authority for districts breaking civil rights laws, though it’s an authority he’s never used.

“We’ve never had to take a single penny from a school district when they’re out of civil rights compliance, because we give them technical assistance. We work with them. We get to a really good place. I am confident we can do that statewide,” Reykdal said. “The non-discrimination law in our state ultimately gives OSPI the authority to withhold funds if a school district is willfully, intentionally violating the law and civil rights. So it’s a tool we have; it’s one I don’t expect to use.”

The nexus for the Mead board to send its letter was a recent civil rights review where OSPI found the district’s “transgender students” policy on pronoun use and restroom access out of line with state guidance and told it to make changes. Reykdal said while the Mead school board has some flexibility in the wording of the policy in relation to the blueprints provided by the Washington State School Directors Association, policy should still fall within the state’s civil rights and anti-discrimination laws.

The surefire way for boards to ensure legality is through referencing the state association’s provided examples, called model policy. Model policy is vetted legally, by attorneys, OSPI and sometimes the Attorney General’s office or legislative legal counsel.

“Model policy is the safest way for districts to land on compliance. I don’t necessarily want to say that they have to be word for word, but they certainly need to meet the civil rights protections and make sure there’s no discriminatory policy,” Reykdal said. “Clearly, the direction that some of our districts have indicated is they are intent on violating state law because they just happen to agree with the way they think the President sees the world, and that’s going to be a problem legally.”

The Mead school board on Monday decided to review potential changes to the district’s policies on pronoun use and bathroom access at the next board meeting on March 24.