U.S. Department of Education demanded Washington and California revise transgender-student privacy policies, citing FERPA funding threat

On July 30, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education's Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) demanded that the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the California Department of Education (CDE) immediately detail their plans to revise policies on disclosing student records to parents. The department said Washington and California maintain policies that pressure schools to hide student records from parents, and that California's policies in particular require schools to withhold a student's gender identity or transition from them. SPPO framed the demand under Title IX and FERPA, and its statement noted that FERPA violations can result in termination of an educational institution's federal funding.

The department cited two rulings as grounds: the Supreme Court's March 2026 decision in Mirabelli v. Olson, which it said established that parents, not the state, hold primary authority over their children's upbringing, and the Ninth Circuit's June 2026 ruling in City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom, finding California's disclosure restrictions likely unconstitutional. The demand extends an existing federal civil-rights investigation into OSPI and follows a separate SPPO finding, issued earlier in 2026, that CDE had violated FERPA; SPPO said the states' responses would shape its next enforcement steps.

Washington Superintendent Chris Reykdal called the demand a sham announcement and media stunt, saying his office had turned over tens of thousands of documents during the investigation but had heard nothing substantive from the department in months. He said Washington law already grants parents access to student records in compliance with federal law, and characterized the action as the administration threatening to withhold federal funds from states that do not comply with its political ideology.

The demand named two states together rather than a single district, distinguishing it from the department's parallel actions the same week against Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan and Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland. It extends a recurring pattern of the department using FERPA and Title IX enforcement, backed by the threat of funding termination, to pressure schools and state agencies into abandoning transgender-student privacy protections.