Trump administration initiates investigation into OSPI over pronoun conflict
The U.S. Department of Education is initiating an investigation into the Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction stemming from its conflict with a Southwest Washington school district’s pronouns policy.
La Center School District in Clark County is at the center of the dispute, the Washington State Standard first reported. The conflict illustrates the deep rift between OSPI and the administration of President Donald Trump.
OSPI spokesperson Katy Payne told McClatchy via email that the federal department has flagged its intent to launch a probe, although the state’s public-schools agency hasn’t yet received an official notice.
Payne also said it’s “a potential overreach of the federal government’s authority.”
“We will continue to steadfastly follow the laws of the state of Washington, which provide clear civil rights protections for our transgender and gender-expansive youth that fit squarely inside the protections provided under federal law,” she continued.
The federal education agency claimed in a letter that OSPI has possibly violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the sex discrimination-prevention-focused Title IX and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.
La Center School District, which serves some 1,800 students, has published a timeline of the conflict in question.
District Superintendent Peter Rosenkranz told McClatchy in a phone call that the district has been “put between a rock and a hard place.”
“Do we follow state law and violate federal law, or do we violate federal law and follow state law?” he said. “... It seems to me they’re well equipped to step in and investigate the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction for perceived violations of FERPA and Title IX.”
He continued: “I’m thankful for the federal government to come in and assist and try to put some semblance of logic into how we work with parents.”
Rosenkranz advised staff in October 2022 not to ask students for their pronouns. Educators could still use a kid’s preferred pronouns and names upon request.
A La Center High School teacher serving as the Gay Straight Alliance student-group adviser then pushed back on that directive, contending that it creates systemic hurdles to full LGBTQ-student inclusivity and “affects the LGBTQ, and only the LGBTQ, community” in practice.
OSPI revealed findings in late February that said, in part, the school district had infringed on state law by “discriminating on the basis of gender expression and gender identity.” The state directed La Center School District to rescind its pronoun policy and implement gender identity bias training for staff.
Last month the district appealed.
The Education Department’s action is the latest in a series of education-related skirmishes between OSPI and Trump’s administration. The Education Department, for example, is investigating Tumwater School District after it allowed a transgender athlete from a competing district to play in a February girls’ basketball game.
“Earlier this year, OSPI ordered La Center to change policies to conform with state law to protect ‘gender-expansive students’ in a manner which is apparently contrary to federal law,” Julie Hartman, a Department of Education spokeswoman, told McClatchy. “This included mandating that the District ‘not proactively share information about any students’ gender identity without the student’s consent,’ which appears to violate parents’ rights under FERPA to inspect their child’s school records.”
La Center’s policy
Rosenkranz referenced La Center School District’s policy on pronouns, which states that students who are gender-expansive or transgender can tell teachers how they want to be addressed. If a parent asks staff whether their child requested to use a different pronoun or name, then staff should reply with accurate information, it says.
The policy details several other guiding factors on how to communicate with students about changes in pronouns and gender identity, as well as with their parents.
The way Rosenkranz sees it, parents should be sitting down with their kids and reading a book or asking about the latest math lesson. But some kids would go home and ask why their teacher wanted to know their pronouns, he said.
“And the parents may not have been ready for that conversation, or worse, I had teachers demanding kids provide their pronouns when they didn’t want to,” he said.
Rosenkranz said he’s been asked whether La Center School District is left- or right-leaning. But to him it’s not a matter of politics.
Rather, he said, the district is nonpartisan: “We simply want to educate kids, and we want to partner with families.”
The federal education agency recently opened FERPA probes in California and Maine as well, also telling schools to comply with parental-rights laws in a March 28 letter addressed to educators.
This story was originally published April 15, 2025 at 1:16 PM.
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