School district leaders have faced a flurry of new directives and policy changes since President Donald Trump took office in January, touching on diversity, equity, and inclusion practices; the treatment of LGBTQ+ students; and more.
District leaders are left to parse each new order, weighing whether they need to change any policies and programming to remain consistent with both state and federal laws and local court precedents, and protect the federal funding they receive.
Some districts are publicly aligning with the Trump administration, whether changing athletic policies to bar transgender athletes from girls’ sports or readily signing a certification that they don’t use “illegal DEI practices.” Others are publicly defying the administration, declining to sign the DEI certification and, in limited cases, even signing onto legal action challenging administration policies.
That leaves many districts in the middle, quietly trying to navigate the dizzying pace of the new orders, stay abreast of changes, comply with the law as best they can interpret it, preserve their funding, and simply continue working with as little fanfare as possible.
Among them is Tawana Grover, the superintendent in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where about a quarter of the district’s 15,000 students are students of color.
Grover and others were criticized by some community members in March when a page on the district website about schools’ diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts was taken down.
The website, last accessible Feb. 25, detailed the district’s commitment to an “inclusive environment where all students and staff can thrive,” and listed initiatives including Black student unions at the city’s high schools, a DEI committee, and the hiring of equity coaches. Several other local government agencies around the same time “paused” their DEI efforts due to evolving federal guidance, according to local news reports, as the Trump administration acted on an executive order to eliminate DEI from the federal government.
The district webpage came down days after a Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter from the Education Department directed K-12 schools and universities to eliminate virtually any race-based programming or risk losing federal funding.
A follow-up “frequently asked questions” document issued two weeks later clarified that not all programs, classes, and events that focus on particular cultures violate federal civil rights law, but the document still didn’t define DEI.
Since that March 1 FAQ document, the Education Department has ordered state education chiefs and school districts to sign a certification that they’re not using “illegal DEI practices"—again without precisely defining DEI—as a condition to continue receiving federal funds.
Cedar Rapids wasn’t alone in taking down a DEI-related page. Several other districts took down DEI-related web pages around the time the Education Department issued its Dear Colleague letter, according to an Education Week review.
Removing the webpage was not a signal that the Cedar Rapids school district no longer values or supports students from various backgrounds, said Grover, who is in her second year leading the district about two hours east of Des Moines.
Instead, she said, it was essentially a balancing act: an effort to comply with federal directives, avoid backlash that could take away from schools’ ability to focus on teaching and learning, and allow the district time to reevaluate its programs to ensure they align with its core values that “everyone is equipped, empowered, and engaged to excel.”
“We’re not leading and executing based on an acronym. We don’t need an acronym to do what’s right by our students,” Grover said in a recent interview with Education Week. “We put that mandate on ourselves, through the core values we’ve adopted.”
A district moves away from ‘language that no longer inspires action’
There’s so much confusion right now, and school districts are receiving conflicting information and advice, Grover said. So it’s hard to know what to do.
But taking down the district’s DEI web page to review it was an opportunity for district leaders in Cedar Rapids to ensure what was on it reflected its current goals and programs.
Some information may have been outdated, Grover said, and some initiatives had ended, whereas others may have started but weren’t documented on the page.
In some cases, the phrasing around programs’ descriptions may not have aligned with the district’s current priorities and values, Grover said, so using different and more precise language to explain them could go a long way.
“Rather than repeat language, [DEI], that no longer inspires action, I think we’re centering on excellence and belonging,” Grover said.
“The policies need to serve all students, and that’s what I’m hoping will still be the driving force. I was thinking, what did we do before DEI? And schools were doing that work long before the phrase was ever being used. I think people just did what we needed to do to support students.”
Some districts are taking more vocal stances on Trump directives
Cedar Rapids’ approach contrasts with those of some other large districts that have taken a more publicly defiant stand against administration actions.
Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero, for example, continues to direct educators to an “L.G.B.T.Q.+ Tool Kit” that lays out policies for affirming students who are questioning their gender identities and giving those students access to the bathrooms that align with their gender identity, among other district directives. This has continued even after the Trump administration, in its second week, launched a Title IX investigation into the district for switching what was previously a girl’s bathroom at a high school to a nonbinary bathroom that students of any gender can use.
The Phoenixville Area school district, near Philadelphia, has reviewed its curriculum and policies to assess what might conflict with new federal orders, but it hasn’t made any changes, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Trump is trying “to bully us into compliance,” Scott Overland, president of the Phoenixville school board, told the Inquirer. “We need to show him that he’s wrong.”
He said he’d rather “dip into our rainy day fund or reserves to avoid giving into threats,” should the Trump administration find cause to cut their federal funding.
Other districts have taken public stances on the other end of the spectrum.
The school board in Hodgdon, Maine, in April voted to only recognize two sexes and bar students from using private spaces—like bathrooms and locker rooms—reserved for people of the opposite sex, according to the Bangor Daily News. That language is consistent with executive orders Trump has signed recognizing only two sexes and barring transgender girls from girls’ sports, but at odds with Maine law. The Hodgdon school board also directed the superintendent to evaluate district policies to ensure they align with Trump administration orders.
That school board vote came as the Trump administration sued the Maine Department of Education for allowing transgender students to participate in sports teams that align with their gender identity, which the Trump administration asserts is a violation of Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination.
Ultimately, Grover in Cedar Rapids doesn’t intend to stake out such a high-profile position for her district. As a leader, she said, she plans to “abide by the laws of the land, and in a manner that elevates our students to a place where their basic needs are met and they are set up for success.”
