DELAWARE VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT, PA — The Delaware Valley School District (DVSD) Board Of Education has no current plans to change school policies that protect trans students. However, it is exploring whether it’s still legally required by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to have those policies in place, prompted by the Trump administration’s attempts to eliminate legal recognition and protections for trans people. 

“We’re not discussing removing any anti-discrimination policies,” read a prepared statement from the board at an April 16 informational meeting. 

Since entering  office, the Trump administration has made multiple attempts to eliminate legal recognition of and protections for trans people. These include two executive orders made in January and February regarding government recognition of trans people, and a late January executive order rolling back a summer 2024 change to Title IX and reinstating the 2020 Title IX rule set. 

However, because some of these attempts may be in conflict with pre-existing state and federal law, they could be overturned by courts, making it unclear what and if school compliance is required.

“These are tumultuous times for public school education,” said DVSD board chair Pam Lutfy, introducing the April 16 meeting. 

“School districts across the entire nation are hyperventilating as they attempt to interpret proposed changes, and of course the attorneys are busier than ever while trying to contend with constantly changing federal and state directives,” Lutfy said. 

The board was clear that the changing federal landscape, and not issues within DVSD, led to the board’s trans policy probe. DVSD superintendent Brian Blaum, responding to questions pre-gathered from district residents, said there have been no reports of predatory behavior from trans students, nor any reports of LGBTQ+ students harassing other students. 

Within the past two years, DVSD administration has identified only one concern from the high school student body about the protections granted to trans students, Blaum said. In that instance, a student raised a concern regarding locker room use by a trans male student; after administration spoke with the involved students and parents about the concerns, no issues have since been raised, he said. 

“Despite a request for the board to cancel the district’s binding OCR agreement, the majority of Delaware Valley school board members recognize the complexity of such a request, and they have vocalized that at this time: they cannot support an unguided decision to dispel agreements or policies, which may negatively affect students and the educational operation of our very fine district,” said Lutfy. 

Lutfy made it clear that the board had no desire to rush into a decision that could harm the DVSD student body. 

Audience members listen during an April 16 meeting of the Delaware Valley School Board.

What is the Office of Civil Rights agreement?

While the board has no plans to change its current trans-inclusive policies, DVSD has reached out to the OCR (a division of the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) tasked with enforcing Title IX policies, among other regulations) to ask whether the district is still bound by a 2016 arbitration agreement with the office. 

The agreement came out of a 2015 lawsuit from a trans student at DVSD, accusing the district of discrimination. The OCR agreement compelled DVSD to change its educational policies to address the gender-based harassment the student received. 

The existing trans-inclusive policies at DVSD were adopted because of the OCR agreement but would remain in place without the OCR agreement, unless the school board took action to change them. 

A minority contingent of DVSD board members have advocated for the district to withdraw from the OCR agreement. At a March 12 board of education meeting, Jack Fisher put forth a resolution to withdraw DVSD from the OCR agreement. Board members Brian Fells and Carl Will also favored the idea, and members made explicit reference to executive orders from the Trump administration which denied the very existence of trans people. 

Fisher said the board has “an obligation to our girls to make sure that their bathrooms and their locker rooms have no boys in them.”

However, at the informational meeting, the board as a whole (excluding Fisher, who was not present) united around a more cautious position, of not changing policy but seeking clarification on whether the 2015 OCR remained in effect. 

According to the three lawyers present at the meeting—the school’s solicitor, Nicholas McIntyre, as well as two others the school had brought in to consult, Brian Taylor and John Freund—the fate of DVSD’s OCR agreement was currently unclear. 

McIntyre had sent OCR a request asking whether the agreement was still in effect. But, Freund said, “we’re not even sure what exists of OCR” anymore; the Philadelphia office which administered DVSD’s OCR agreement has been shuttered. 

As for why to remove it?

The OCR could open the district up to undue liability, McIntyre said. If an issue came up, and the OCR agreement was still in place, the board could face consequences not just through a lawsuit, but also through the OCR. 

“As an attorney, looking after the interests of the school board and the taxpayers, removing any extra liabilities is something that I support, because liabilities are bad; liabilities cost you money; liabilities cost you exposure,” said McIntyre. 

DVSD’s OCR agreement was the first put in place by the Philadelphia OCR office, the board said, and was possibly never meant to last as long as it has—it’s one of only a few without a set end date.

The attorneys agreed that the board could not unilaterally decide to cancel the OCR agreement. OCR itself must determine whether or not the agreement remained in effect, they said.