Over the past six years, my own children and many young people in Maine have experienced  violence, terror and educational disruption. From the COVID pandemic and its aftermath, to the lockdowns after the Lewiston mass shooting and the regular practice of active shooter drills, many in our community are living on edge. 

Some lockdown drills required the entire kindergarten class to crowd together in the bathroom in their classroom and remain still and silent. Five year olds were trained not to respond to a knock on the door, and to only come out when they heard an announcement over the public address system. My son called it “Kansas Clover,” which we later learned meant “campus closure.”

Our children and families are already worried about school safety. In the past few months, Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents have made things so much worse. 

In September, immigration officers in a Portland ’s driveway arrested a parent who had just dropped off his child. This sent shock waves throughout the community. It solidified that we in child care needed to raise our voices to protect children and families. We also realized we needed to provide support for child care providers, educators, hospital and health care workers, and people who work for public institutions. Their physical and emotional safety is at risk. 

Further underscored this need, creating widespread fear in our communities. Local schools saw in January because of these concerns.

This fear works its way to impact even the youngest in the community. In my own classroom, we have noticed an increase in stress behaviors during the enhanced ICE occupation, as well as in the days and weeks following the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good amid the ICE crackdown in Minneapolis. Students who do not normally act out have been yelling, crying and throwing tantrums noticeably more.

From church members to family members to families in our child care center, people are noticing a difference. Parents are making emergency communications plans in case ICE creates a disruption that leaves them unable to pick up their child. Schools and students have noticed their classmates stop showing up to school, and do not know where they are.

All children deserve affordable, accessible, high quality education in physically and emotionally safe environments. This cannot happen when officials are deputized to enter sacred spaces, profile, detain or arrest parents, caregivers and young people. Learning and fear cannot coexist. 

This isn’t surprising.

For decades, federal administrations led by Republicans and Democrats prohibited immigration enforcement at sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals. Policies were built on the premise that everyone should be able to access services supporting life and wellbeing without fear. It was common sense that children needed safe spaces where fear would not find them.

Unfortunately, one of the first actions of the current administration was to reverse these policies. They sought to rationalize their actions by pushing harmful and false narratives linking immigrants with criminality. But no one benefits when one group of people is maligned, targeted and pushed to the margins of society. It only hurts the people in our communities.

We need action at every level to respond to these threats and protect our children. Our elected officials can lead through legislation, such as in Maine which would prohibit ICE from entering public schools, child care centers, libraries and hospitals without a valid judicial warrant signed by a judge. 

Local mutual aid groups are working overtime to make sure that affected communities are able to get food, medicine and baby products delivered when the threat of racial profiling by ICE is too great to leave home, regardless of citizenship status. Members of my own community are getting notarized to help create formal arrangements for children in case anything happens to their parents. This kind of action must continue and expand to protect children from future harm.

There’s a lot that we parents can’t control in the world to keep our children safe. However, we have an opportunity to speak up against ICE terrorizing our schools, child care centers and medical facilities. We should act swiftly to do so. Whether you are an educator, a lawmaker or a parent who cares about your community, speak out against ICE. All of us can contribute to the safety and future of our children and our communities.

The finalists were asked about top education issues and trends in a Jan. 8 online discussion. Here’s some of what they had to say.

Roosevelt Nivens

Nivens has led Lamar Consolidated Independent School District in south Texas since 2021. The district, which has roughly 49,000 students, has been fast-growing, with 15 schools opening during Nivens’ tenure. 

As an educator with 30 years of experience, Nivens serves on the Texas Association of School Administrators. He has received top superintendent awards in recent years from the National Association of State Boards of Education and the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. Before his current role, Nivens was a teacher and assistant principal in Dallas. He holds degrees from Liberty University and Texas A&M-Commerce.

When asked about artificial intelligence use in schools, Nivens said AI helps teachers “get back to the human side of teaching.” His district is creating policies so educators can utilize AI tools for administrative tasks like lesson planning. 

“We want to help students use it responsibly,” he added. “It’s our job, so they will know exactly what it is and what they should and should not use it for.”

Family engagement is also a popular topic in Nivens’ district. He said Lamar Consolidated not only hosts parent workshops, but the district organizes events at places like apartment complexes to cater to families at their homes

Heather Perry

It’s been a decade since Perry became superintendent of Gorham School District, which serves 2,800 students in southern Maine. Over the past 30 years, she has worked her way up from educational technician, middle school social studies teacher and building principal.

Perry serves on the executive board of the Maine School Superintendents Association. She’s the first district leader in her state to be named a national finalist for Superintendent of the Year. She received degrees from the University of Southern Maine and the University of Maine.

Perry said her district began highlighting post-graduate options besides college roughly eight years ago. She helped create , a K-12 program that exposes students to career pathways. Kindergartners learn about future career goals, while middle schoolers get hands-on experiences in fields like health care, business and technology through community partnerships. High schoolers venture outside the school building to get a head start on their careers with local businesses.

Perry said she would rather see  juniors and seniors traveling to early college classes, internships, apprenticeships and “doing real-life career experiences” than sitting in school.

The program began with 35 students and now is at capacity, with 140. It has grown from five business partners to 90.

“There used to be a stigma attached to students who attended (career technical education) schools,” Perry said. “That stigma is gone now. Students who want to go to MIT or engineering schools see the value of going into a (career technical education) program. We’ve done a nice job in Gorham.”

Demetrus Liggins

Liggins is superintendent of Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky, the state’s second-largest district with more than 42,000 students. He’s been in the education field for 25 years, serving in roles from a dual-language teacher to building principal. He was previously a superintendent of two Texas school districts.

In 2020, Liggins was recognized as a superintendent to watch by the National School Public Relations Association. He holds degrees from the University of Texas, Stephen F. Austin University and California State University.

Liggin’s tenure at Fayette County Public Schools has also been the focus of scrutiny over finances. In September, two Kentucky lawmakers over what they described as budget inconsistencies and . He was also by his budget director, prompting an by the school board. 

While Liggins hasn’t publicly responded to the investigation, he in November that budget inconsistencies were the result of miscommunication.

When it comes to funding, Liggins said, cuts made by the Trump administration have cost the district at least one federal grant, and extra money for Title I, II and III grants is at risk. He’s turning to state legislators to help fill future funding gaps.

With budget shortfalls a top concern, Liggins said he’s increasing his involvement in his own district’s finances. Administrators used to report on the district budget to his deputy superintendent but now come to him directly. He said he’s also attending conferences with his business office to learn more.

“That understanding is very helpful when you go to speak to legislators about the (funding) formula,” he said. “Background knowledge has been very helpful.”

Sonja Santelises

This is Santelises’ 10th year as chief executive officer of Baltimore City Schools, which serves 77,000 students. She was previously the district’s chief academic officer and has held leadership positions in Boston Public Schools, was a lecturer at Harvard University and served as a vice president at The Education Trust.

Santelises is a Carnegie Foundation board member and chair of the Council of the Great City Schools and has been recognized for her leadership at the and levels. Santelises earned degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University.

Baltimore City Schools has been accused of and during Santelises’ tenure. 

The key to attracting talent and preventing teacher burnout is to have high-quality principals, she said. Teachers in Baltimore City tend to stay if they’re placed in schools where their principal understands how to support them. 

“Making sure we’re keeping salaries and benefits competitive (is important) because teaching is hard work,” she said. “Everybody wants to know they are being recognized.”

Santelises said her district also prevents turnover by allowing teachers to use a career ladder to change their roles so they spend less time in the classroom and more time coaching other staff.

CHINA, Maine – When Saige Bird moved to Maine, her first order of business was to get support for her then 3-year-old son, who is autistic and has a speech impediment that renders him unintelligible to most people.

Over the past year and a half, she has struggled to get him the speech or other support he needs and is legally entitled to.

While Child Development Services — a quasi-state agency responsible for providing disability services to Maine children under the age of 5 — to a new model for serving 3- and 4-year-olds, a significant number of preschoolers who remain in the existing system are being left behind.

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Over the 2024-2025 fiscal year, 875 3- and 4-year-olds, or 15% of preschool-aged children served by Child Development Services, were on waitlists for 1,690 services including speech, occupational and physical therapy, according to data provided by the Maine Department of Education. Historically, Child Development Services has not kept track of waitlist data, but this is an increase from 2019, when a report requested by the Maine Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee found that 10% of children requiring services were on waitlists.

When Bird’s son, whose name she asked be omitted for privacy reasons, was first referred to Child Development Services for evaluation, Bird was thrilled.

“I thought I was gonna get the help I need for my son,” she said.

But that excitement soon turned to disappointment.

Four months after her initial appointment, she received an email from a speech therapist, only to discover she was based in Texas and the sessions would be remote, which she didn’t think was a good fit for her son, then 4 years old, who is hyperactive and has a low attention span.

Another four months later, Child Development Services offered a preschool placement for her son at Augusta Children’s Center. She ultimately declined it due to, among other reasons, trouble scheduling around her son’s outside occupational and speech therapy.

“I know some people love the Children’s Center,” she said. “But it wasn’t right for my son and our family.”

Under federal law, children are supposed to receive all services they’re found eligible for within 30 days of being evaluated.

But that deadline is not always met.

“We are frequently hearing about waitlists and hearing that these waitlists are persisting,” said Jeanette Plourde, an attorney for Disability Rights Maine. “We continue to see parents being told in (Individualized Education Plan, known as IEP) meetings that (Child Development Services) doesn’t have the staffing, that there are no placements, that it’s just not possible to fulfill their child’s IEP.”

This, says Plourde, is simply not okay.

“Our state has an obligation to provide these services under federal and state law,” she said. “Full stop.”

Bird is one of many parents who gave up completely and opted to find her child the services he needs in a different way. Three to five days a week, Bird drives an hour and a half round-trip to and from Belfast for in-person speech, which Child Development Services determined her son needed, and occupational therapy, which she sought separately. Since January, she has spent at least $550 on co-payments for both services.

The Maine Department of Education, which oversees Child Development Services, is well aware of the agency’s challenges, , and is working to turn the tide by of providing preschool special education from Child Development Services to the state’s public schools, a mammoth task it says will better serve preschoolers by utilizing the state’s resources more efficiently.

But while Child Development Services works to implement this systemic change, there’s not much that can be done for the children who aren’t getting their needs met, said Child Development Services State Director Dan Hemdal.

“It’s an unfortunate reality of early childhood special education in the state,” said Hemdal of children ending up on waitlists.

Hemdal and others say that a lack of preschool placements and providers — including speech, occupational and physical therapists — can make it difficult, if not impossible, to match preschoolers with the resources they need.

But while the state works to create a system that better serves preschoolers with disabilities, children across the state lose valuable time.

The first five years of life are crucial for development and can shape the trajectory of a child’s life.

“You only have a certain amount of time while the brain is this plastic,” said Nancy Cronin, the executive director of the Maine Developmental Disabilities Council. “This is a magic time for development that no child can afford to lose.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

Despite the Trump administration threatening to withhold funding from Maine schools for allegedly violating federal rules against sex-based discrimination, no funding has been permanently taken away from public schools, so far.

In a , President Donald Trump told Maine Gov. Janet Mills during a February National Governors Association event at the White House that she must comply with his executive order barring transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Otherwise, he warned, “you’re not going to get federal funding.”

In the wake of that, several federal agencies targeted Maine for its inclusive policies that allow transgender girls to play on girls sports teams. The Trump administration argued the policy is in violation of Title IX, the federal nondiscrimination law that bans sex-based discrimination, and opened several investigations into the Maine Department of Education (DOE). An investigation was also launched into the Maine Principal’s Association, which regulates school sports, and Greely High School in Cumberland after a state legislator posted a picture of a trans athlete from the school on her legislative Facebook page.

In April, the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that Maine had violated Title IX and referred their cases to the U.S. Department of Justice. In a , the federal Education Department also said it would simultaneously “initiate an administrative proceeding to adjudicate termination of MDOE’s federal K-12 education funding, including formula and discretionary grants.”

Last year, the Maine DOE received $183.9 million from the U.S. Department of Education, which of the federal funding the department received that year.

The is pending, according to the Maine Attorney General’s office, but neither federal agency withheld any funding from the Maine DOE as a result of their guilty finding, said Maine Deputy Attorney General Christopher Taub.

Withholding of federal education funding was one of the primary concerns as they introduced several bills aiming to restrict trans rights this past legislative session, .

Also this spring, several from Maine, many of which were challenged or walked back. For example, in April, Maine the U.S. Department of Agriculture for freezing school nutrition funding, which federal courts ordered the agency to restore.

The ruling marked Maine’s first legal victory in fighting the Title IX violation allegations, but other lawsuits are still pending.

The USDA, which never launched an official probe, is the only agency so far to withhold federal funding from Maine schools, the attorney general’s office confirmed. The funding was frozen on April 2, and restored by a federal judge’s order on April 11. to Mills announcing the freeze, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote, “this pause does not impact federal feeding programs or direct assistance to Mainers; if a child was fed today, they will be fed tomorrow.”

But according to Jane McLucas, Maine’s child nutrition director, the agency froze roughly $2.75 million in funds that impacted various aspects of the school nutrition program. While reimbursement funds for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs were still accessible, money used to run those programs — including for the salaries of 12 state employees, as well as funding for office technology and oversight — was temporarily blocked, McLucas said. Also, funding for the Child and Adult Care Food Program, which provides food reimbursements to eligible children and adults in after school programs, child and adult day care centers, was also hit, with providers losing access to “cash in lieu” payments they use to buy food and to administrative funds that cover staffing costs.

Two months later, Maine also the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) after the agency canceled a $9 million grant to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. That grant had been awarded to restore tidal salt marsh habitat and protect coastal infrastructure from flooding. The lawsuit, which is also still pending, alleges that NOAA may have terminated the grant because of Maine’s alleged violation of Title IX, according to Danna Hayes, director of public affairs for the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

Nearly $50 million in federal funding has also been , as of May, including grants that were temporarily frozen and then restored, terminated or threatened. This funding was cut despite the USDA in March that the university system is in compliance with the Trump administration’s transgender policy.

How much of this funding was related to Title IX is unclear, and the university system declined to provide specifics on at least one grant that was withheld due to Title IX, then temporarily restored and ultimately terminated.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

Now Christian schools in Maine, where the case originated, want the courts to go even further. 

They object to a state law that requires them to accept all students, including those who don’t follow their religion, have disabilities or identify as LGBTQ. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit heard the case in January.

“This moral panic over letting religious schools be religious — even if they’re receiving tuition subsidies — needs to end,” said Adele Keim, senior counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The nonprofit law firm represents St. Dominic Academy in Auburn, Maine, which sued over the rule along with CrossPoint Church, which operates . 

The nondiscrimination law, schools say, prevents them from participating in “town tuitioning” — a program that picks up a student’s private school costs if there’s no public option in their community. 

The state argues that it’s only asking religious schools to comply with the same rules public and secular private schools follow.

“The schools are asking for special treatment,” said Alexandra Zaretsky, litigation counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The nonprofit advocacy group submitted a brief to the court in support of Maine’s position. “It should be the state’s prerogative to say ‘If you’re getting funding from the state, then you have to follow our generally applicable laws.’ ”

Most states with voucher programs already allow private and religious schools to deny admissions to whomever they want. Maine is an outlier — a blue state that would prefer to keep religious schools out of the tuitioning program. 

The debate reflects a heightened concern among advocates for public education that the nationwide push for private school choice will further isolate students.

“Religious schools getting the taxpayer-funded ability to pick their own kids is one real goal of this school voucher push — a feature, not a bug,” said Joshua Cowen, an education professor at Michigan State University. Last year, he released a book that delves into the way culture war battles have fueled private school choice.

In March, in opposition to Texas’ new ESA law, which passed in April with help from President Donald Trump. The president of the state House, urging them to vote yes. Earlier in that , which lasted nearly 24 hours, Laura Colangelo, executive director of the Texas Private School Association, said private schools could deny admission to a child whose mother wasn’t married when she got pregnant.

says the state can’t force a school to modify policies tied to their religious beliefs. If the Maine case goes the religious schools’ way, such rules would be “less necessary,” Cowen said.

“I’m a Christian man. I sing in a church choir. I can still say what these schools want to do is wrong,” he said. “These guys just want a blank check to do what they want, even if it’s leaving some kids and families out.”

A ‘source of balkanization’

The issue was also at the forefront of Oklahoma’s legal fight to open a religious charter school, a debate that both supporters and opponents of the idea expect to eventually wind up back in court.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court tied 4-4 on the question of whether charter schools are private and can explicitly teach religion. The deadlock allowed the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision against St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to stand. Though promising not to turn any students away, school leaders said they would only call students by their birth names and pronouns and would refer students with disabilities to their local district if accommodating their needs disrupted class.

Some experts see the prospect of sectarian charter schools as a threat to American values. 

“Public education, including public charter schools, is one of the few things that holds our society together,” said Richard Kahlenberg, who directs the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank. “It’s the common experience for 90% of American schoolchildren.” 

“If you suddenly have … Christian students going to their schools, Jewish students going to theirs, Muslim students going to theirs, that means fewer Christian students come to know Jewish and Muslim students as classmates and friends,” Kahlenberg said in a panel discussion prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Oklahoma case. “Our public schools are already highly segregated by race and class, and this would just layer on religion as a new source of balkanization.” 

‘Infinite number of options’

In Utah, the state’s teachers union sued last year over a new ESA program because they say it “diverts” education funds to schools that discriminate in admissions. In April, a state district court judge ruled the program unconstitutional.

“We firmly believe, and a judge agreed, that public money belongs in public schools,” said Hailey Higgins, communications director for the Utah Education Association.

To choice supporters — and the Trump administration — the more private schools that cater to families’ individual preferences, the better. That’s the argument that the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm, along with parents currently in the program, made in to the Utah Supreme Court.

When she learned about the lawsuit, Amanda Koldewyn, an Ogden mother of four, said she felt “anger, frustration and panic.” Her 12-year-old son, who has autism, was getting sick from anxiety in public school and was “bored out of his mind” in class. The Utah Fits All scholarship allowed her to find a curriculum where he can move at his own pace and pay a private math tutor for her daughter. She hopes to use the program for her 5-year-old twins this fall as well.

“I can actually get the resources that aren’t just passable, but are fine tuned to what my children need,” she said. “I get really, really angry at those few teachers who think public school is the only way.”

The debate over whether religious schools in choice programs can refuse to serve families who don’t share their values is also playing out with younger students in Colorado. The state’s universal preschool program requires participating schools to accept students from families regardless of parents’ housing status, income level, or religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Two over the regulation, saying they couldn’t participate in the program because their faith prohibits them from accepting LGBTQ students or parents. That means the state doesn’t pick up the cost for students in those schools. The case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. 

In other countries, it’s far more common for students to attend religious schools at the government’s expense. , fully funds Catholic school districts. In European countries like the Netherlands, attend government-funded religious schools.

Many countries place on those schools that choice advocates in the U.S. would resist, explains Sam Abrams, director of the International Partnership for the Study of Educational Privatization at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Religious schools often follow the same criteria for student admissions as public schools, teach to national standards and submit to monitoring visits.

“It’s all regulated, and you can’t screen kids out,” he said, noting that in recent school choice cases, the conservative justices on the Supreme Court never referenced how these systems work in other countries. “They’re not going to talk about the European system. It forces them to acknowledge that what [the U.S.] is doing is very different.”

Maine’s demands on religious schools depart from the way the tuitioning program used to operate. For decades, Catholic and other religious schools were “willing and active participants in this program,” Keim said. That ended in the 1980s — what she called the “shag carpet-era view of the Establishment Clause” — when the legislature passed a law excluding religious schools.

“For 25 years, Maine families have been knocking at the courthouse door and asking the federal courts to let them back in,” Keim said. 

In 2021, as the Carson case made its way to the Supreme Court, lawmakers amended the to prohibit discrimination against students in all private schools receiving public funds, including religious schools. The real “poison pill,” she said, is a provision that requires religious expression without discrimination. 

“If they’re going to allow a Catholic pro-life club,” she said, “they’re going to have to allow a Catholic pro-choice club.”

If the schools prevail in court, St. Dominic’s won’t be accepting any high school students. While the pre-K through eighth grade school will still operate, the this year due to low enrollment. 

“I’m sure the picture would be different,” Keim said, “if they had been allowed to receive these subsidies over the long term.”

While scrolling through Instagram, the mother noticed her child’s friends also called the teen Toby. So she began digging for further evidence of something she had started to suspect — that the ninth grader, with the school’s support, was transitioning from female to male.

“I’m like ‘Hey, you can’t deny it anymore’ ” said Lydia, who did not want to use her last name out of a desire to protect her child, now 17.

The school’s principal, following guidance that allows students to decide whether to inform parents of their gender identity, refused to meet with her. But she found clues elsewhere — an alternate ID card with the name Toby stuffed in a backpack, and emails between district staff discussing which name to use in the yearbook.

Over time, she discovered her child’s transition was an open secret at school — one kept by staff, administrators, a district equity officer, the superintendent, even the president of the local teachers union.

“They were strategizing against me,” Lydia said.

Her experience now lies at the center of a major push by the U.S. Department of Education to clamp down on policies that allow schools to conceal changes in students’ gender identity from parents.  

In a March press release announcing an investigation into , Education Secretary Linda McMahon said teachers and counselors should stay out of “consequential decisions” about children’s sexual identities. Officials are probing similar allegations in and .

In an unprecedented move, the department is threatening to pull millions of dollars in federal education funding from all three states. 

But it’s putting all schools on notice. In , federal officials warned states and districts that their support of student “gender plans” had become a “priority concern.” For educators, the message was as stunning as its rationale. The department is relying on a novel, and according to some critics, incorrect, interpretation of a 50-year-old student privacy law known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA.

The law is typically used to safeguard student records and allow parents to inspect them. But it doesn’t compel schools to inform parents how their children identify in the classroom. If schools link a record to a student, “the parent has a right of access to it if they request it,” said LeRoy Rooker, who oversaw compliance with FERPA at the Education Department for over 20 years. But “the school doesn’t have to be proactive and call and say ‘Hey, we did this.’ ”

Department leaders appear to be stretching the reach of the law in an attempt to bolster conservative arguments that schools are meddling in deeply personal decisions that should be left to parents. In response to the Washington investigation, state Superintendent Chris Reykdal said in a statement that his state is the “latest target in the administration’s dangerous war against individuals who are transgender” and that officials are twisting student privacy laws “to undermine the health, safety and well-being of students.” 

To Julie Hamill, a Los Angeles-area attorney who to investigate, Lydia’s story demonstrates that a law designed to keep parents informed is now working against them.

”The parents are in the dark,” said Hamill of the conservative California Justice Center. “Parents will not know student records are being withheld unless they’ve somehow discovered it on their own.”

In tackling the role of schools in student gender transitions, the department is dipping into one of the more emotionally fraught issues in the culture war, one that President Donald Trump campaigned on and weaponized once he was back in the White House. 

In one of his first , Trump said, without evidence, that schools are “steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation.” In March, who reversed their gendering processes. She criticized the “lengths schools would go to in order to hide this information from parents.”

To many experts, the administration’s scrutiny is out of proportion to the scope of the issue. In the overwhelming majority of cases, schools and students are just navigating preferred names and pronouns, and even those situations are infrequent. Multiple estimate that about 3% of teens are transgender. Far fewer are likely to approach school officials with a request for a name or pronoun change, said Brian Dittmeier, the director of public policy at GLSEN, which advocates for LGBTQ students.

Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors, said it is “rare” for school officials to discuss transitioning with students, and that her group’s members say the only gender plans they’ve completed were done at the request of parents. 

At the same time, most Americans agree that schools should get parents’ permission before changing a child’s pronouns in school records. Polls in and found that roughly three-quarters of adults support mandatory parental notification.

‘This is not real’

Lydia’s story exemplifies that loss of trust in the system.

The artist and former ballerina she thought of as her daughter began identifying as transgender upon entering Academy of the Canyons, a public high school in Santa Clarita, an upscale suburb of Los Angeles. Homeschooled since kindergarten, the teen wanted to pursue art and take advantage of options in their district. The school is located on a college campus where students can attend post-secondary classes while earning their high school diplomas.

“I thought it would be a good opportunity,” Lydia said.

In the fall of 2021, while cleaning the ninth grader’s bedroom, Lydia flipped through some art journals. But instead of schoolwork, she found disturbing sketches of bloody body parts and notes about wanting a chest binder, top surgery and a new name. 

“Shocked and scared” that her child might be suicidal, her thoughts turned immediately to a friend of her son’s who’d recently taken his own life, apparently without warning. 

“No suicide notes. No threats,” she recalled. “The ones that never use it as a weapon are the ones that follow through.”

She began searching for answers online. Initially, she only found sites about supporting a child’s transition  — advice she rejected.

Unlike many parents in her shoes, she’s neither conservative nor religious. In fact, she quipped, an outsider might have assumed she was  “the poster mom for transitioning my kid.”

She described her own parents — a Black father and a Jewish mother — as “hippie artists” who raised her to be a “free thinker” without religion. Lydia’s mother changed her name to Michael in the 1960s because it was easier to make it in the art world with a man’s name. A lifelong Democrat, Lydia voted against a ban on gay marriage when it was on the state ballot in 2008.

But when it came time to have kids of her own, she embraced more conservative values, wanting to “protect their childhood.”

Speaking as a liberal, Lydia said, “I really should have been like ‘Yeah, sure, explore your transgenderism.’” But instead, she did the opposite, taking a hard line against the shift. “I said ‘ I love you, but I’m not affirming you. This is not real.’ ” 

That view belies a that some children can identify differently as young as 3 or 4. Other research shows children can experience due to gender dysphoria — feeling that their sex was misassigned at birth — starting at age 7. 

In attempting to explain what was happening with her child, Lydia turned to a controversial theory of researcher Lisa Littman. In a , the former Brown University scientist described the rise in rapid onset gender dysphoria among  as a “contagion” driven by peer pressure and social media.

“I did what every parent did during the pandemic — let their kid be online way too much,” Lydia said. 

Littman’s research methods from her own university and the broader research community because she based her conclusions largely on reports from self-selecting parents recruited from online forums that were unsupportive, or at least skeptical, of gender transition. They included , which labels itself as “a community of people who question the medicalization of gender-atypical youth.” 

Littman later published an amended of the paper, responding to the controversy and clarifying that the behavior she observed did not amount to a formal diagnosis. Her work, however, continues to drive trans-inclusive policies in school and the views of the Trump administration — and Lydia.

“There is no such thing as a trans child,” Lydia said. 

‘A lot of weight’

It is a debate where the voices of kids directly affected are often absent. J.J. Koechell, a Wisconsin 20-year-old, transitioned in sixth grade after a suicide attempt. He now advocates for other LGBTQ students he says are “entitled to some privacy and consent.”

“They’re trying to figure things out and they don’t want to get it wrong. To disappoint parents is a lot of weight on a struggling youth.”

He watched the school district he attended, Kettle-Moraine, and “safe spaces.” In 2023, as the result of , leaders stopped allowing staff to refer to students by different names and pronouns without parents’ permission. Some staff members over the controversy, including a librarian Koechell trusted. Koechell dropped out and is now finishing high school online.

“My teachers were all I had at school. I didn’t have any friends,” he said. “Coming out was a matter of life and death for me. My identity wasn’t and still isn’t optional.” 

Protecting students like Koechell is the purpose of a new California law — , also known as the “SAFETY Act.” It prohibits schools from requiring staff to disclose a child’s gender identity to their parents. 

In announcing the Department of Education’s investigation of the state, Secretary McMahon said the law “appears to conflict with FERPA.” But GLSEN’s Dittmeier highlighted that the legislation still requires schools to comply with the federal privacy law — and honor parents’ requests for records. 

One department staffer is worried where the investigation could lead. 

“This is irregular, based on our history — to take up an allegation [with] no official complaint, but one that is motivated by an attorney group that is bending the department’s ear about something,” said an employee familiar with the case who asked to speak anonymously to protect his job. He said the administration’s goal is to pressure states and districts into rescinding policies that allow students to decide when to go public with their gender identity. “This will result in districts adopting forced outing and will result in harming children.”

‘Life-altering decisions’

In , the was raging long before the current controversy. 

, police removed state Superintendent Tony Thurmond from a meeting in the Chino Valley Unified School District after a tense exchange with board members over the district’s parental notification policy. He warned the board that their policy could “put our students at risk because they may not be in homes where they can be safe.” The state later against the district as well as others that passed similar measures. 

Continuing its battle with Thurmond, Chino Valley is now the state over the SAFETY Act, saying that minors are “too young to make life-altering decisions” without their parents. 

National data show that of trans and nonbinary students say their home is gender-affirming. found that transgender adolescents assigned female at birth were more likely than other teens to report being psychologically traumatized by parents or other adults in the home. 

“There have been kids whose parents have physically abused them and kicked them out of the house when this information is disclosed,” said Amelia Vance, president of the Public Interest Privacy Center and an expert on student privacy. 

Even before California passed the SAFETY Act, the state education agency and the urged schools to get students’ permission before informing parents about changes in their gender identity.  When officials at Hart Unified High School District refused to meet with Lydia, they cited a that protects trans students’ access to programs, sports and facilities that align with their gender identity. 

On the advice of an advocacy group, Lydia initially filed a public records request in search of a “secret social transition” plan she believed Academy of the Canyons maintained. She also asked for communications between her child and teachers using the “non-birth name.”

The district turned her down.

Contacted by ����Ӱ��, Hart Unified spokeswoman Debbie Dunn declined to answer questions about the investigation or Lydia’s experience, but said officials would “continue to follow the laws and procedures applicable to the district.”

In January 2023, Lydia spoke at a school board meeting about being shut out by the district. Her story caught the attention of Board Member Joe Messina, a conservative radio talk show host.

“She came up to the podium one night and she was crying,” he said. “She looked at the superintendent and said, ‘I’ve reached out to you. You’ve not called me back’. She looked to the trustee who handles her area and she said, ‘I’ve left you four messages. You’ve never called me back.’ ”

Messina and Lydia talked after the meeting, and he connected her with the Pacific Justice Institute, a right-leaning law firm.

He noted that the issue transcended their political differences. “Lydia’s a lifelong Democrat, and I’m an outspoken Republican,” Messina said. “For her and I to come together — the rest of the world would say, ‘What’s wrong with you people?’” 

Even with advocates on her side, Lydia continued to face obstacles. For months, the Academy of the Canyons declined to release an autobiographical English essay written by her child under the name Toby.

The district finally turned it over on advice from their lawyers. The essay revealed the child’s trepidation about coming out to Lydia. The piece recounted a moment before the pandemic, when the student, then 11, broached the subject of being queer. Lydia said her child was first exposed to LGBTQ issues while participating in a homeschool theater group. 

“The weather was overcast, and we were driving home from theater rehearsal,” the then-10th grader wrote. “Once again summoning all my courage, I mentioned to her that one of my friends had confided in me about their attraction to girls, and that I too might be queer. Unfortunately, my mom’s immediate response was dismissive and critical.”

As parent-child confrontations often go, Lydia remembers it differently. She said she treated the declaration as a teachable moment.

“We talked about what that word meant,” she said, “and why I felt she had time as she grew up to really know what sexual orientation she would be.”

In a memo, the district’s lawyers also named the elephant in the room — that officials had been withholding the essay out of a desire to shield the child’s shifting gender identity.

“In general, parents have the statutory right to review a student’s classwork/homework,” the memo stated. “This issue becomes clouded … if the classwork could reveal a student’s gender identity/expression.”

Despite refusing to accept that her child was transgender, Lydia said she tried to stay connected. In 2023, they attended over a dozen concerts together, seeing Hozier, Bastille and Penelope Scott — experiences that Lydia called “part of the healing process.” The two went on a long-promised trip to Europe, during which Lydia gave her child an ultimatum: stop identifying as a boy or go back to being homeschooled. That fall, the school agreed to honor Lydia’s wishes to cease social transitioning, but her child still resisted, asking teachers to continue using the name Toby.  

This time, the district let Lydia know. 

Lydia did not make her child available for an interview, saying “she isn’t ready to tell her side of the story.”

Nearly two years later, she says her child, who graduated from high school last week, “wants to put it all behind her.” While the teen identifies as a girl, the changes have been subtle. There are days when she dresses in what her mom called “oversized, ugly boy shirts” and others when she does her makeup and wears more feminine clothes. Recently, she switched back to her birth name on all of her social media accounts.

“I get a little choked up,” Lydia said, “but that’s pretty huge.” 

PROTECT Kids

The story might have ended there, but Lydia’s two-minute plea to the Hart school board, across social media, reached other parent rights advocates just as Trump renewed his campaign for the White House. When the president took office, Hamill, with the California Justice Center, seized the opportunity to file a complaint with an administration guided by , the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the president’s second term.

Requiring schools to notify parents if a student changes their gender identity, which already do, is one of the tenets of the plan. Heritage expert Lindsey Burke, who joined the department Friday, also wants Congress to give FERPA more teeth by allowing parents to sue under the law. Currently, parents can only file a grievance with their state or the Education Department’s privacy office — for years. 

Privacy laws “are a core part of [the administration’s] arguments for how parental rights need to be respected and strengthened,” said Vance, the privacy expert. But the potential for lawsuits under FERPA, she added “would be extremely messy and expensive for schools.” 

In April, the House education committee advanced a bill —  the — that would require elementary and middle schools to secure parental consent before students change their pronouns or preferred names or use different bathrooms or locker rooms. 

The committee debate demonstrated the deep divisions over gender identity and how schools should accommodate LGBTQ students. Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat who is gay, offered a personal story.

“When I came out to my parents, it was at a time, place and manner of my own choosing,” he said. “I would not have wanted anyone else to make that decision for me.”

To Hamill, gender transition is much more than “coming out” because it can lead to physical changes that later regret. Research shows that figure is , a fraction of those who undergo surgery. Even so, she said California’s policies add up to an elaborate “concealment scheme” that pits children against their parents. 

“If you suspect the parents are abusive and they’re going to harm the child, you have to report that to [child protective services],” she said. “But the government cannot by default assume that every parent is harmful and is going to reject and hurt their children.”

Krystal Emerson never imagined her son would spend his days at school being forcibly moved against his will by school staff and shut in an empty room.

But during the 2023-24 school year at Ellsworth Elementary-Middle School, that’s what happened — at least 18 times, according to Emerson and school district incident reports reviewed by the Maine Morning Star. Staff members put the 7-year-old boy in holds, forced him into empty rooms and did not let him out until he calmed down or his parents picked him up.

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“It broke him, and it broke me,” Emerson said.

The trauma became so severe that her son, now a third grader, no longer attends school in person, she said.

What happened to Emerson’s son is not an isolated case. Across Maine, schools use restraint and seclusion on students more than 10,000 times each year, according to Maine Department of Education data — with some districts resorting to the emergency tactics regularly while others have changed policies and taken other steps so that such interventions are only used as a last resort.

​In recent years, Maine as a whole has made an effort to reduce restraint and seclusion in schools, particularly for students with disabilities, with the U.S. Department of Education citing staff and for students as the reasons to curtail their use. The department has also condemned and discouraged these practices for years under multiple presidential administrations. Rare cases have resulted in serious injuries to students and even death.

A 2021 state law limits restraint and seclusion to emergencies. But as Maine educators in the years since pandemic school closures, there have been calls to allow school staff to restrain and seclude children more often. A would broaden the circumstances under which school staff could restrain or seclude students, among educators, parents and lawmakers about how to manage student behavior without inflicting harm.

The Maine Education Association and the Maine School Management Association, representing teachers and administrators statewide, both support the proposal, citing increased reports of disruptive and violent student behavior — something educators nationwide have also reported in recent years.

The Gardiner-area school system, Maine School Administrative District (MSAD) 11, has led the push for that proposal. Victoria Duguay, principal of River View Community School in Gardiner, and MSAD 11 Superintendent Patricia Hopkins shared stories with lawmakers of students who hit and spit at adults, scream in hallways, throw chairs and destroy other students’ schoolwork.

Under the 2021 state law, school staff can only restrain students (immobilize them and move them against their will) or seclude them (isolate them in a room that they can’t leave) if their behavior “poses an imminent danger of serious physical injury” — requiring medical intervention beyond first aid, according to the Maine Department of Education regulations that govern restraint and seclusion.

“Staff are being hit, they’re being bit, but it doesn’t meet the threshold of serious imminent danger, because a 5-year-old isn’t going to [cause] an injury that requires medical care,” Hopkins said during an April 23 public hearing.

This extreme behavior, when it happens in a public place at school, traumatizes other students who witness it, Duguay said. The school sometimes has to close off access to common spaces — the gym or cafeteria — if a student acts out in a hallway through which students would need to pass.

Under the legislation MSAD 11 is supporting, staff would be able to move students against their will to a seclusion room or another quiet space without it counting as a restraint, which districts have to record, document, and report to the state.

But some educators who have pursued alternative training don’t agree that loosening restraint and seclusion requirements is the answer.

“The consequences of passing this bill will only inflict more trauma on students,” said Audrey Bartholomew, associate professor and coordinator of special education programs at the University of New England, who trains special education teachers. “Additionally, the behavior will keep happening, because restraint and seclusion is not an appropriate response to challenging behavior, and it will in no way help students remediate their behavior. These should not be referred to as strategies, treatments or solutions.”

Inside the three-hour restraint and seclusion of a 7-year-old

In October 2023, Emerson’s son started a behavior plan to help with concentration and self-regulation. The plan, which Emerson shared with the Maine Morning Star, highlighted the mother’s concerns about her son’s anger, dysregulation, anxiety and ADHD, and noted Emerson’s finding that occupational therapy had helped her son better regulate.

One week after the plan was put into place, the boy arrived at Ellsworth Elementary-Middle School already agitated, hit another student with a Pete the Cat stuffed animal and tried to leave the classroom, setting off a series of escalating interventions in which staff physically restrained him, relocated him against his will, and ultimately placed him in a small room where he stayed until his father arrived, according to incident reports shared with the Maine Morning Star.

The reports, which staff or administrators are required to write, offer an inside look at the behavior leading up to the restraint, how the situation escalated as staff restrained and secluded the boy, and how it continued for three hours, ending when Seth Emerson picked his son up from a seclusion room.

When the second grader initially tried to leave his classroom, two educators cornered the boy in a hallway nook, according to the report written by the school’s assistant principal. When he tried to push past them, they placed a mat between themselves and the child to block him from hitting them, and initiated the first of several physical holds. Each time he was released, he briefly calmed down but didn’t follow directions to sit still or stay in a designated spot, prompting a cycle: he would attempt to flee, staff would block him, the boy would resist, and staff would restrain him again, the report says.

About an hour in, while hiding in a locker, he asked to go home. A staff member moved him to a classroom, where he hid under a desk, retrieved rocks from his backpack, and threw them at staff, the report said. While the report described the projectiles as rocks, Emerson said her son had pebbles in his backpack.

Two hours in, staff called his parents. Even after he calmed down, they placed him in a seclusion room — referred to as a “quiet room” in the report — where they continued telling him to sit in a specific spot. When his father arrived, the boy walked out on his own, calm and cooperative.

Incidents like that continued for several more months for reasons that Emerson said did not warrant these measures: After he pulled books off shelves, punched a door, or refused to accompany staff to a quiet room, staff would put him in a physical hold or placed him in a room alone, according to a complaint Emerson filed with the district.

“I never condoned any of the behavior, whether he was throwing a book or whether he was yelling or running out of the classroom,” she said. “But he was not getting any education whatsoever last year. He was literally just going to school and being restrained and secluded.”

Frequent seclusions push an educator to quit

It’s not only students and their families who feel the trauma from restraints and seclusion. The educators who are told to put their hands on children feel it, too, several current and former teachers and education technicians told the Maine Morning Star.

Ashley Rose took a job as an ed tech at SeDoMoCha Elementary School in Dover-Foxcroft in August while working toward a degree in special education. But after months of witnessing staff placing students in empty rooms as they screamed and cried to be let out, she changed course.

In March, Rose switched her major, deciding she no longer wanted to become a teacher. On April 28, she resigned, writing to Superintendent Stacy Shorey that she had repeatedly raised concerns with supervisors about the school’s frequent use of seclusion, the lack of staff training on student behavior, and the absence of alternatives — without seeing meaningful change.

SeDoMoCha Elementary School has “quiet rooms” located within special education classrooms — which Rose described as 10-by-6-foot rooms with no windows. Some have benches and one light, while others are entirely empty, she said. All the doors have windows in them so staff can monitor students.

In her 10 years of working in special education, she has never seen such frequent use of quiet rooms, Rose said.

In December, Rose found herself participating in her first seclusion. The student she was working with wasn’t physically aggressive, just loud, and Rose’s plan had been to escort her into the special education classroom — not the quiet room — to help her calm down.

The student went with her voluntarily but was crying, she said. When they got to the classroom, another staff member who had worked at the school longer said it was part of that student’s behavior plan to go to the quiet room.

“That wasn’t my plan,” Rose said. “That room scares me just looking at it as an adult.”

As the student became more agitated, Rose said her own anxiety rose. If the student didn’t calm down, the other employee told Rose she had to shut the door. Rose complied, and then her colleague told her to hold the door shut with her foot to keep the student inside, she said.

Inside the room, the student began having what appeared to be an anxiety attack and threatened to break the window. She calmed down after about 20 minutes, and Rose let her out. Rose said she was not directed to file an incident report, nor was she told if someone else in the district did, despite the requirement in state law that districts document every seclusion.

Over the holiday break that followed, Rose said she had trouble sleeping. “All I can think about is the student I put in that room,” she said. “School should be their safe place, and these students were not feeling safe.”

Shorey, the superintendent, said staff members are required to report every incident, but she did not know about the particular incident Rose described. Special Education Director Sue Terrill said it’s possible that a staff member other than Rose wrote a report, but the district was unable to locate any documentation of that event.

The district trains employees in safety care — crisis management and prevention practices — Terrill said. It is open to other trainings, too, she said, including one that Rose brought to Terrill’s attention in February offered by the Maine nonprofit Lives in the Balance, which other districts have used to dramatically reduce their reliance on restraint and seclusion.

Quiet rooms present a gray area

Rose said she saw staff members keep students in seclusion rooms even when they were calm, using those same rooms for a variety of reasons beyond seclusion, which is banned or strictly regulated in at least seven states, according to the MOST Policy Initiative, a Missouri nonprofit. Maine came close to banning the rooms in 2021, but the final version of the law was amended to allow their use in emergencies.

Rose said she saw staff place students in quiet rooms to calm down after acting out, and then not allow them to exit for 20 minutes after they calmed down. If the seclusion happened at the end of the school day, sometimes the student would be expected to return to the quiet room the next day, she said.

Terrill recalled Rose raising this as an issue but denied keeping students in the rooms after they calmed down and no longer met the legal threshold for confinement.

But the district does use these rooms as timeout spaces, either by student choice or by staff direction, Terrill confirmed. Often, Terrill said, staff members are positioned outside the rooms, as they would be in a seclusion incident, but the student is typically free to leave the room, which is not the case in a seclusion.

Sometimes, the door is open, or a student can choose to shut the door with a staff member standing outside, she said.

“It can be the same room used if the student was in seclusion,” she said. “But if they’re taking a break because of something that happened, and that’s being used as a break space, the student might continue to work in there until they’re ready to go back to the classroom.”

Like RSU 68 in Dover-Foxcroft, districts across Maine also use seclusion rooms as quiet spaces, according to Ben Jones, a former Disability Rights Maine attorney who now works for Lives in the Balance.

“I think it’s actually more the rare case that the school is like, ‘We’re going to build this room and we’re going to call it the seclusion room, and it’s going to be used just for seclusion,’” he said.

If a student has voluntarily shut themselves in the seclusion room with a staff member outside and is free to go at any time, it would not count as seclusion under Maine law, he said. But if staff members ask students to stay in there to complete their work, as Rose described, whether it would count as a seclusion that districts are required to report to the state is “open to interpretation,” Jones said.

“The overall thing is, the kid is not learning, not in the classroom, in something that could easily turn into seclusion,” he said. “It’s inappropriate at best and potentially illegal if it’s an unrecorded seclusion.”

When are students and staff in “imminent danger”?

Education technicians like Rose — aides who often work with students one-on-one or in small groups — are often the ones handling student outbursts or potential violence, said Greg Kavanaugh, who spent 13 years working as an ed tech and special education teacher in Biddeford, Portland, and Yarmouth.

Ed techs are among the lowest-paid professionals in education, and — including on behavior management techniques.

“They’re having to make good decisions about when to restrain, when to seclude, and their judgment is going to be really hard because they’re so stressed, overwhelmed, underpaid,” Kavanaugh said. “That just leads to more mistakes, more lapses in judgment.”

In his experience, Kavanaugh said, restraint and seclusion were consistently treated as last-resort measures — used only in extreme situations.

Staff received training on managing student behavior, they debriefed after restraints and seclusions, and they held regular conversations with parents, he said, which disability rights advocates recommend as best practices.

But working in a functional life skills program with students with moderate to severe disabilities, Kavanaugh said, deciding whether to restrain or seclude a child was never easy despite clear protocols in place. Even when a student threw a laptop across the room or hit him, he had to determine whether the behavior posed an imminent danger of serious injury that would require medical intervention beyond first aid — the standard in Maine law — and only intervene physically if it did. He also had to keep calm if students hit him, he said, because that still did not meet the legal standard.

Every time he did restrain or seclude a child, it stayed with him long after. He said he often questioned whether it had been the right call, thought about how families would respond, and considered the lasting effects the practice might have on the student — and on himself.

“Anytime there was a hold, a restraint or a seclusion, you’re taking that home, and you’re thinking about that kid when you’re at home, trying to move on with your day,” he said. “I’m a pretty strong-willed person, but there are plenty of times I would quietly be in tears, or going home and having an extra glass of wine, because I’m just not processing it well in the aftermath.”

Other students in the classroom witnessing these incidents are also traumatized, Kavanaugh said.

“You see the terror on their classmates’ faces, and you feel bad for the kid in a certain way because this is going to hurt their relationships,” he said.

But talking to parents afterward would always make him feel better, Kavanaugh said, because parents of students with disabilities are often dealing with similar behavior challenges at home.

District response to a parental complaint

Emerson, the parent in Ellsworth, complained to the school board, Superintendent Amy Boles, and the Maine Department of Education in August 2024, alleging that staff members had not met the legal threshold for using restraint and seclusion so often on her son.

Boles wrote back in October, saying in cases where Emerson’s son was hitting, scratching, and kicking staff, “it is my conclusion that active behavior like this toward another person does create an ‘imminent danger’ that the other person could be sufficiently injured that he or she may need more than ‘routine first aid.’”

“The incident may not in fact have caused an injury requiring that level of care, but a reasonable and prudent person could reasonably conclude that this could occur,” Boles wrote in her letter, reviewed by Maine Morning Star.

But the investigation the district launched in response to Emerson’s complaint found that staff had improperly restrained and secluded her son in at least five of the 18 incidents to which his mother objected. Some incident reports were also vaguely written, Boles wrote, which was the case for the three-hour incident in October 2023 — making it difficult to determine whether restraints and seclusion were warranted.

Nonetheless, Boles concluded in her letter to Emerson that all staff need training on the proper use of restraint and seclusion, and she agreed the district should rely on the practice less often.

Boles declined to comment on the investigation or specific incidents, but said district staff have undergone an initial training with Lives in the Balance, and followup trainings are planned.

“Behavior is an issue across the board. I mean, it’s skyrocketing everywhere. It’s not just Ellsworth,” she said. “But we’re working really hard to try to be preventative before it gets to that extreme state, trying to teach staff day-to-day strategies to prevent the behavior before it escalates.”

Emerson said her son is still visibly shaken every time he passes by the school, or even when someone mentions the word “school” around him.

On April 23, she restraint and seclusion in public schools must stop. The day before, her son had said he was still afraid to go to school in person.

“His world has become so small since these events, he rarely leaves our home,” she said. “Everyone continues about their day, and yet I’m left to pick up the pieces.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

A federal court has ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to restore funding to Maine, granting the state’s request for a temporary restraining order.

The ruling marks Maine’s first legal victory against federal sanctions imposed over its policies on transgender athletes — policies the Trump administration argues violate Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education. At issue is Maine’s decision to allow transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports, which the federal government claims is unlawful under its interpretation of Title IX.

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After the USDA earlier this month, Attorney General Aaron Frey on Monday filed a complaint in U.S. District Court seeking to reinstate access to the money this Monday. Four days later, Judge John Woodcock Jr.  granted the emergency request, finding that Maine had shown it would suffer “irreparable harm” and that the USDA had failed to follow legally required procedures before halting the funding.

In a statement after the ruling, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said the order “confirms the Trump Administration did not follow the rule of law when it cut program funds that go to feed school children and vulnerable adults.”

“No one in our constitutional republic is above the law and we will continue to fight to hold this administration to account,” Frey said.

Unlike other federal agencies that opened civil rights investigations into Maine’s policies, the USDA acted without launching a formal probe. On April 2, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins that the department was freezing certain federal funds used for school administrative and technological functions. The move was based solely on the department’s view that Maine was out of compliance with Title IX, according to Rollins’ letter.

The U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services had separately found Maine in violation of federal law after short investigations. But the state has pushed back, insisting that its trans-inclusive policies are consistent with both Title IX and legal precedent.

In a to Bradley Burke, regional director of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, Assistant Attorney General Sarah Forster cited court rulings affirming the rights of transgender athletes.

“Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams,” she wrote. “Your letters to date do not cite a single case that so holds.”

Judge Woodcock’s ruling does not address the substance of the transgender athlete policy. Instead, it focuses solely on the federal government’s failure to follow due process.

“In ruling on the State’s request, the Court is not weighing in on the merits of the controversy about transgender athletes that forms the backdrop of the impasse between the State and the Federal Defendants,” Woodcock wrote. “The Federal Defendants froze the appropriated funds without observance of procedure required by law.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

The U.S. Department of Education said it is moving to strip federal K-12 education funding from Maine due to what it called the state’s refusal to comply with Title IX, the law that bans sex discrimination in education.

The Friday announcement followed a department investigation into the state’s policies governing transgender athletes. Those investigations determined that the state was in violation of Title IX, which the state has denied.

“The Department has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state’s leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students’ safety, privacy, and dignity,” .

The move represents an unprecedented attempt by the federal government to speedily take away K-12 funding that has been appropriated by Congress and is firmly grounded in federal law. President Donald Trump has made trans athletes a major political issue and has used the federal government to root out gender-affirming policies in the early days of his second term.

The federal Education Department said it is starting an administrative proceeding to take away Maine’s K-12 funding, including formula grants — which include funding streams like Title I for high-poverty schools and IDEA grants for students with disabilities — as well as discretionary grants. on elementary and secondary education in recent years, the Maine Monitor reported. In addition, the federal department said it has referred the results of its Title IX investigation to the U.S. Department of Justice for “further enforcement action.”

The Department of Health and Human Services had already referred its investigation that found Maine in violation of Title IX to the Justice Department.

Earlier on Friday, the Maine state attorney general’s office drafted by the Trump administration in the wake of the investigation. That proposed agreement , including that Maine must strip any trans girl who’s ever placed in a Maine girls sports competition of her title and give it to the athlete behind her, along with an apology letter.

The federal Education Department did not immediately respond to several questions from Chalkbeat.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

The conflict between the state of Maine and the Trump administration over transgender student athletes reached a new pivot point on Monday. As the first of several deadlines set by the federal government has now expired, whether Maine can continue to allow trans athletes to participate in school sports appears likely to be decided by the courts.

Two separate federal agencies determined that Maine is in violation of Title IX based on the Trump administration’s interpretation of the anti-sex discrimination protection.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a final warning Monday to the Maine Department of Education regarding its directive for allowing trans girls to participate in girls’ sports.

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If the state does not propose an agreement that’s acceptable to the office by April 11, the case will be referred to the Department of Justice, the letter said.

Meanwhile, a by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ civil rights office that found Maine in violation of Title IX for “continuing to unlawfully allow” trans girls to compete in girl’s sports has been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a Monday from the agency.

In a letter dated March 17, HHS had given Maine a deadline of 10 days to comply with federal guidance. Monday marked ten business days from that warning.

Both agencies determined that Maine had violated federal law after dayslong investigations that included no interviews, while typical investigations take months and are eventually settled with resolution agreements. The probes were launched after Gov. Janet Mills and President Donald Trump had a over the state’s trans athlete policy. Millions of dollars in federal funding might be at risk, depending on how the cases proceed.

“We just need an answer at this point as to, ‘Does the Trump administration have the authority to do what it’s doing when it comes to fast tracking the removal of federal funds?’” said Jackie Wernz, a former OCR lawyer for the Education Department who now represents school districts nationwide in these types of cases.

“This is just unprecedented, and we’re not following the process that we’re used to. So I think it’s going to be really helpful for courts to start weighing in on whether or not they have the authority to do this.”

Meanwhile, Republican state lawmakers said in a news conference on Tuesday that they want the state to repeal trans students’ rights to athletics, locker rooms and bathrooms, and to roll back inclusion of gender as a protected class in the Maine Human Rights Act.

“The problem is that the term gender identity and the Human Rights Act is being interpreted way too broadly by the left,” said Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook). “And what it’s saying is there’s no boundary between men’s and women’s spaces.”

Rep. Michael Soboleski (R- Phillips) said he is introducing a bill to remove consideration of gender identity from the act, and asked Democrats and Mills to support the legislation in order to avoid the risk of losing federal funding.

Earlier this year, Iowa became the first state in the nation to remove civil rights from a state law when its Legislature from its civil rights act.

“This is not sustainable,” Stewart said. “We’re a poor state. We are heavily reliant on federal money. The governor needs to move on this.”

On March 19, the Department of Education’s civil rights office Maine of its noncompliance and proposed a resolution agreement that would require the state to rescind its support of trans athletes, which is currently required by the Maine Human Rights Act. A Cumberland-area school district and the Maine Principals Association, which runs student athletics, that were have already refused to sign the agreement.

This development is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to enforce Title IX provisions concerning gender and athletics. Earlier this year, the administration launched investigations in several other states for similar policies allowing trans athletes to compete in alignment with their gender identity.

Title IX, the federal law banning sex-based discrimination, does not reference trans people directly, but the Trump administration has interpreted Maine’s policy as discrimination against cisgender girls.

Rachel Perera, a fellow in the governance studies program for the Brown Center on Education Policy at national think tank The Brookings Institution, said the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX leaves room for questioning. If the policy goes to trial, she said federal courts may come up with a clearer interpretation.

“It’s going to be really important to see how Maine proceeds, because they’re sort of setting the tone in terms of these other states and other localities who are going to be trying to navigate these very same dynamics,” she said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

At the same time, schools are struggling to bring down high absenteeism rates that undermine academic achievement and school climate. While there’s been some progress since the pandemic, far more students are missing a month or more of school than in 2019. The rates are particularly high among homeless students: of them were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year, compared with about 28% of all students and 36% of those who are economically disadvantaged.

These results are hardly surprising: The constant moves that come with homelessness often leave children far from their schools and without an easy way to get there. Hunger, lack of clean clothes and mental or physical illnesses complicate the picture. 

Our organizations, SchoolHouse Connection and Attendance Works, spent the past six months interviewing school leaders across the country to learn how districts are bringing students without stable housing back to school. reflect common-sense approaches driven by data and cloaked in compassion.

The first step is to identify the students who need help. The federal provides school districts with money for transportation, staffing and other assistance to students residing in shelters, cars and motels, as well as those staying temporarily with other people. But many families and youth don’t realize they qualify for extra help from the school district, and others are afraid or embarrassed to say they are homeless.

School districts are adjusting their to reflect different sorts of temporary living arrangements. And they’re training all school staff, from attendance clerks to counselors to administrators, to recognize the signs of homelessness. Even tardiness or poor attendance can be a tipoff that families have lost their homes.

Some districts are going further. In Henrico County, Virginia, the McKinney-Vento team hosts summer events at Richmond-area motels where homeless families live and signs students up for services. In Albuquerque, team members visit homeless shelters and RV parks.

Once students are identified, districts need to track what’s happening with their attendance and update the data regularly. Many districts are using that focus on addressing the factors that keep students from showing up, such as transportation, hunger and depression. 

In California’s Coalinga-Huron Unified School District, for instance, officials at each school once a week with a list of homeless students and review academics, attendance and other indicators. They emerge with action items for helping students, whether it’s rearranging a school bus route, bringing in a counselor or connecting the family to food and other services. Coalinga-Huron’s efforts are supported by real-time data analysis from the Fresno County Office of Education. 

In the small rural district and elsewhere, transportation remains one of the biggest barriers to school attendance for homeless students. Recognizing this, the McKinney-Vento Act requires districts to provide eligible students with a way to get to their “school of origin” if it is in their best interest. This often creates logistical challenges. 

For students living beyond school bus lines, some districts use vans or car services with drivers vetted for safety. But the costs can be high, and drivers are sometimes in short supply. Others offer gas cards to parents or student drivers. The Oxford Hills School District in Maine paid for one student’s driver’s education course.

The challenges go beyond expenses. Henrico County created school bus stops for homeless children living at motels but found the kids were embarrassed for their classmates to see where they lived. The district then changed the routes so the motels were the first stop of the day and the final stop in the afternoon. 

Depression and anxiety can also contribute to absenteeism. Near Denver, Adams 12 Five Star School District matches youth experiencing homelessness with mentors for a 15-hour independent study focused on academic goals, social-emotional development and postsecondary options. Kansas City, Kansas, uses a “2 x 10” approach, with a staff member spending two minutes talking to each at-risk student for 10 consecutive days.

It’s also key to reach families, many of whom report feeling unwelcome at school or embarrassed by their living situations. Fresno Unified School District in California hosts parent advisories to discuss challenges that are keeping homeless students from attending school. Adams 12 hired a diverse team of specialists whose backgrounds include some of the experiences that their students are living through, including poverty, immigration and homelessness. Henrico County spent some of its federal COVID relief funding for two years of Spanish lessons that help the McKinney-Vento team members communicate with families more easily.

This work takes coordination across departments, so that district staffers who concentrate on homeless students work closely with those monitoring school attendance. It also requires strong relationships with community-based organizations.

Several districts use a approach that coordinates nonprofits and government agencies in supporting students and families. In Coalinga-Huron, where families often have trouble accessing social services located more than an hour away in the county seat of Fresno, the district offers nonprofit organizations space to provide immigration services and language instruction, as well as a food pantry, clothing closet and health clinic.

Several states have also launched grant programs or provide funding specifically for students experiencing homelessness. In Washington state, a funds North Thurston Public School’s student navigator program that connects each homeless student with a staff member. Adams 12 relies in part on Colorado’s to pay the salaries for some of the specialists on its team. 

These districts are using data-driven approaches to improve attendance for homeless students. And they’re doing it with compassion and heart. They recognize that these absences mean weaker academic performance and higher dropout rates. In some places, the absences affect school funding, leaving less money available.

As the homelessness rate continues to rise, districts should adopt these common-sense approaches to identifying students, tracking data and addressing barriers with community, state and federal support.

SchoolHouse Connection and Attendance Works are hosting to explore the findings at 1 p.m. Eastern March 13 and 18. A SchoolHouse Connection-University of Michigan database provides for homeless students at the district, county and state levels.

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation and Overdeck Family Foundation provide financial support to Attendance Works and ����Ӱ��.

There were two crates waiting for Valerie Smith, an elementary school librarian, when she arrived at the Sanford School Department’s central office on Monday. In one was a collection of 30 picture books featuring experiences of modern-day immigrants and their families, along with discussion prompts. In the other, a custom display built by Maine businesses to highlight the books.

For the district that has recently seen an influx of immigrants from Central Africa, Smith said it was the perfect fit. With tightening school budgets, the new Maine Department of Education initiative to send the diverse and inclusive collection to every district in the state will benefit all students, she said.

The Portland-based nonprofit, I’m Your Neighbor Books, that developed and distributed the collection nationwide said after almost three years of widespread bans targeting books on similar topics, this project strengthens Maine’s commitment to inclusive, diverse education. Smith, who hasn’t personally been targeted by the attacks on librarians through the book banning movement but has been wary of them, echoed the importance of the positive educational opportunities the collection will bring to her district.

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“That’s what we do in libraries. We want kids to see themselves in our books,” she said.

“Being able to enhance our collection, or widen it, with these books is going to be super — not only for those new Mainers or kiddos from different cultures coming to our schools, but are also great for our kiddos, who have been here all their life, because they can learn about some of those experiences by reading those books.”

The collection features books highlighting representation, inclusion and belonging of immigrants and first-through-third generation families that I’m Your Neighbor books has distributed to schools across the country. They include titles written by and about immigrants from different parts of the world, such as Abuelita and Me by Leonarda Carranza, about a girl and her grandmother experiencing racism, In My Mosque by M.O. Yuksel, a book highlighting mosques as gathering places, and Priya Dreams of Marigold & Masala by Meenal Patel, a book containing colorful descriptions of India.

Peaks Island author Anne Sibley O’Brien’s book, I’m New Here, about three immigrant children’s experiences in an English-speaking elementary school, is also featured in the collection.

However, the partnership with the Maine DOE, dubbed The Pine Project, is the first of its kind, distributing the organization’s Welcoming Library collection to every public school district with almost $650,000 in federal pandemic relief funds, according to Kendra Carter, an education marketing coordinator for the DOE.

The initiative will put almost 6,200 total books in circulation across the state, to be used as districts see fit, said Kirsten Cappy, executive director of I’m Your Neighbor Books.

“If we do not add in a collection of books about modern migrants and new generation communities, we’re leaving out what our classrooms and communities actually look like,” Cappy said about the importance of the collection, which she thinks will significantly diversify the titles available to Maine teachers.

“The presence of these books changes teaching, and it changes minds.”

The goal of the project, according to the Maine DOE, is to “enhance students’ understanding of diverse experiences and foster inclusive school environments,” Carter said in an email. The department will also offer an online training on September 30 to help educators teach the topics the books cover, which includes social emotional learning.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com. Follow Maine Morning Star on and .

Whether Maine students have recovered from pandemic-era learning disruptions is unclear due to the state’s choice to not make most data before 2020 publicly available.

That’s according to a new national report by the Center for Reinventing Public Education, that developed a “report card” to gauge how easily accessible every state made data on student achievement, chronic absenteeism and high school graduation.

Maine was one of only three states across the country — the other two are New Mexico and North Dakota — that earned zero points out of the 21 possible. That means Maine had no data before 2020 available on any of the seven metrics mentioned in the report, including achievement levels, growth and proficiencies in English Language Arts, mathematics, science and social studies, chronic absenteeism or other attendance indicators, high school graduation rates, and English language learner proficiency, according to the CRPE report.

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The lack of this data conceals crucial information from parents and other stakeholders on how well their school district is doing on key performance indicators, according to Morgan Polikoff, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education and an author of the report. While making long-term data available is only one of the numerous ways of measuring transparency in public education, it is an important metric, according to the report and Polikoff.

“Parents … and other stakeholders may not be aware of the magnitude of this issue when states don’t make this data available for comparison, given how important covid was in disrupting education,” he said.

COVID-19 had enormous impacts on American education. Nationwide, public school students have not recovered from pandemic-era learning loss, chronic absenteeism continues to be an issue, and the pandemic disrupted high school graduation rates, which .

“But those facts are only visible if the data are available,” Polikoff said.

The Maine Department of Education did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Changing state assessments may be part of the problem

The issue of limited data availability is compounded by changing state-level assessments in Maine. The state has changed how it evaluates student performance at least five times in the last 15 years or so.

These testing discrepancies have continued post-pandemic. Testing paused for the 2019-20 school year, and the way Maine students are evaluated has not remained consistent since. The DOE announced a new mechanism in 2021, which was used for two years. The way students are evaluated changed again for spring 2023 testing, according to a note on the DOE website.

That means even with three years of publicly available data, test scores from the spring of 2021 and 2022 can’t be compared with 2023 to gain a comprehensive understanding of how students are performing.

Other states also have dealt with changing state-level assessments, Polikoff said, but still made data available while presenting the caveat of changing testing models, which Maine could have done for previous years.

“Maine has clearly made the choice to not present any information from pre-2020 and that might be … because they change their tests and so they don’t really feel it’s appropriate,” Polikoff said.

“But I would argue that that might be true of the standardized test data, but it’s definitely not true of some of the other indicators,” he added, pointing to high school graduation rates and chronic absenteeism data.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com. Follow Maine Morning Star on and .

“I thought I would be out of my element,” Moore told me when I met him earlier this month at the school, where he has worked since last fall. “I quickly became a convert. This fits what kids need. Parents are making this choice to meet the needs of their kids because public schools can’t do it anymore. I’m absolutely sold on what happens here,” he added.

What happens is deep, joyful learning tied to student interests that blends academic and social-emotional skills in a relaxed, nature-based setting. 

Founded in 1970 by a group of parents looking for a more holistic educational approach for their children, School Around Us operated as a state-recognized K-8 private school until 2020 when the school leaders decided to shift away from a traditional schooling model to a learning community serving homeschoolers. 

It’s part of a growing trend, both in Maine and nationally, of new schools and spaces offering smaller, more individualized, more flexible learning options that parents and teachers desire. Many of these programs, including School Around Us, are part of the that supports alternative education environments across the U.S. with grants and entrepreneurial resources.

Converting to a homeschooling community has enabled School Around Us to serve the rapidly growing population of homeschoolers in their area. According to the new Johns Hopkins University , homeschooling numbers now hover around six percent of the total K-12 school-age population, a dramatic increase from pre-pandemic estimates. Maine has seen its homeschooling numbers high since 2020. 

“We have doubled in size since before the pandemic and our numbers keep climbing,” said Amy Wentworth, a Maine certified teacher who attended School Around Us as a child and has taught there for over 20 years. School Around Us now serves 43 students with both full-time and part-time enrollment options. Wentworth says that since 2020, parents are looking to be more involved with their children’s education and appreciate more personalized learning options — especially immersive ones like School Around Us that embrace Maine’s natural beauty and abundant community resources. 

“It’s reinvigorated me in my teaching,” said Wentworth about her program’s shift from operating as a private school to a homeschooling co-learning community. “I feel rejuvenated with excitement and huge possibilities for the future.”

Ning Sawangjaeng feels similarly rejuvenated. A longtime teacher at an established Montessori school in Maine, Sawangjaeng was eager for a new opportunity. She joined the in Camden as its founding Lead Guide when the program launched in September 2023. “The core of Giving Tree is that kids can be happy and be themselves,” Sawangjaeng told me during my visit, adding that the hours the children spend each day outside and in the forest trails surrounding the center are crucial to their overall learning and growth.

Jessica Mazur, along with Isabella Wincklhofer, cofounded Giving Tree to meet the needs of their children and others in their community. 

A former operations leader at Apple who now runs her own small consulting business, Mazur explained how the pandemic shifted her views on education. Her oldest child had attended local public schools, but during school closures and the ongoing education disruption of 2020 and beyond, Mazur began to consider alternatives to conventional schooling. As schooling returned to normal, she and several other parents in her community were already hooked on a different vision for education. “Once we saw what education could be, we couldn’t unsee it,” said Mazur.

Like so many entrepreneurial parents, Mazur decided to build what she couldn’t find: a personalized, Montessori-inspired, nature-based learning space for a mixed-age group of homeschoolers ages five and up. Giving Tree now serves 20 learners ages five to 12 with most choosing to attend the center four days a week. Part-time enrollment options are also available, and interest in the program continues to spread through parent word of mouth.

That’s also how in Cape Elizabeth has grown from six kids in the fall of 2020 to 36 K-5 students for the upcoming school year. 

Like Mazur, Roots’s founder, Jaclyn Gallo, realized during the pandemic that she needed to take charge of her children’s education. She opened her state-recognized private school in a yoga studio during its first year, but demand kept growing for her personalized, place-based educational mode where all children are taught by certified teachers. Last fall, Gallo expanded to a new, large building with abundant outdoor space and wooded trails to accommodate continued growth. 

For all 12 of next year’s kindergarteners, Roots will be their first schooling experience. Unlike many of the students in the older grades — including Gallo’s daughter — who left a traditional public school for Roots, the parents of her kindergarteners knew early on that they wanted an alternative to conventional schooling for their children.

“There is a growing awareness by parents that, especially in the early grades, what is being asked of children is not developmentally appropriate,” said Gallo, explaining that the rigidity and standardization of traditional schooling prevents a more individualized, play-filled, organic approach to learning and child development. “It’s the system not the kids,” said Gallo, adding that many parents — including her and her husband — moved to this town specifically for the 

public schools. “Many of us want to believe in the public schools ideologically, but it’s just not working for some kids.” Still, Gallo is committed to forging relationships with the local public elementary school and finding ways to collaborate.

Gallo expects to grow her school to a maximum of about 60 or 70 kids over the coming years, retaining the microschool model that she thinks is so crucial to learning. She hopes to help other entrepreneurial parents and teachers open microschools similar to Roots in their own neighborhoods. “Being super big defeats the purpose of what we’re doing. I like knowing each kid and their families. The family relationships are so important,” she said.

About 100 miles north, in rural Appleton, Adrienne Hofmann is also focused on creating an intentionally small, relationship-based, outdoor-focused learning community. 

A former public school teacher in Texas who is also a certified teacher in the state of Maine, Hofmann became more familiar with homeschooling and alternative education during the pandemic. She began formulating her vision for , a newly-licensed, forest-filled early childhood program. “Before this venture, nearly every program I worked for didn’t feel quite right, leaving me yearning for something more fulfilling,” Hofmann told me when I visited her program’s lovely yurt site. “This journey inspired me to create a supportive and nurturing environment initially designed for homeschooling families and now geared toward those seeking a nature and play-based experience, reminiscent of our own childhoods.” 

Located on an off-the-grid, 18-acre parcel, Nature Play All Day will open this fall, enabling children from ages two to six to spend all day outside, playing freely, with no top-down impositions on their learning. Access is crucial for Hofmann, and Maine’s child care subsidies will enable more families to choose her program.

Like all of the founders and educators I met during my Maine visit, Hofmann believes that we are only at the beginning of a growing movement toward smaller, simpler, more holistic educational models. Prompted by the pandemic, more parents and teachers are now seeking and building homespun alternatives to conventional schooling. 

“I like to think that one of the best things to come out of COVID is just how simple things can be,” said Hofmann. 

Six Maine schools are receiving a combined total of nearly $1 million in state grants for educator apprenticeship programs.

The funding comes from the Maine Jobs and Recovery plan and overall efforts from the Gov. Janet Mills administration to connect employers with a skilled workforce, according to a news release from the Maine Department of Labor. , but this new grant plans to expand that by preparing 200 new and existing teachers.

The programs also hope to build pathways for historically underrepresented populations in Maine’s teaching workforce such as people of color, those with disabilities and multilingual educators.

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At a virtual press conference Monday afternoon, Samantha Dina, director of special projects for DOL, announced the six schools who will receive the money to implement apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs. They are:

Brunswick School Department – $105,000MSAD 1 / RSU #79 – $75,000RSU #34 – $249,000Portland Public Schools – $250,000University of Maine Farmington – $144,000University of Southern Maine – $162,000

This builds on the in 2022 to more than double .

The Maine Department of Education also launched . That campaign is being funded by federal emergency relief dollars.

The campaign website links to across the state ranging from early childhood to postsecondary education.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com. Follow Maine Morning Star on and .

It’s been almost a year since Megan Weber’s son received the special education support he needs. For a 3-year-old, that’s a significant chunk of development time.

Weber’s son was diagnosed with autism just before his 3rd birthday. He is required by law to receive roughly four hours of support per week from a special education teacher, plus periodic support from a speech pathologist.

“He has to make a connection (with someone), and he has difficulty regulating his emotions,” Weber told the Maine Morning Star. “If he’s not connected to the person who’s coming in to see him once or twice a week, it’s harder for them to steer him if he’s having a breakdown.”

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Weber, a supply chain manager who lives in North Waterboro, has been “back and forth for a little less than a year” with the state, but has largely come up empty in efforts to find service providers who can help her son.

‘And then…nothing happened’

Students in public school programs who require special education services are legally required to receive them under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law. To receive that assistance, those children’s families work with a child psychologist to draft an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, a formal document managed by the state’s Department of Education.

It’s up to Child Development Services (CDS), a branch of the state Department of Education, to find service providers who can meet the needs of the IEP, which can span special education, occupational therapy, speech therapy and other needs.

But since the pandemic, children have not been getting the developmental educational services that they are required to be given by the state of Maine, according to Beth Gachowski.

Gachowski owns and operates Arundel Children’s Garden, an early childhood program in Kennebunkport that has capacity for 24 kids—including Weber’s son.

Weber’s son and another 3-year-old child have been in her program since they were babies. As they developed, Gachowski and the children’s parents noticed that there were developmental differences, which turned out to be autism. She directed the families to Child Development Services to hash out the details of the IEP.

“And then…nothing happened,” Gachowski said.

Gachowski has a masters in Early Childhood Education, and has worked as an educator or daycare provider for 30 years. She moved to Maine in 2001, and opened Arundel Children’s Garden in 2019. She knows the drill—helping families out with their IEPs is part of the process, and there’s always some lag time with receiving services because of the process and paperwork involved. But since the pandemic, that process can now take years.

“A year in the life of a 3-year-old is a lot of developmental time,” Gachowski said. “It has a huge impact on these children and their ability.”

A staffer from the regional Child Development Services office in Arundel said they were not authorized to comment. The state director did not return an email or phone call Monday.

Gachowski doesn’t want to disparage Child Development Services. She believes they genuinely can’t find people to do the work. Gachowski spoke with her local legislator about the issue, but they did not respond by publication.

“I’m just trying to highlight that this is a very serious problem,” she said. “They say they don’t have providers, they don’t have speech pathologists, they don’t have occupational therapists—I’m sure that’s true. And I don’t really have the answers.”

But Gachowski is positioned to witness the strain the issue puts on families with children with special education needs. In Weber’s son’s case, the special education teacher that was assigned to him by CDS was unavailable to go see him.

“He was barely getting maybe a half hour a week,” Weber said. The speech pathologist they’d hired went on maternity leave, and then support providers went on break during the summer. For Weber, it was maddening to watch her kid not get the services he needed.

“He’s at that early intervention stage,” she said. With the right support, “he can thrive.”

After months of waiting, Weber decided “enough was enough.” She pestered Child Development Services, sending a “stern email” demanding they revisit the case. With the agency’s help, they arranged a program to repurpose a teacher from Gachowski’s daycare as an education tech, paying them as a special education teacher.

It was a useful fix, but not a sustainable one.

“We burnt out a teacher, and it’s already very hard to find early education teachers,” Gachowski said.

According to Weber, Child Development Services was very apologetic and sympathetic to her cause. While the situation is an urgent one for her and her family, she recognizes that the problem is bigger.

The process of diagnosing and getting Weber’s son his IEP was “smooth,” she said. The family worked with CDS and a child psychologist to craft the plan, and found the process to be exactly what he needed.

“If they’d actually had the resources to implement that plan, that would have been great,” Weber said.

It was after his IEP was fully written that they saw a struggle with resources.

“The resources weren’t lacking in regards to getting the diagnosis or writing the IEP itself, but the actual people that were implementing the services,” Weber said.

Circumventing the wait list

Better times are ahead for Weber’s son. He was just placed in a special education focused preschool this month. Though getting him there will require Weber and her husband, a welder, to rearrange their work schedules, she feels a lot better.

“It took a long time,” she said. “It was so hard to get into this special education preschool because of the waiting list.”

While many industries have faced staffing issues, Gachowski believes that the issue has been exacerbated by families who circumvent the state program, paying privately for service providers, making it harder for Child Development Services to find personnel.

“We are in Kennebunkport,” Gachowski says of the wealthy coastal Maine town. “Some of the kids who have gotten services have gotten them because the parents went out and found them and paid for them independently, which is not supposed to be what happens. People aren’t choosing to have a contract with Child Development Services in a way that providers used to.”

Working with Weber to try to find support for her son makes Gachowski wonder what other parents might be struggling with the same issue, in less resourced parts of the state.

“Those two moms are working moms who have spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to get their kids what they need,” Gachowski said. “Not every kid has that mom. What’s happening to those kids who don’t have that mom?”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com. Follow Maine Morning Star on and .

With that jaunty jingle sung by a chorus of children’s voices, Assistant Cook Jasmine Bumps kicks off her hands-on video cooking lessons for families and children. Today’s episode of “Edu-Cooking” costars two preschool chefs in colorful aprons and matching toques who dutifully plop fruit into frozen yogurt batter and taste fresh-from-the-microwave applesauce they’ve just helped Bumps make.

“Honey is from bees!” exclaims one of the little chefs, who then proceeds to tell Bumps everything he knows about bees as she tries good-naturedly to stir in the honey and keep the show rolling with the recipe.

The preschooler’s oversharing of bee knowledge is both adorable and is the point of the “Edu-Cooking” videos and the various programs of the Educare Learning Network — which includes the Central Maine school — that raise children and families’ awareness of nutrition.

“One of the architectural features of all our schools is that they have kitchens — and many of them have cooks on site,” says Cynthia Jackson, the Educare Learning Network’s executive director and senior vice president at national nonprofit Start Early. “Some of the schools have meals prepared offsite but having an industrial-sized kitchen in each of our Educare schools allows staff to cook some meals and offer cooking classes for the kids and their parents.

“We start with good food—healthy meals and snacks,” Jackson says, “but we also want to build an understanding of nutritious food — where it comes from, how to grow it, and how to prepare it.” Jackson cites a new study from that found when schools fully align their school meal nutrition standards with the , they see improvement in students’ health, well-being and overall academic performance.

The national Educare Learning Network provides high-quality early education via 25 independent birth to 5 schools in under-resourced communities across the U.S. Educare schools can be found in urban, suburban, rural and tribal communities across 15 states, the District of Columbia, and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska Reservation.

A unifying theme in all the schools is the emphasis on healthy eating—though individual schools tailor their approach to that theme according to what works for their community. For some, Jackson says, that means a school garden; for others, it may mean a container garden in the school with pots full of plants placed wherever the sun is best. Some schools grow their veggies at community gardens adjacent to the schools and others have partnerships with organizations in their communities that provide them with nutritional produce.

initiated a three-year pilot nutrition-education program In August 2022 using the pre-K (WISE) curriculum. Developed by the University of Arkansas with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the WISE curriculum provides teachers with the tools and training to promote healthy eating behaviors in pre-K kids. In collaboration with Louisiana Technical University, Educare New Orleans uses the WISE curriculum to increase the number and variety of fruit and vegetable servings children eat. It engages families via social media as well as family meetings with small cooking sessions to help families learn to do more with fruits and vegetables. Kids who might have said they hated fruits and veggies learn to make and ask their parents for a variety of foods — even kale chips.

In addition to its “Edu-Cooking” videos, Educare Central Maine, with nearly a third of its families reporting food insecurity, runs a food pantry set up as a market where families can go shopping for food items. The “Edu-Cooking” lessons play off what’s available from the pantry, such as “What do I do with all this extra bread?” Jasmine’s answer? “Here’s how to make croutons and breadcrumbs! Nothing goes to waste!”

“Edu-Cooking” and the Educare Market both stemmed from the pandemic and the school’s efforts to provide food and necessary supports to its families. According to Erica Palmer, Educare Central Maine’s education manager, when the pandemic began, many families passed on the food offered because they wanted to make sure it went to “those who are truly in need,” even though they were struggling.

“So, we shifted and began to market the resources we had in a different way,” Palmer says. “We put the Educare Market out front and available to all, so our kids would encourage their caregivers to stop by every day and bring things home.

“Our ‘Edu-Cooking’ videos were a fun way to encourage families to use the food we supplied in our market in new and creative ways.”

A dozen Educare schools have gardening programs that introduces the natural world to children and helps them answer the question, “Where does this come from?” Jackson says most of the gardening programs are developed to include foods that fit within the cultural context of the communities they serve.

“They’re growing things that are familiar to the parents in their own communities, as well as things they have maybe never tried before,” she says. “The parents are involved in cooking and nutrition classes, then can take fruit and vegetables from the school garden and cook them at home. They’ve really taken to it—and at some of our schools, our parents are the lead gardeners and they take great pride in that.

“The value of the gardens is that you’re teaching self-directed play and the value of sharing when they’re in the garden. The kids plant seeds and tend the plants and then harvest the food they’ve grown. It is such an exciting process for them.”

Educare’s Ongoing Learning and Sharing

All Educare schools are designed to be demonstration sites that not only deliver high-quality early learning, but also constantly assess and evaluate what works for the children, parents and staff.

“We’re always looking to get better,” Jackson says. “We use data to tell us which child needs intervention or additional individualization to improve their social emotional or cognitive development. We also want to know what parents might need to live their hopes and dreams. Do they want to go back to school? Get a better job? Better housing? We want to help them find the resources to do that.”

Each of the schools is created through a public-private partnership, funded with public dollars such as Head Start, Early Head Start or education dollars from local school districts. The philanthropic partners, starting with an anchor funder, may have ties to the community or to the region. The core foundation of every Educare school is a collaboration—between funders, program providers, school districts, parents and other local community partners—not only to develop and launch the school, but to sustain it over the long run.

“Communities call us and want to be a part of this network,” Jackson says. “Our intention isn’t necessarily to have an Educare school on every corner. Our goal is for our schools to be learning labs where we share what we’re learning with others to improve early childhood in all the organizations that are serving children of this age. Ultimately, the bottom line with the Educare Learning Network is that we want to see the funding streams in America changed so that every child from birth to kindergarten can have high-quality early learning.”

Ensuring that all children have access to nutritious food is a fundamental part of that mission, Jackson says.

“It should be at the top of everyone’s list,” she says. “Poverty in America is hidden from those who don’t want to see it. So, if you’re not in an under-resourced community that doesn’t even have a grocery store, if you’ve always had access to plenty of good food, you’d look at this emphasis on providing nutrition and say, ‘What’s going on here? What are we talking about? All families in America have breakfast, lunch and dinner, don’t they?’

“Well, no they don’t. So, part of what we will do is continue to weigh in, to write letters to our legislators about the importance of funding food security and nutrition in the early childhood education space.”

And in the meantime, Educare will continue to start at the very beginning: good food and nutrition education from the get-go.

In part I of this interview, David Jacobson, who designed and leads the initiative, discusses the tenets of the model and their context. .

Mark Swartz: How does the First 10 initiative approach early education?

David Jacobson: First 10 begins with a commitment to educational and racial equity and the whole child. We summarize this in the expression All children learn and thrive. We convene partnerships that take joint action around three core strategies.

1. The first is to collaborate to improve teaching and learning. A key component of this collaboration is to develop and implement a comprehensive plan for transition to kindergarten.
2. The second strategy is to coordinate comprehensive services across schools, health care organizations and social service agencies.
3. And the third is to deepen partnerships with families. This is about elevating family voice, conducting outreach to culturally specific groups and creating culturally responsive structures.

Swartz: How does First 10 compare to other cradle-to-career initiatives?

Jacobson: Whereas most of those initiatives create separate teams to work on kindergarten readiness and early-grades reading, First 10 partnerships come together around quality across the full early childhood to elementary school continuum, beginning with prenatal care and extending through elementary school.

Swartz: How did First 10 get started?

Jacobson: I had done technical assistance and applied research on this kind of work for years, and then the Heising-Simons Foundation funded a study that came out in 2019 called . Since then, communities in six states have embraced the approach. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation provides support for the First 10 Network, which brings communities together to learn from each other through monthly webinars.

Swartz: Can you describe how a First 10 Hub or Community Partnership launches? Does First 10 show up and start organizing the stakeholders?

Jacobson: In some cases, we work with states to recruit interested communities, and then we support these communities as they convene a partnership, and develop and implement a First 10 plan. In other cases, the communities reach out to us directly. We begin by examining the work under way in each community and assessing assets and needs. We then develop a plan that draws on the practices of exemplar First 10 communities. Once a First 10 team has developed its plan, we divide into work groups to carry it out.

Swartz: Who carries out the projects in the communities? Is it First 10 staff or local participants?

Jacobson: The local participants carry out the projects with our support. We facilitate the First 10 teams as they design their strategies, and we provide practical tips based on our experience working in other communities.

Swartz: Along with all this alignment work, First 10 also catalyzes joint action, right?

Jacobson: Absolutely. For example, as I mentioned, all of our communities implement comprehensive transition to kindergarten plans, which is that connecting piece between pre-K or Head Start and kindergarten. In addition to improving orientation experiences for children and families, we bring Head Start, community-based pre-K, district pre-K and kindergarten teachers together regularly to compare standards, curricula and instructional approaches.

We work on social-emotional learning, early literacy and early math. Teachers exchange teaching strategies and motivate each other’s innovation and improvement. We also organize school-connected play and learns, in which young children and their caregivers engage in fun, developmentally appropriate activities. There’s reading, songs, arts and crafts for the children and adults to do together as well as learning opportunities for the caregivers.

And we connect these families to services. We also promote community-wide parenting campaigns, where all the organizations that touch the lives of children and families come together around a set of common messages. Through all of this we have a bigger impact.

Swartz: What is some recent research that informs your work?

Jacobson: For one, , a 2021 study by the Diversity Data Kids project, which is housed at the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. The study finds that neighborhoods have a big impact on children’s outcomes and developmental risk, independent of family socioeconomic status.

The authors make a strong case for local coordination and alignment at the neighborhood and community levels. There are particular implications for neighborhoods that were hit hard during the pandemic.

Swartz: Can you provide some context about how this fits into federal and state policy—especially in terms of funding?

Jacobson: A significant step at the federal level is the program for state and local system building. Alabama, Michigan, Maine and Rhode Island are all using these state system-building funds to support partnerships at the local level that bring together elementary schools and school districts with Head Start programs, community-based early childhood programs and health and social services. It’s important that states have their own pilot projects.

The U.S. Department of Education is funding full-service community schools grants, and those grants include a very significant early childhood component. both bring together states to work on early childhood—elementary school collaboration and the transition to kindergarten.

Swartz: And at the local level?

Jacobson: Children’s cabinets are an important policy-making structure. State-supported county collaborations like foster communication among district officials, principals, early childhood leaders and families. We are finding that Children’s Cabinets and county collaboratives can work hand-in-hand with on-the-ground initiatives like First 10 that focus on implementing strategies in neighborhoods and communities. A little bit of magic happens when we bring this work to our districts and neighborhoods, and states and counties can play key roles in supporting these efforts.

The bill, LD , sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Eloise Vitelli (D-Sagadahoc),  the Senate last month and was approved by the House. The bill was set to face a final vote in the Senate before advancing to the desk of Gov. Janet Mills. 

As amended, LD  requires that upon request from a student, a postsecondary educational institution must provide a transcript or diploma without mandating a repayment plan by the student unless they owe $500 or more at a 2-year school or $2,500 or more at a 4-year school. 

“Transcript withholding currently stops many students from transferring credits from one school to another, or holds graduates back from employment because they cannot access their diplomas. Enacting this bill would strengthen Mainers’ connection to higher education and alleviate barriers on the path to the workforce,” reads a  authored by student leaders of Maine Student Action and delivered to administrators at University of Southern Maine, University of New England, Bates College, and the University of Maine Orono.

This practice, the petition continues,“stifles the growth of aspiring students and muddies the short and long-term plans of those seeking to enter the workforce.” 

UNE student Victoria Kavanaugh, who said she emailed the petition to campus administrators, found “an overwhelming sense of support” from her classmates and peers on this issue.

“Transcript withholding can prevent students from transferring credits to other schools, applying to graduate or applying to jobs following graduation,” Kavanaugh told Beacon. “As a social work student, transcript withholding could also prevent me from applying for a licensing exam after graduation.”

USM student Samantha Donley, who last week delivered a petition to the office of school president Glenn Cummings,  earlier this month sharing her experience with transcript withholding. 

Donley said that in March 2014 she had to withdraw from UMaine Farmington due to health reasons and had an outstanding balance of $1,200, which she was gradually paying off. 

“I was ready to get back to school that fall, but I had a hold on my account because of the outstanding balance. I couldn’t reenroll, and I had no access to my transcript, which meant I couldn’t transfer my credits – which I’d already earned and paid for – to another school,” Donley wrote. “My progress toward a degree was indefinitely delayed.”

Donley goes on to explain that such stories are not unique, adding that “for too many Maine students, especially those with low incomes, transcript withholding is a trap.”  

In addition to supporting the bill, Donley and other students are asking their schools to “make its implementation possible.”

This  first appeared on , website and podcast created by the Maine People’s Alliance to highlight the experiences of everyday Mainers, share information about the political and policy processes that affect Maine people and promote a progressive worldview based on community, fairness and investing in the future.

Chris Riback: Council member Fournier, thank you for coming to our ELN studio.

April Fournier: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: What is the state of early childhood learning in Portland Maine today? Maybe give me both pre COVID and what’s happened since COVID.

April Fournier: Sure. I think pre COVID, just like a lot of places around the country, there’s just not enough spaces. And so we have so many parents that need childcare to work to make their household work, so that they have money coming in. Plus we also know the benefits of children being around each other socially, emotionally and being able to build their communication skills, learning how to create a community. When you don’t have all those spaces, you have children that really start to fall behind, especially as they enter public school. So I think before COVID we definitely had a shortage, but there were lots of small like family run childcares or in home childcares as well as lots of different centers.

I think what we’ve seen post COVID is a significant decrease in those programs. Whether the parents that would come and work in them couldn’t go back to the workforce because, they themselves couldn’t find childcare. Or we know that also early childcare workers are some of the lowest paid in the country. And so you’re coming out of COVID, you’re like, my bills are behind. I need to pay my mortgage. I need to pay my car and the job that I’m doing isn’t cutting it anymore, because I’m so behind.

And so you have a lot of people that have also left the workforce to go find something else that’s paying more. I think for Portland, we’re very much feeling that. What I hear on the council from a lot of families is, we need more spots. We need more childcare, or these children are just going to sit at home and then all of a sudden, they show up one day in kindergarten and they don’t know how to interact. They don’t know how to engage. And then I think you start to see, more that child’s a behavior problem, more that child is going to be tagged.

Chris Riback: It all connects.

April Fournier: Yes, absolutely.

Chris Riback: It all connects.

April Fournier: It’s critical.

Chris Riback: So you seem to be an extremely busy person. One role is council member. Can we talk about another of your roles?

April Fournier: Sure. Yes, absolutely.

Chris Riback: You currently are in a grant funded position that provides barrier free support to families within a pediatric practice setting.

April Fournier: Yes.

Chris Riback: What is the program? What are you doing it? And what do you see there?

April Fournier: Yes, so I’m an early childhood support specialist within the outpatient pediatric clinic. We see typically families who either require free care, or low cost healthcare, or Medicaid. So we have very few families that are private pay insurance. So these are often families that are living in poverty or within Portland, we have a lot of Asili families that have just newly arrived in the states.

My role is to help provide that connection. So pediatricians can spend 15 to 30 minutes often with a family and they’re really focused on the medical component. Then they have to go off to their next patient. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve been able to address some of those social determinants of health. Like, do you have safe and secure housing? Do you have enough food to feed your family on a regular basis?

Chris Riback: So does the family start with the pediatrician and then transition to you?

April Fournier: Yes. Yes.

Chris Riback: So it’s almost two separate, though, connected conversations?

April Fournier: Absolutely. I often will come in after the visit. So the pediatrician does their visit and then we have a quick little conference, before I go in and talk to the family. And so that could be, Hey, so mom mentioned that she’s working with this domestic violence agency to get some counseling because, her and dad were separated. Or this mom mentioned that she’s really struggling to get diapers on a regular basis. The baby has a diaper rash because, she’s trying to use diapers for longer periods of time because of that insecurity.

By having that quick little conference, I know what I’m walking into. I’m not asking the same questions. So the parents are like, I just told the doctor all this information. So one, it’s honoring that time for the family, but also jumping into the conversation that is most important for them.

Chris Riback: And you can really cover a wide range of risk factors.

April Fournier: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: I understand you collect data off of these conversations as well. What do the data show? What have you seen?

April Fournier: So the things that we’re looking at is, as we’re having these conversations are they identifying a housing need, or a social services need, or diaper insecurity, food insecurity? It’s a brand new mom who’s 19 years old and is trying to figure out, I don’t know how to bathe my baby. I don’t know how to do sleep routines or I’m not sleeping. So it’s really taking this holistic look at how do we help this family be successful, so that as this child develops, as this family develops, they have the best possible outcome. So I’m taking data, asking questions and then we’re able to pull that from our medical record system to see, we met this family when the baby was three days old.

Now the baby’s four months old, what progress has this family made with this intervention? And it’s amazing what we’re seeing, we’re just seeing really, really great results. They’re not diaper insecure or they’ve been able to connect to community resources that help them with housing or getting connected to wick, or even just getting health insurance. So they’re not getting these bills from the hospital that create anxiety and fear and I don’t know how to pay this. So it’s really helping connect all of the things for the family to help them be successful.

Chris Riback: In learning about your story, I realized as well, this is personal for you.

April Fournier: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: I mean you underwent quite a career change. Inspired, I believe, by your son.

April Fournier: Yes. Absolutely. I was on a trajectory with an insurance company, or in the financial services industry to be project manager or operational development.

Chris Riback: Or CEO of a multinational bank? Yes. Something.

April Fournier: One day. And so my youngest son, I had twins. So I actually have four children, but the youngest are twins. We noticed around age two, they weren’t exactly developing the same. They had some language development, but he was starting to do things like lining things up or he would get really frustrated and hit himself, or bang his head off the ground. And it was just like, I have no idea what’s happening with this kiddo. It just doesn’t make sense. And so the pediatrician did some screenings for autism and said, well, let’s go ahead and do some evaluation. Because he’s really kind of hitting all these different flags. And so after going through that evaluation, he was diagnosed with autism and it was like, I have no idea what to do.

Thankfully Maine has a program called Child Development Services that comes in to do early intervention. So it’s really around teaching parents, how do you work on your routines so that you’re able to bring language out or create social connections within the scope of your everyday life? Not every parent can take time off to do all of this development. So how can you do it within what you’re already doing?

And so in watching his transformation, his language development, he started to come back to us. And be like, Hey, I’m checking back into my family and I’m learning these things and we’re seeing less aggressions or less self-harm. Like, why wouldn’t you want to do something that’s going to do that for children. And just what it did for our family was incredible. So rather than going to graduate school for project management or financial services, I went to graduate school for early childhood special education.

Chris Riback: A different kind of education.

April Fournier: Absolutely. Yes.

Chris Riback: One both in school and in the classroom, but also in real life.

April Fournier: Absolutely. Absolutely. So then in doing different roles, I worked doing in-home services for families who have a child with autism. How do you connect them to community? How do you plan a grocery trip, knowing that you’re going to have tantrums, or knowing that you’re going to have behaviors that happen? How do you help families meet their goals?

I taught in a special education classroom and I worked connecting families in to that transition to kindergarten. And how do you work with public schools on implementing special education services? And then worked in head start. So lots of different facets to figure out, how do we most help these families within our community?

Chris Riback: Council member, what does it mean to you to be an indigenous Diné woman on the city council? What level of responsibility does that make you feel?

April Fournier: I’m honored to hold that space. There are so many people that came before me to make it possible. Not necessarily in Portland specifically, but on a national level back in my homelands. Being able to see Deb Holland, secretary Holland as part of the cabinet, it’s just incredible. And so by claiming these spaces and creating spaces for indigenous officials to walk into, it just allows us to have the next generations come along with us. So my children are seeing me run for city council, or they’re seeing me take advocacy space, or they’re seeing me take pictures in Washington, in our capital doing this work.

And so I think, when you’re a minority or when you’re part of a marginalized group, it’s hard to walk through some doors. And so if you see someone who looks like you, who has the same type of life experience, has a similar identity, it’s so much easier and comfortable to walk through that door and take that space as well. I’m again, incredibly honored to be in this space. I take my responsibility, very, very seriously and I am just so excited to do it.

Chris Riback: I’m sure that you do, I’m sure that you are. Your children see you, your community sees you.

April Fournier: Yes.

Chris Riback: Thank you.

April Fournier: Of course, thank you.

Chris Riback: Thank you for the work you do and for coming to the studio.

April Fournier: Awesome. Thank you for having me.

This green revolution will require an army of well-trained workers — yet federal investments in job training have focused mostly on adults. To build a healthy pipeline of skilled labor, policymakers should apply lessons from a robust body of evidence about successful career and technical education programs for high school students to create pathways for careers in the green economy. 

More than high school students are enrolled in CTE; high-quality CTE programs have been shown to high school graduation, college enrollment and earnings. With curricula organized around specific career themes, they offer internships and other work-based learning experiences, and provide opportunities to earn industry-recognized credentials and college credits while still in high school. CTE programs also appear to work particularly well for students who have lagged in educational attainment, including and . 

CTE programs have been successful across fields of study, suggesting that similar models focused on green jobs and careers may have similar effects. In fact, promising green CTE programs are cropping up all over the country. In Malta, New York, the , a model school, offers learning experiences in clean energy, business and solar installation, opportunities to earn certificates in photovoltaics and a pathway to associate’s degrees in electrical construction and maintenance. The on Governors Island in New York City provides programs in fields related to marine health, including aquaculture and marine systems technology, and offers instruction in professional diving and vessel operation, as well as paid internships. 

In Kansas, at Olathe West High School is a four-year program with pathways in both renewable energy and sustainable agriculture. in Mississippi trains students in aquaculture through a program that allows them to continue their studies at a local community college, and the Bright Solar Futures program at in Philadelphia provides training and industry-recognized certificates in solar energy installation and energy conservation, preparing students for entry-level solar jobs. 

As innovative as these programs are, however, they tend to be one-off efforts. To prepare students for the future green economy, a more coordinated effort will be necessary to align labor market needs with CTE programs nationwide. 

The Aspen Institute’s recent recommends developing new CTE opportunities that prepare students for jobs in the clean energy economy and creating curricula that supports knowledge of environmental sustainability across all career pathways. This could be done in a coordinated way by leveraging funds through the federal , which provides states with more than $1 billion annually to support CTE education. For example, electricians and HVAC technicians now need to understand new technology used for renewably powered homes and buildings. Other fields that are staples of current CTE programming are being transformed by efforts to address climate change, including buildings and architecture, transportation and logistics, and agriculture and natural resources. 

Perkins already requires school districts to conduct needs assessments of local labor markets. States could use that funding to support schools to make explicit connections with green employers to learn what skills students need and create opportunities for internships, apprenticeships and work-based learning experiences. 

Other funding streams should be developed to support green CTE, such as money to purchase training equipment like solar panels, wind turbine parts and greenhouses. Funding for research to understand how schools and districts can best align their educational offerings with rapidly accelerating changes in the labor market should also be a policy priority.

Developing a talent pipeline of students ready to enter the workforce as the clean energy transition accelerates would ensure a robust, skilled pool of workers prepared to meet the challenge of reducing carbon emissions at the scale and speed that science demands. Doing so would be a win for students, employers and the environment.  

Rachel Rosen is a senior associate and co-director of MDRC’s . 

Maine allows private religious schools to participate in its tuition benefit program for families that don’t have a public high school in their communities — except those that seek to instill religious beliefs in their students.

That caveat is at the heart of , argued before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, a case that is likely to determine whether states can continue to ban religious schools from publicly-funded choice programs. Based on the justices’ questioning, experts said Maine, and states with similar laws, would likely no longer be able to defend them.

“This absolutely discriminates against parents,” Michael Bindas, a senior attorney with the libertarian Institute for Justice, who represents the plaintiffs, told the court. The state is discriminating against religion, he added, because decisions about whether a school is too religious to participate is “based on the decision of a bureaucrat in Augusta.”

Christopher C. Taub, Maine’s chief deputy attorney general, countered that the state’s program is “religiously neutral” and only seeks to give families free public education “roughly equivalent” to what they would get in a district school. 

Wednesday’s hearing was the second time in two years the Supreme Court has considered whether public funds can pay for students to attend religious schools as part of school choice programs — an issue that public school advocates argue is a clear violation of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. In 2020, the court ruled in , that the state could not exclude a religious school from a tax credit scholarship program simply because it was religious. The question in Carson takes the issue a step further, asking the court if officials can still ban such schools if they spend state money to teach religion. The fine legal parsing revolves around the issue of “status vs. use” — in this case, the difference between an institution that has a religious affiliation and one that uses public money to promote religion. 

“What’s worrying me is that if the state must give money to the schools, they are going to get into all kinds of religious disputes,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the three iberal members of the court. “People will think the government favors some things as opposed to others, and that will cause strife.”

Bindas responded that the benefit “severs the link” between government spending and religious schools because it goes directly to parents, who ultimately make the choice. He said in a webinar following the hearing, that those who receive Pell Grants or go to college on the G.I. bill can already use funds at religious institutions. 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, among the six conservative majority members of the court, said the plaintiffs in the case — two families that were denied the benefit — are “seeking equal treatment, not special treatment.”

Justice Samuel Alito noted, as Bindas did, that until 1980, the state allowed schools that teach religion to participate. “Are you aware of a history of strife?” he asked.

Alex Luchenitser, an associate vice president at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, described Wednesday’s hearing as “troubling.”

“Very few of the justices paid any attention to the longstanding principle at the heart of American constitutional tradition —.that taxpayers should not be forced to fund religious education,” he said.

Because both schools attended by students in the case are opposed to hiring gay teachers, and one does not admit transgender students, a decision in favor of the plaintiffs could mean tax dollars would fund schools that discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

‘Picking and choosing’

Carson focuses on a Maine law in which towns without a high school cover the cost of tuition for students to attend private schools or public schools in other districts. 

Arguing for the Biden administration, Malcolm Stewart, U.S. deputy solicitor general, said the state is being fair because the program wasn’t “intended to provide the broadest range of possible choices. It’s intended to provide a substitute for public education.”

But at the webinar, Bindas said he was “confident the justices are going to agree with us,” in part because the benefit can be used at elite, expensive private schools that are far from equivalent to what a public school can provide. The state has even allowed families to use the benefit at boarding schools in states as far as California.

Joshua Dunn, a political science professor at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, said it could be “difficult for Maine” to win this case because the state is “picking and choosing among religious schools.”

That aspect of the state’s program both hurts and helps its case, added Derek Black, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina. The court could find that the state is not discriminating against religion because it does allow some sectarian schools to participate.

But he added, “I don’t see five people trying to rule in Maine’s favor right now.”

The tuitioning programs are unique to New England, but a decision in favor of the plaintiffs would strike another blow to state laws — known as “Blaine Amendments” — that restrict government funding of religious schools.

In , for example, five families are suing the state for not allowing them to spend funds in their 529 college savings accounts on tuition at private schools. The 2017 federal tax cut law included a provision that allows families to use these accounts for K-12 expenses. But Michigan still prohibits their use at private schools, which, officials argue, means they’re not discriminating against religious schools.

While the argument in Carson doesn’t apply in the Michigan case, “the only thing keeping Blaine Amendments alive is this status-use distinction,” Dunn said. “Getting rid of it likely would remove the last bit of life support that they’re on.”

Dunn suggested the justices could rule that, as in Espinoza, this is really a case of discrimination based on religious status, overruling the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, which argued it was a case about religious use of public funds. 

Black said considering how little the justices’ questions focused on using public funds to teach religion, that could be the way they’re leaning. 

But deciding this case on the grounds of Espinoza “just delays the issue” because there are already similar cases asking the same question, Dunn said. “I don’t think they can dodge it.”

There’s also a slim chance that the court could decide the plaintiffs didn’t have “standing” — the right to make the legal argument — because the religious schools the plaintiffs chose to attend have said they wouldn’t accept public funds anyway. Both Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett raised that issue.

But that’s unlikely to be the result, Black said  “They didn’t take this case to issue a ruling based on standing.”

But other families, and those on all sides of the school choice issue, are already speculating about how far the court’s conservative majority will go.

One of those families is the Nelsons, the other plaintiffs in , which the court will hear Dec. 8. This fall, Troy and Angela Nelson’s son Royce will be a sophomore at Erskine Academy in South China, Maine — the secular private school the family chose when they had to forgo “the religious school they believed was best for their kids,” said Michael Bindas, a senior attorney with the libertarian Institute for Justice, who represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit over the state’s town “tuitioning” policy.

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The Supreme Court moved in the direction of greater religious freedom last year with its opinion in , which focused on a tax credit scholarship program. But the decision was limited. While the court said states can’t ban religious schools from choice programs simply because they’re religious, they left open the question of whether states could exclude them because they might spend the money on religious instruction. Focusing on that second question, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Maine. Now Carson asks the Supreme Court to take the next step and rule that religious schools can participate in choice programs regardless of their curriculum. Some argue a ruling for the plaintiffs in Carson would be another step toward allowing religious organizations to run charter schools — a worst-case scenario for many advocates.

In the short term, the outcome in Carson would affect New England states with tuition assistance programs, in which towns without a school cover the cost of tuition at public or private schools.

In June, the that students in Vermont can use public funds at religious schools. So far the state hasn’t appealed the ruling, perhaps waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in on Carson. And maybe in anticipation of the justices siding with the plaintiffs, Gov. Chris Sununu in neighboring New Hampshire signed in July removing the restriction on religious schools in that state’s tuitioning program.

A decision for the plaintiffs could prompt some states to get out of the voucher business if they can’t place restrictions on curriculum, noted Preston Green, an education professor at the University of Connecticut.

Other states with private school voucher programs, such as Florida, Indiana and North Carolina, already allow religious schools to participate.

“Most legislatures do the right thing when they adopt these programs,” said Bindas, with the Institute for Justice, adding that Espinoza’s opponents argue the decision didn’t specifically say states can’t ban religious schools because they teach religion.“If the Supreme Court rules correctly, that argument will be removed from the arsenal of the school choice opponents.”

A more recent ruling in a case involving a Catholic social services agency has some legal experts suggesting moderates on the court won’t go too far.

Derek Black, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina, said he doesn’t think the court is ready to “jump off the cliff and say the state can’t even restrict money being spent on the bread for communion.”

While it didn’t directly focus on education, the court’s 9-0 June ruling in is relevant, Black said. In that case, the justices held that the city couldn’t exempt some foster care agencies from its nondiscrimination policy while denying the same exception to a Catholic agency just because it was opposed to placing children with same-sex couples.

While the decision was unanimous, conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch argued for a broader interpretation in favor of greater religious freedom. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Stephen Breyer, opted for more narrow protections that still allow government agencies to generally enforce nondiscrimination laws.

“Do the justices want to create breathing space for religion? Yes,” Black said. “Do they want religion to overcome the state? No.”

‘Dominoes falling’ 

The possibility of a ruling in favor of the Carsons nonetheless alarms those who believe such programs violate the First Amendment.

Green doesn’t think a decision for the plaintiffs would immediately lead to churches or other religious organizations running charter schools, but added, “You’re really, really close.”

“This is about dominoes falling and it’s a deliberative legal strategy,” he said. “They don’t need to do it right away. They just need to establish a true line where they can make these legal arguments.”

Nicole Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and a colleague of Justice Barrett when she taught there, addressed the issue last December. She argued in for the conservative Manhattan Institute that even the Espinoza decision allowed for religious charter schools.

Garnett said that while states established charters as new public schools, they share similarities with private schools because parents choose them.

“As programs of private choice, charter school programs may include religious schools,” she wrote, adding, “If charter schools are permissible, religious charter schools must be permitted.”

But Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, rejects the notion that charters are private.

“Charter schools are public schools and are subject to the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause,” she said. “Charter schools have never been able to, and cannot now, teach religion. Neither Espinoza nor a win for plaintiffs in Carson changes that.”

She stands by despite an Aug. 9 ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in over whether charter schools’ uniform policies can require girls to wear skirts. The court ruled that charters are not “state actors” and that requiring girls to wear skirts violates their constitutional rights. This decision could strengthen the argument for religious charters.

In a recent , Black and Rebecca Holcombe, former Vermont education secretary, wrote that religious charter schools would “take a wrecking ball to public school funding.”

“States would suddenly become financially responsible for millions of students who previously chose to forgo public education,” they wrote. “In places already struggling to maintain public infrastructure, public budgets would now be on the hook for religious infrastructure.”

But one thing is clear, Garnett wrote: Whether advocates pursue the issue through legislation, an attorney general’s opinion or in the courts, “the legality of religious charter schools will be tied up in litigation, perhaps for years.”

Olivia Carson’s parents, David and Amy Carson, can relate. They filed their initial complaint about the state’s tuitioning program in 2018, when Olivia started 10th grade.

Bangor Christian Schools — where a church, classroom buildings and a radio station sit on a 35-acre, wooded campus — is a family tradition. Olivia’s parents attended the school. So did David Carson’s mother. Her aunt and uncle work there, and Olivia spent all of her K-12 years there.

“We kept [Olivia] at Bangor Christian just because of the environment and the academics,” said Amy Carson, who manages the paperwork for her husband’s construction business. “It’s been good for her, being an only child. It’s like a whole other family.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday announced that it will hear , a case involving Maine’s tuition assistance program. Following the court’s decision last year in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, plaintiffs in the case argue that excluding religious schools from the program is a violation of their constitutional rights, while the state has said the program is only meant to provide students a public education they can’t access in their own community. 

School choice advocates celebrated the court’s decision. In a statement, Leslie Hiner, who leads EdChoice’s legal efforts, said, “We applaud the action of the Court in agreeing to hear a case brought by parents in Maine who have been denied the opportunity to send their children to a school of faith using the state’s town tuitioning vouchers.”

The U.S. Supreme Court will discuss Thursday whether to hear a case that could settle for good whether states can exclude religious schools from publicly funded voucher programs.

The argument in is over Maine’s tuition assistance program, which pays for students in towns without a public school to attend another one of their choice — public or private — as long as it’s not religious.

In October last year, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the religious exclusion, and the plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court. But earlier this month the 2nd Circuit reached the , ruling that students in a similar program in Vermont can use public funds at religious schools.

“It is a mess, to put it mildly,” said Michael Bindas, a senior attorney with the libertarian Institute for Justice, which is representing the two families in Maine who sued over the state’s policy. The contradiction “cries out for Supreme Court review, and only the Supreme Court can resolve it,” he said.

This time last year, school choice advocates won a major victory in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, when the court ruled 5-4 that officials could not exclude religious schools from a state tax credit scholarship program simply because they are religious. It was a major setback for states with so-called Blaine amendments, 19th century laws that prevent public funds from supporting religious schools. The Espinoza ruling sparked a renewed push at the state level to expand such scholarship programs, and former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos the decision opened the door for religious-oriented charter schools.

The justices, however, left one issue unsettled. The Espinoza ruling means states can’t prohibit religious schools from participating in a school choice program because of their religious status, but the justices didn’t resolve whether states could exclude schools because they teach students about religion.

The Institute for Justice addressed this in to the court following the 2nd Circuit’s decision in the Vermont case, referring to “the utter disarray of the law in this area.”

The court typically schedules days when the justices discuss current cases as well as whether to hear or reject appeals. The “order list” is usually released a day or so after justices hold a conference, Bindas explained. That means the court could announce as soon as Monday whether they’ll hear the Carson case, but a quick decision could mean they’re going to pass, he added. If the justices decide to hold it over for a “cleanup conference” next week, that could signal their intention to hear the case.

Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey has said that the state’s law doesn’t discriminate against religious schools because it is “simply declining to pay for religious instruction that would be unavailable in a public school.” Ted Fisher, spokesman for the Vermont Agency of Education, said the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Anti-discrimination policies

If the justices agree to hear it, Carson could be the first school choice case before the court since the confirmation of Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative Catholic who served as a trustee for a religious school that participates in Indiana’s school choice program and doesn’t welcome children with same-sex parents.

The Espinoza ruling was a 5-4 decision, and conservatives now hold a 6-3 supermajority on the court.

Some legal experts have suggested the court’s decision last week in — a case involving a Catholic social services agency that opposes certifying same-sex couples as foster parents — would have an impact on school voucher programs.

In Fulton, the court ruled unanimously that the city violated the agency’s First Amendment’s religious freedom protections by requiring it to give up its opposition to same-sex relationships in order to receive a government contract. The connection to school choice is that religious schools, such as the one where Barrett served as a trustee, are often opposed to hiring LGBTQ staff or admitting gay students or those with gay parents.

But the impact of the decision on school choice programs is limited. While the opinion was unanimous, the court focused on a narrow exemption in the city’s contract with the agency.

“Fulton does not create a right to religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws that apply equally to everyone,” said Alex Luchenitser, associate vice president and associate legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “State constitutional prohibitions and laws that prohibit use of public funds to support religious instruction generally do not have any exemptions and so should not be affected by Fulton.”

The issue is relevant in , a case before a Maryland district court. The state excluded the religious school from a voucher program because the school’s handbook says it “supports a biblical view of marriage” and that “God immutably bestows gender upon each person at birth as male or female.” The school, which serves low-income students, said these statements don’t impact its admissions process, but the state still declined to admit it to the program.

The state is expected to submit a brief Friday requesting a decision in the case, with the plaintiff’s request expected in July.

Bindas, with the Institute for Justice, noted that the plaintiffs in the Maine case are arguing that families attending any religious school should be able to participate in a state’s school choice program. As it stands, Vermont could try to get around the appeals court’s decision by passing new legislation excluding religious schools because they teach students about doctrine or have a time for worship.

“Using public funds for religious instruction violates the religious freedom of taxpayers who are forced to subsidize faiths to which they do not subscribe,” said Luchenitser, who has argued that the court should decline to hear the appeal in the Carson case.

Dave and Amy Carson kept their daughter Olivia at the Christian school she attends but that doesn’t participate in the tuition assistance program. The other plaintiffs in the case, Angela and Troy Nelson, wanted to send their children to a religious school, but instead sent their two children to a secular private school that accepts vouchers.

“You either forgo the benefit,” Bindas said, “or you forgo the school that you think is best for your child.”

In a broader sense, the Fulton decision shows the court continues to move toward a “more aggressive” position in favor of religious rights, said Joshua Dunn, a political science professor at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.

“The reasoning of Espinoza … is hard to square with the 1st Circuit’s opinion,” Dunn said, adding that if the court decides to hear the case, “Maine should be very worried.”