The investigation, announced on March 28, is being conducted by the department’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) and centers on whether Maine public schools are misapplying the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
According to the department, the state allows districts to create plans to support a student’s transgender identity while maintaining that those documents are not part of the student’s education records—and, therefore, not accessible to parents.
“Parents and guardians have the right to access their child’s education records to guide and safeguard their child’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Any policy to the contrary is both illegal and immoral.”
The move follows a broader directive from the Trump administration to increase FERPA enforcement and review complaints that the department said were left unresolved under the Biden administration.
Parents Defending Education (PDE), a parental rights group, said its reporting played a key role in prompting the Maine investigation. According to the group, at least 57 of Maine’s 192 school districts have policies that allow for gender identity-related records to be withheld from parents.
“We’re deeply grateful that the Trump administration is tackling the problem of parental exclusion policies head-on,” Nicole Neily, president and founder of PDE, said in a statement. “While Maine is certainly a bad actor, they are far from the only culpable party.”
Neily said PDE has identified more than 1,200 school districts nationwide with similar policies, impacting more than 12 million students.
Maine’s policies around gender identity and parental rights have been a point of tension between state officials and the Trump administration.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal education funding from Maine unless the state complied with his executive order banning males from competing in women’s and girls’ sports. The policy cites Title IX protections for female athletes.
At a White House event in February, Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills responded to Trump’s warning, telling the president, “We’ll see you in court.” Mills later said the state “will not be intimidated” and vowed to take legal action, if necessary, to preserve funding.
In January, the agency issued guidance stating that Maine law and local policy supersede federal directives that conflict with those protections.
However, the U.S. Department of Education said in its announcement that federal law takes precedence. FERPA grants parents the right to inspect their children’s education records, request corrections, and limit disclosure of personally identifiable information. Violations can result in the loss of federal funding.
The Maine Department of Education and the governor’s office did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment on the investigation.
