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Three “Dear Colleague” letters issued back-to-back are further shaping the impact of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon on schools, districts, and state departments on issues including student privacy, COVID funding, and using federal funding to support provide more choice for parents within public schools.
DOE to use privacy laws to support parents’ rights
On Friday, March 28, 2025, a “Dear Colleague” letter was sent to state chiefs of education and superintendents from Frank Miller Jr., the acting director of the Student Privacy Policy Office in the U.S. Department of Education, about their need to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) if they receive federal funding.
“FERPA protects the privacy interests and access rights of parents and students in education records maintained by educational agencies and institutions or by persons acting for such agencies or institutions. PPRA affords parents and students with rights concerning specified marketing activities, the administration or distribution of certain surveys to students, the administration of certain physical examinations or screenings to students, and parental access to certain instructional materials including ones used as part of a student’s educational curriculum.”
U.S. Department of Education letter
The letter delineates the following as the office’s priority concerns:
- Parental right to inspect and review education records of students,
- Disclosures to parents regarding the safety of students,
- Properly notifying parents and eligible students of their rights annually,
- Ensuring military recruiters have the same access to secondary students as provided to postsecondary institutions or to prospective employers and requiring that schools provide student information to military recruiters, including student names, addresses, electronic mailing addresses, and telephone listings, and
- Assurance of compliance by April 25, 2025.
“Parents are the most natural protectors of their children. Yet many states and school districts have enacted policies that imply students need protection from their parents,” McMahon said in a press release. “… Going forward, the correct application of FERPA will be to empower all parents to protect their children from the radical ideologies that have taken over many schools.”
A cover letter addressed to educators from McMahon accompanied the “Dear Colleague” letter. It says, “Going forward, the Department of Education will insist that schools apply FERPA correctly to uphold, not thwart, parents’ rights.”
In 2023, there were 19,017 substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect in North Carolina — a rate of 7.4 per 1,000 children.
Protecting children requires a comprehensive approach across all settings by all offenders, and it requires teachers, parents, and community members to all serve as checks on each other.
The abrupt halt to COVID spending even for those with waivers
Also on Friday, a different “Dear Colleague” letter was sent from McMahon to state chiefs of education. The letter ended the spending of COVID funds effective the same day even if the state had received a waiver.
“Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the Department’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion,” says the letter. “The Department’s initial approval of your extension request does not change anything.”
McMahon says in the letter, “Any reliance on a discretionary extension subject to reconsideration by the agency was unreasonable.”
The department is now offering to consider extensions on “an individual project-specific basis.” Information on how to do so is included in the letter.
According to data from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, North Carolina was allotted more than $6 billion has spent about 99% of the funding. As of Feb. 28, 2025, $22.3 million was encumbered, and there was a balance of $21 million.
Title I funds to expand school choice
On Monday, March 31, 2025, another “Dear Colleague” letter was sent to state chiefs outlining how state education departments, school districts, and schools can use federal funding to provide student services to families, according to this press release.
This letter was from DOE’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and signed by Hayley Sanon, the principal deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary. It is the first of a series of documents providing guidance on how the department and the administration seek to expand school choice. This one focuses on Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).
The letter says Ohio is currently the only state utilizing “section 1003A of the ESEA, which provides a State the flexibility to reserve up to three percent of its Title I allocation to provide funds to LEAs for direct student services that allow parents to exercise a meaningful choice in their child’s education.”
“States can use this flexibility so that parents can be given a range of options — advanced courses, dual enrollment, academic tutoring, career and technical education, personalized learning, and out-of-school activities — to select for their child,” says the letter.
LEAs and schools, according to the letter, have similar flexibility with respect to their use of Title I funds.
Within public schools and across sectors of education, the administration wants parents to have more input on the learning experience of their student.
