Almost 50 days after President Donald J. Trump stepped into office, sweeping changes have been made to the nation’s DEI programs. LCPS’s DEIA office, though, has stayed out of the limelight and has faced little to no changes. LCPS’s Division of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility serves the district’s 82,000 students through oversight about compliance towards anti-discrimination policies, making students feel welcome, and confirming teachers follow culturally-competent teaching techniques in the district’s 90+ schools.
LCPS’s office of DEIA differs from the standard DEI office with their inclusion of accessibility in the acronym. “The idea behind accessibility is just making sure that all of our students have access to the various opportunities that are available here in LCPS,” Superintendent Aaron Spence said.
Spence added, “We have so many things that students can do here, the Academies [of Loudoun], expanding pathways that we have in our high schools, and the different programs we have for gifted education and special education, and wanting to make sure as a part of our work that our policies and our practices are inclusive, so that all students have access to the programs they need to be successful and pursue their passion.”
Within the federal government, employees have been required to remove their personal pronouns from their email signatures, in response to President Trump’s ongoing work to remove DEI programs. This forced removal only extends to the federal government, not the state and local government, so LCPS employees will not be affected nor required.
Funding for public school systems comes through Congress and Congressional acts; if funding were to be threatened, a lengthy process about the constitutionality of the withholding of funds would occur, with many in-court challenges taking place. “I suspect those [threatening and withholding public school system funds] would be challenged in the courts, and then we would want to see what came out of those challenges. I believe it will take a significant amount of time for us to understand the full impact of those decisions and whether or not that would have to have an impact on our own practice,” Spence explained.
2022 saw Governor Glenn Youngkin issue Executive Order One, which removed controversial instructional topics like Critical Race Theory from Virginia’s education system. Executive Order One also saw the new requirement of the Superintendent of Public Instruction reviewing Department of Education produced materials, and the Commonwealth of Virginia’s public education curriculum.
In 2022, the Virginia government saw changes to their office of DEI, with the removal of “Equity” and the addition of “Opportunity”, under Governor Glenn Youngkin and through Executive Order Ten. Three years later, Virginia’s office of DOI still stands as the office of Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion.
“Our DEIA office is working with schools, students, teachers and equity leads within schools to ensure that we have inclusive environments where all students feel like, ‘Hey, I’m supposed to be here. I belong. I’m welcome in this building,’” Spence said.
DEIA at Dominion starts with teacher Anica Williams, who serves as the school’s Equity Lead and an English teacher. She along with Dr. John Brewer seek to “view the work of the school through an equity lens to ensure a climate that is equitable for each student,” per the LCPS website. DEIA’s presence in LCPS enables each LCPS school to have an Equity Lead who works in conjunction with that school’s principal.
Williams’ role as an Equity Lead came from the office of DEIA, being an Equity Lead lets her serve students in Dominion. “It is things like calling out microaggressions. It is making sure that we’re scaffolding the curriculum so that all kids have access to the content, not just kids that might have an IEP or a 504 plan. It is recognizing all of the holidays that we have [so] everyone feels included. It is making sure everything is accessible in our school building,” Williams said.
In the future, LCPS does not plan to change access to gender-neutral restrooms, following the 2020 ruling in favor of G.G in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board. “What we have done in Loudoun County, which I think is an important thing, is to honor and recognize that parents want their children to feel safe and also honor and recognize the law. So we have provided single use restrooms for any student who wants to have access to that in all of our buildings,” Spence said.
While there are no plans in the Capital Improvement Plan to incorporate the four gender-inclusive restrooms seen at Dominion, Heritage, and Broad Run into current schools, future buildings in LCPS are expected to have those restrooms.
