For almost two years education lawyers have been telling schools to be ready for a paradigm shift in Title IX. Last Friday (April 19) the doomsday clock struck midnight and the U.S. Department of Education released the final version of its Title IX regulations. This new set of rules will change the landscape of Title IX, making huge revisions to the Trump administration regulations from 2020. These new regulations are effective August 1, 2024. We have scheduled a three-hour webinar for June 25 beginning at 9:00 CST that will review the regs in detail (with all of the snarky humor that you have come to expect from KSB). If you have already registered for our 23-24 Quarterly Webinar series, you are all set. If you haven’t registered yet, you can do so here.
Here is the TL:DR about the new regulations: overall they will be better for schools, staff, parents, and students. There’s better flexibility and more options to appropriately address the wide range of ages and legal requirements in K-12 schools. Plus, in most cases, you’ll be able to resolve a Title IX complaint with 1-2 administrators compared to 3-5 different people under the existing regulations. There are significant implications in the regulations for how schools serve LGBQTIA+ students, and the KSB lawyers are working to create policies and procedures that will help schools navigate their obligations, fully understanding federal court cases and state Attorney General opinions are all over the place. Take a deep breath and finish your year strong--let us worry about the technical stuff for a few weeks.
For now, here’s what you need to know to plan for your implementation:
All Staff Training Requirement: The new regulations required that all staff – certificated, classified, contracted staff, volunteers, and even board members – be trained on the basics of sex harassment, reporting obligations and related Title IX issues. KSB will again have on-demand training options available for your staff. Thankfully for all of us, this training should be shorter than the training you had to take for the 2020 regulations. More info to come on that. We’re also happy to provide in-person training for your staff.
Title IX Team Training: Two pieces of bad news here, and one piece of great news. The first bad news is that any administrator who might deal with sex harassment is going to need training on the new regulations. The second piece of bad news is that you’ll need to have at least three different individuals trained on the new regulations available to your district. The great news is that training for all three individuals will be much shorter than the old training.
Some ESUs have inquired about Title IX team training for member schools, and some schools are interested in hosting regional training with a few neighboring schools. If you’re interested in your choices for in-person training for staff and/or your Title IX team, contact Shari (shari@ksbschoollaw.com) for options, pricing, and dates. August and September are filling up fast, so reach out to Shari soon if you’d like in-person training.
Policies/Handbooks: More good news! There is no requirement to have the FULL Title IX policy in all of your handbooks! You will have to post an updated nondiscrimination notice on your website, in handbooks, and a few other places, but it’s pretty short. We plan to get our policy service subscribers what they need so that it will not impact your normal process for updating policies and handbooks this summer. We anticipate sharing all of our 2024 policy updates with subscribers toward the end of May.
That’s it for now! Much of the nationwide chatter is “hurry up and get started on Title IX!” We view it a bit differently. We know that the next few weeks are already incredibly busy for school staff. These new regulations do not need to derail the end of your school year. There’s certainly plenty to do to prepare for the August 1 effective date of the new regulations, but we’re going to use the flexibility in the new regulations to make things shorter, simpler, and easier to administer. If you have questions about the current regs or new regs or just want to talk through a plan for your school over the next few months, give one of us a call or drop us a line at ksb@ksbschoollaw.com. Otherwise, we’ll see you all on the webinar on June 25 at 9:00 CST to walk you through these new regulations in detail.