Loudoun and four other Northern Virginia districts placed on federal reimbursement status, education secretary says

Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts have been designated "high-risk entities" by the U.S. Department of Education. According to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the designation puts more than $50 million in federal funds on a reimbursement-only basis.

McMahon described the action at a June 11, 2026 Justice Department roundtable. A transcript of that event appears in the department's 273-page "2026 Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools," released this week and dated Oct. 5.

"With utterly irresponsible districts like Loudoun County, which has a long history of subjecting female students to danger and indignity in their intimate spaces while ignoring parents who urged school leaders to protect their kids, ED, Education, took unprecedented enforcement action," McMahon said, according to the transcript. "We designated Loudoun and four other Northern Virginia districts as high-risk entities for blatant and ongoing violations of Title IX and placed them on reimbursement status for all Department funds, over $50 million dollars in total."

She then explained what the designation means in practice. "Typically departments can draw down their money and spend it, or states can," she said. "We said, no, you're going to spend your money first, then you're going to ask us for reimbursement. So put them on notice that we were watching."

The transcript does not name the other four districts. It also does not say when the designation was made, how the $50 million is divided among the districts, what specific Title IX findings support it, or what the districts would need to do to have it lifted. The characterizations are McMahon's. The DOJ report does not include responses from Loudoun County Public Schools or the other districts.

Title IX is the federal law barring sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal money. Loudoun's handling of Title IX matters comes up elsewhere in the DOJ report, which reprints in full an October 2025 federal lawsuit against the Loudoun County School Board and five former school officials. That suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, centers on the May 2021 sexual assault of a 15-year-old student with disabilities in a girls' restroom at Stone Bridge High School. The attacker was a male student wearing female attire.

The lawsuit alleges that the school system did not begin a Title IX investigation of the assault until Oct. 19, 2021, nearly five months after it happened. It says the investigation did not conclude until April 26, 2022, although the district normally completes such investigations in 60 days. It alleges the district failed to make a timely report to the Virginia Department of Education. It also alleges that the attacker was transferred to Broad Run High School and sexually assaulted another student there in October 2021. These are allegations that have not been proven in court, and the defendants' responses are not included in the report.

The lawsuit also describes Loudoun's "Policy 8040" proposal, under which students who identify as female would have had access to girls' restrooms, locker rooms and sports. A separate Loudoun case concerns locker rooms as well. At the same roundtable, then-Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department had moved to intervene in a lawsuit against the Loudoun County School Board. In that case, parents allege their sons were suspended after objecting to sharing a locker room with a transgender student.

McMahon framed the funding action as part of a broader push. "Children do not belong to the government. Let's be clear about that," she said. "They belong to parents." She also said her department was investigating Fairfax County Public Schools, along with state education agencies in California, Washington and Maine and a district in Massachusetts. She described those investigations as involving parental-rights laws.

Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who also spoke at the roundtable, said Loudoun County in 2021 had made "Virginia Ground Zero for parent's rights." Loudoun father Scott Smith told the panel that even under Youngkin, "the Loudoun County School Board actively defied the Governor's administration, repeatedly voting to reject state issued safety and parental notification guidelines."

The DOJ report itself focuses on how former Attorney General Merrick Garland's 2021 memo on threats against school officials was produced. It concludes the memo resulted from White House pressure over internal objections. Attorney General Pamela Bondi has rescinded the memo.

To Contact Fairfax School Board Members:
All Members - FairfaxCountySchoolBoard@fcps.edu,
Tom Dannan - tfdannan@fcps.edu, 
Robyn Lady - ralady1@fcps.edu,
Marcia St. John-Cunning -  mstjohncunni@fcps.edu,
Melanie Meren - HunterMillStaff@fcps.edu,
Ricardy Anderson - randerson@fcps.edu,
Mateo Dunne - mdunne@fcps.edu,
Karl Frisch - kfrisch@fcps.edu,
Sandy Anderson - sanderson@fcps.edu,
Seema Dixit - sdixit@fcps.edu,
Kyle McDaniel - kmcdaniel@fcps.edu,
Ryan McElveen - rlmcelveen@fcps.edu,
Ilryong Moon - imoon@fcps.edu,

Fairfax County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Fairfax, an independent city.

Email the Loudoun County School Board:
April Chandler, april.chandler@lcps.org,
Anne Donohue, anne.donohue@lcps.org,
Deana Griffiths, deana.griffiths@lcps.org,
Ross Svenson, ross.stevenson@lcps.org,
Kari LaBell, kari.labell@lcps.org,
Jon Pepper, jonathon.pepper@lcps.org,
Lauren Shernoff, lauren.shernoff@lcps.org,
Sumera Rashid, sumera.rashid@lcps.org,
Amy Riccardi, amy.riccardi@lcps.org,

Loudoun County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Leesburg.