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US Department of Education via Flickr
AASA: New Title IX rules make administrators' jobs 'more challenging'
Naaz Modan
May 7, 2020
Dive Brief:
The U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday released long-awaited
updates to Title IX regulations that increase the responsibility for
K-12 schools to report and investigate sexual harassment and assault
claims.
Starting Aug. 14, schools will be required to respond to allegations
when any school employee has been notified by a student, as opposed to
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' earlier proposal that limited
those employees to teachers. Institutions can be held liable if they
fail to respond to notices by bus drivers, coaches, cafeteria staff and
others.
In addition, the regulations make optional live hearings between the
student victim and the accused, rather than previous language that
required formal proceedings.
Dive Insight:
DeVos clarified in a press call Wednesday that the new regulations are
also applicable if the alleged incidents occurred in a virtual setting
or during distance learning.
For the first time, Title IX will also formally include an expanded
definition of sexual harassment to include sexual assault, dating
violence, domestic violence and stalking as unlawful. But some say that
definition leaves out instances where students are verbally harassed or
threatened.
Additionally, the new regulations require schools to have accessible
options for reporting harassment verbally or in writing, including by
email or through telephone. And anyone can report incidents, including
bystanders, parents and friends.
But regardless of a formal complaint, the regulations require schools
to offer supportive measures for the alleged victim. The Education
Department's Office of Civil Rights says those kinds of supports can
include counseling, extension of deadlines, modifications of classwork
or schedules, campus escort services, increased monitoring or security,
and no-contact orders.
While a number of school groups acknowledge the positive change
compared to the 1975 regulations, they also said the rules put in place
new requirements for administrators and staff to follow.
"This is only going to make it more challenging for administrators to
do their jobs because now we have a ton of procedures that didn’t exist
before," Sasha Pudelski, advocacy director for AASA, The School
Superintendents Association, told Education Dive. She added the
regulations "greatly alter" policies from the department's 2001
guidance that district personnel have been following for almost two
decades.
Now that schools will be required to respond to any school employee who
is notified by a student about an incident, Pudelski said significant
trainings, processes and policies will have to be put in place to
ensure officials address all sexual assault claims.
Francisco M. Negrón Jr., chief legal officer for the National School
Boards Association, added that any employee being notified may be less
practical for districts from an operational standpoint. "What if a
comment is made sort of in passing or to a custodial employee?" he
explained. "It may be that schools have to put into place policies
about how that information flows uphill so that the district can
actually do something about it."
Not requiring schools to pursue live hearings relieves educators from
worries around formal processes younger students may not be emotionally
equipped for. The Education Department noted in a press call that it
made a distinctive change between how some processes in K-12 and higher
education are addressed for a similar reason, adding that old
legislation only dealt with that distinction as a "footnote".
"Schools are still going to be free moving forward to continue with the
informal investigative process that is most relevant to them and works
for them and the children," Negrón said, adding the process could be,
for example, as informal as a principal asking a student to describe
what happened.
Education experts also raised concerns language included in the new
rules could exacerbate the "pass the trash" phenomenon, allowing
teachers who have been accused of sexual abuse to resign quietly and
then get a job with another school district. But the Education
Department said the new rules have the opposite effect.
The final regulations are similar to DeVos' 2018 proposal, which was
left open for comments and criticized by many for favoring the accused
compared to rescinded guidance from the Obama era that offered
protections for alleged victims.
These regulations also come amid a backdrop of a reported increase in
K-12 sexual harassment and violence complaints filed with the
department's Office of Civil Rights. Assistant Secretary for Civil
Rights Kenneth L. Marcus said last year that those numbers are "nearly
fifty times greater" now than a decade ago.
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