All North East Schools Intended to be on List of PA Schools Not Subject to Title IX 2024 Final Rule – UPDATED

You may be wondering why, as noted in Friday’s article, only the elementary school in North East would be subject to the new 2024 Title IX rules revision the board was planning to vote on and the rest would not and it is an unintended consequence of the combination of Davis Primary (K-2) and North East Intermediate Elementary (3-5) schools into one K-5 school entitled North East Elementary School. The combination created a new name and it does not appear on the list. The new name has since been submitted as well as a list of Moms for Liberty members sent to the school district which should put an end to votes for this Title IX rule change by the school board.

A court order restricting government action

There is a 1577 page unofficial version of the rule change available online. Yes, 1577 pages! You can check it out here (link corrected), but don’t worry, you don’t have to read it because right at the top of page one is a paragraph in red letters:

As of August 28, 2024, pursuant to Federal court orders, the Department is currently enjoined from enforcing the 2024 Final Rule in the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming; the Department is also currently enjoined from enforcing the 2024 Final Rule at the schools on the list located at https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/list-of-schools-enjoined-from-2024-t9-rule.pdf. Per Court order, this list of schools may be supplemented in the future. The Final Rule and this resource do not currently apply in those states and schools. Pending further court orders, the Department’s Title IX Regulations, as amended in 2020 (2020 Title IX Final Rule) remain in effect in those states and schools.

Pennsylvania is not among the states listed where the rule cannot be enforced, but there is a reference to a list, the list we referred to above, and which you can examine at the link in that paragraph, but it, too, is very long, so below is a much shorter list of only PA schools from the latest supplement, 08-28-24. The list is cumulative, so many PA schools not shown there are on the list from earlier supplements. You’ll notice, most schools in our area are on there as well, such as Millcreek, Girard and many others:

List of PA schools where Title IX cannot be enforced

The former name of the elementary school is there, too

North East schools are listed as follows:

North East High School
North East Intermediate Elementary
North East Middle School

Since the name was changed, that specific name no longer applies, but the very same school was obviously intended to be there. Was the superintendent, the members of the school board and the school solicitor all not aware of this obvious issue that would soon be corrected making the vote for this policy change unnecessary?

Solicitor misses the obvious

The solicitor in the board meeting lectured the members of the public at length that there was nothing that could be done, that NESD must follow PA and federal law, even though he referred to one school not being included on the no enforcement list, so he was aware of the elementary school not being there. How would he know that if he had not seen the list and the obvious exclusion of the elementary school simply due to the name being changed not because it didn’t qualify? It’s extremely obvious, how could he have missed it? Why didn’t he recommend not waiving the extra readings of the policy change, as recommended in the agenda, thereby delaying the vote. The solicitor’s statement that nothing could be done by the board was incorrect.

Everyone MUST pay attention

This whole chain of events should be a wake up call to all members of the public to pay attention to what is happening in our schools. We cannot have the school administration making decisions that are not in the best interests of our students and everyone in the North East community. Attend the board meetings. Look at the agenda and the backup documents before the meeting, they are always linked from this website and on the school district website. Be aware of what the schools are doing or trying to do. Your children are counting on you.