Nearly half of school and district leaders expect their districts’ legal expenses to increase over the next year as they navigate a rapidly evolving federal education landscape, according to a new EdWeek Research Center Survey.
Forty-eight percent of principals and district leaders who responded to the nationally representative survey earlier this spring said they expect legal expenses to increase in the next year due to shifts in federal policy and enforcement under the Trump administration, and 43% said they expect no impact on their legal expenses. Nine percent said they expect legal expenses to decrease as a result.
The survey included responses from 126 principals and 157 district leaders. It was administered from March 26 through April 22.
Whether those cost increases come to pass in the upcoming year is hard to predict, said John Borkowski, an education attorney for Husch Blackwell in Chicago. But he thinks there’s reason to believe the pace of federal change and new directives could actually slow in the months to come, in turn stabilizing legal costs.
“In these first few months, all of us in the legal world and education space sort of feel like we’ve been drinking from a fire hose trying to digest everything that’s going on,” Borkowski said. “But I don’t know that that pace and level of change is sustainable.”
Since Donald Trump took office in January, district leaders have navigated a dizzying pace of new orders about education topics and others that affect children and their families.
Trump has issued dozens of executive orders, including one that seeks to end what the president considers “radical indoctrination” in schools on race and gender and another that bars transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports. Trump’s Education Department, sometimes acting on these executive orders, has also announced a series of quick policy shifts for schools, including a directive to end race-based programming or risk the loss of federal funds—which courts later blocked—and the return to an older set of regulations outlining schools’ obligations under Title IX, the nation’s law barring sex discrimination at federally funded schools.
Sometimes, the orders directly conflict with existing state or federal laws, and they frequently face legal challenges, straining districts’ legal experts’ ability to keep up and parse what to comply with and how.
Education legal experts have urged districts to consult with their lawyers for help, as the legal context can be highly district-specific. Depending on where a district is located, federal courts have differed in their interpretations of federal law, and different state laws also apply.
In these first few months, all of us in the legal world and education space sort of feel like we’ve been drinking from a fire hose trying to digest everything that’s going on. But I don’t know that that pace and level of change is sustainable.
Trying to interpret those orders—while also keeping up with the normal, day-to-day demands of managing a school district—has posed a new challenge for leaders, who have in recent years lamented the infiltration of political issues into the classroom and central office operations. Many said they have spent a large portion of their time in recent months working with legal counsel to analyze federal changes, determine potential impact on programs and budgets, and craft messaging for families and staff.
The good news, Borkowski said, is that the Trump administration has now made its priorities clear, and the legal system has set some precedents on how it may rule on certain topics and challenges (the administration, for example, is “very suspicious of DEI initiatives, and I don’t think that’s going to change,” he said).
Just as the Trump administration has issued new orders and directives and ramped up its enforcement of them, it has also slashed staffing at the Department of Education and its office for civil rights and the Department of Justice and its civil rights division, effectively limiting those agencies’ ability to seek out sweeping legal actions against schools and manage large caseloads, Borkowski said.
All of those facts together mean districts might actually not need to fear skyrocketing legal costs in the year to come, he said.
“Federal policy is sort of set. Folks have already started doing their analysis of, OK, what do we do in light of these changes and in light of potentially conflicting court decisions, and how do we handle it?” Borkowski said. “That is work that is and has been happening, or should be.”
It’s likely that many districts rely on in-house legal counsel to navigate the complex and constantly changing federal education climate, so those costs might not change as the school district attorneys are already on the payroll, education and legal experts say.
But not all districts have in-house counsel, and instead rely on outside firms for legal guidance.
So, concerns about increased legal expenses could be justified as new orders “impose significant legal obligations on school districts,” Sonja Trainor, executive director of the National School Attorneys Association, told EdWeek in February.
She recommended districts invest in and nurture strong, trusting relationships with their school attorneys. Those attorneys should have the time and freedom to attend events with their professional organizations and networks to stay abreast of changes and their implications for districts, she said.
“The dollar amount a school district dedicates to preventative, proactive counsel from their trusted school attorney pales in comparison to costly litigation, which districts now face from many directions in areas where the law is unclear or unsettled,” Trainor said at the time.
Borkowski also suggested that districts work together to share ideas and analyses of new orders and potential problems, and to rely on national professional associations like the Council of Great City Schools and AASA, The School Superintendents Association, for guidance. State-level administrator associations could also be a helpful resource.
“Those are the types of things where folks can sort of pool their resources and get some guidance so that not every district is trying to figure out every question on their own,” Borkowski said.
