What is at Stake if the Alexandria City Public Schools Lose Federal Funding?
Thinking about the the dispute between ACPS, other Northern Virginia school systems, and the United States Department of Education over bathroom use by transgender students.
Earlier this year the United States Department of Education (ED), through an administrative complaint process administered by ED’s Office for Civil Rights, sought to compel the Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, Arlington County, and Alexandria City school systems to change their policies on the use of bathrooms by transgender students. ED’s initiative to ensure that access to restroom and locker room facilities will be limited by students’ sex assigned at birth carries with it the potential loss of federal grant funding for ACPS and the other four Northern Virginia school divisions.
How much ACPS depends on federal dollars, and what those funds pay for, is worth examining. What follows describes where the Fairfax County School Board v. McMahon case stands, how and why ACPS seeks to intervene in that case, and what ACPS expects to fund with federal dollars in fiscal year 2026.
Why ACPS Wants to be a Party in an Appeal to the Fourth Circuit
On August 29, 2025, the Fairfax County and Arlington County school boards filed a complaint and an emergency motion in Fairfax County School Board v. McMahon. The case was assigned to Judge Rossie D. Alston of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The school boards asked Judge Alston to enjoin ED and its Secretary, Linda McMahon, from proceeding against them. Judge Alston dismissed the motion, and the school boards’ complaint, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Judge Alston ruled that the Court of Federal Claims was the appropriate forum for the case.
Subsequently, the Fairfax County School Board appealed Judge Alston’s decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
On September 22, 2025, ACPS filed a 101-page Motion for Leave to Intervene as Plaintiff-Appellant in the Fourth Circuit appeal. Fans of lengthy federal court filings can read ACPS’ complete motion
ACPS’ motion asserts that the Fourth Circuit should permit it to be a party to the appeal in Fairfax County School Board v. McMahon:
ACSB [Alexandria City School Board] must intervene in this appeal in order to protect its own interests, and the interests of the many thousands of students it serves. While ACSB faces similar legal issues that FCSB [Fairfax County School Board] and ASB [Arlington County School Board] face, it receives different funds, in different amounts from the other divisions, and faces harm distinct from FCSB and ASB. ACSB’s federal funding amounts to approximately 5.2% of its annual budget of $392.27 million, and given the makeup of its student population – 47% of whom are eligible for free/reduced price meals – it is highly reliant on those funds to ensure that adequate services are provided to its students. (p.7-8)[1]
What ACPS’ Motion to Intervene Reveals
Intervention as a party in a civil case is in the discretion of the court. Appellate courts evaluate motions for leave to intervene in appeals on several factors, including timeliness, whether the existing parties adequately represent the interest of the intervenor, and the potential harm to the intervenor if intervention is not granted. Accordingly, it was essential that ACPS make the strongest arguments possible that justice requires that it be a party to the Fourth Circuit appeal.
ACPS’s motion argues that it exceeds Arlington County and Fairfax County in its reliance on federal money:
Additionally, ACSB relies on federal funds to a greater degree than its neighboring jurisdictions in Arlington and Fairfax. For example, more than half of ACSB’s schools are Title I schools, nearly double that of Arlington or Fairfax. Id. And, ACSB’s Title I funding as a share of its budget is almost triple its neighboring jurisdictions. Id. ACSB’s Title II funding is more than twice that of Arlington and 70% higher than that of Fairfax. Id. ACSB’s IDEA funding is likewise as high or higher than the other jurisdictions. Id. ACSB’s federal nutrition funding as a percentage of the overall school nutrition fund is between 15% and 30% higher for ACSB than either Fairfax and Arlington, respectively. Id. The immediate impact on ACSB, with a smaller overall budget than the other Appellants, is significant. Should the Appellees succeed in suspending ACSB’s federal funds, there will be significant impacts on student services, staffing assignments, and everyday expenditures that will cause real harm to the students served by ACSB. (p. 20)
What Federal Dollars Pay for in ACPS
ACPS’ motion includes, as Exhibit C, a sworn Declaration by Dominic Turner, ACPS’ Chief Financial Officer.
Mr. Turner’s Declaration describes ACPS’ expected sources and uses of federal funds in fiscal year 2026, which began July 1, 2025:
8. In fiscal year 2026, ACPS expects to receive the following in federal funds from DOE:
a. $3,682,791 in Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (”IDEA”) aid, which funds special education and related services as ACPS is required to provide by federal and Virginia law for school-aged students, as well as early childhood and infant and toddler early intervention services, for students with disabilities.
b. $4,105,065 in Title I Part A aid, which provides financial assistance to local educational agencies and schools with high numbers and/or percentages of children from low-income families to help support their ability to meet state academic standards.
c. $722,841 in Title III aid, which supports ELL [English Language Learner] students to become proficient in English and meet state academic standards.
d. $594,726 in Title II Part A aid, which provides funding to increase student achievement consistent with state academic standards, improve the quality and effectiveness of teachers, principals, and other school leaders, increase the number of teachers, principals, and other school leaders who are effective in improving student academic achievement in schools, and provide low-income and minority students greater access to effective teachers, principals and other school leaders.
e. $1,250,460 in Title IV aid, which provides financial assistance to local educational agencies and schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families to help ensure that all children meet state academic standards.
f. $324,209 in Perkins Act aid, which is a federal grant program providing funding to schools to support career and technical education (”CTE”) programs, including teacher training, work-based learning opportunities, and career guidance programs.
g. $29,823 for assistance in providing educational services of the Juvenile Detention Center.
h. $125,155 in Adult Education and Family Literacy Act assistance, which supports adult education and literacy programs with the goal of helping adults gain the skills they need to be productive citizens, family members, and workers.
i. $40,000 in McKinney-Vento aid, which provides support for students experiencing homelessness.
9. In fiscal year 2026, ACPS expects to receive the funding from other government agencies including but not limited to:
a. $9,153,000 in National School Lunch aid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”), which provides funding to school divisions to assist with providing nutritionally balanced meals to students each day including salaries and benefits of ACPS staff who work in food services, funds food and drink purchases and materials and supplies, and ensures ACPS can provide free or reduced-priced meals to its low-income students. ACPS is reimbursed on a monthly basis.
b. $1,900,000 in Medicaid funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), which reimburses ACPS for partial costs associated with providing medical services to children enrolled in Medicaid or Virginia’s Family Access to Medical Insurance Security Plan. (p. 74-75)
What to Watch For
ACPS seems justified in its motion to intervene in the Fourth Circuit appeal in Fairfax County School Board v. McMahon. In a sign of the consequences of our culture war-driven politics, the federal funds expected by ACPS in fiscal year 2026, and which may be at risk depending on litigation outcomes, are intended for deserving ACPS beneficiaries.
As federal and city taxpayers, Alexandrians are funding the legal and administrative costs of both sides of this dispute. Even so, predicting litigation results is a notoriously uncertain endeavor. Like other Trump Administration exercises of executive power, Fairfax County School Board v. McMahon may end up in the Supreme Court.
If the case goes to the Supreme Court, the Fairfax County School Board, and the Alexandria School Board if its motion is granted, will continue to argue that Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, a 2020 Fourth Circuit case, is a controlling precedent that should govern the result in Fairfax County School Board v. McMahon. In Grimm, the Fourth Circuit ruled:
At the heart of this appeal is whether equal protection and Title IX can protect transgender students from school bathroom policies that prohibit them from affirming their gender. We join a growing consensus of courts in holding that the answer is resoundingly yes.
The Grimm case can be read
The exact degree to which ACPS’ federal funding is at risk is difficult to assess. For example, of ACPS’ total expected fiscal 2026 federal funding, $10,875,070 is expected to come from ED and $11,053,000 is expected to come from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services.
In a worst case (for ACPS) scenario could its federal funding from USDA and HHS, which are not parties to Fairfax County School Board v. McMahon, also be at risk? Like everything else, it is something to worry about.
Your comments are very welcome.
[1] All page references are to ACPS’ Motion for Leave to Intervene as Plaintiff-Appellant.
Thanks for reading About Alexandria!
Subscribe for free to receive new posts.
Great write up. This should be a wake-up call that the era of federalism-by-grant-disbursement has come to an end. The response from cities like Alexandria should be to shore up the $20 million loss with proper urban planning.
I realize this takes time, and that the city - the public - needs that money now. It's a shame that the Trump administration is using the federal government like a mob boss, but he has shown the weakness once and for all. This subsidy-type of federalist relationship with states and cities has been severed, inexorably. The genie is out of the bottle.
Politics is not separate from place. If Alexandria is serious about feeding its students, teaching AltEd, etc., then Alexandria should make it happen on its own terms. Following proper urban planning principles will maximize local tax revenue, lessening the need for federal subsidies. That's real power. Power from financial independence against the very federal government strong-arming the country to abandon its transgender children to death.
Instead, federal subsidies have allowed Alexandria and many other cities and towns to abandon time-tested urban planning principles such as Jane Jacobs Four Conditions of City Use Diversity. Suburban sprawl has cost us a fortune and only has benefitted those profiting off of speculative markets such as wild housing price increases.
A very Basic Parental responsibility is Feeding their offspring. If parents can't do this WHY are they even having a family. There are food banks,churches etc that assist. WHY is the tax payer spending $9,153,000. on food and food service ???????There is NO good reason the parents can't pack a lunch and feed their kids before school! Has anyone heard of a Crok Pot If a parent works..so does a Crok Pot!!