The most infamous county in the United States of America for the past five years has been Loudoun County, Virginia. It is not because of its wineries; it is not because of its horse farms; it is not because of its beautiful, quaint downtown Leesburg; it is not even because of its data centers — rather, it is known for its school system. And that, unfortunately, is not a good thing. In just the last month, two stories illustrate why Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) have become shameful. First, law enforcement arrested a 19-year-old, “transgender” substitute teacher for plotting a “murder spree” at a local high school and then bragging online about having a kill list. Then, just this week, it was reported that a “transgender” student at another high school recorded and photographed over forty boys using the bathroom over the span of three years, resulting in another criminal investigation.
Sadly, these incidents have become commonplace at LCPS since 2021, when the school board debated and passed Policy 8040, which formalized providing super-rights to “transgender and gender expansive students,” allowing them to use opposite-sex restrooms when it matched their “gender identity,” while requiring all other students to accept this or find a private restroom or elsewhere to change. From that moment on, school board members and administrators have been determined to elevate all things “transgender” to the detriment of students, parents, teachers, and common sense. In the process, LCPS has put its federal funding at risk, has exposed itself to significant liability, and has become a national laughingstock.
LCPS’s self-inflicted humiliation really began during the debate over its “transgender” policy in May 2021, when it suspended a teacher for speaking against the policy at a school board meeting because his faith prohibited him from acknowledging students’ “gender identity” by using their chosen pronouns. The trial court swiftly reinstated the teacher, finding that LCPS had engaged in an “unnecessary and vindictive” attempt to violate the teacher’s free speech and free exercise rights. Rather than letting it go, LCPS appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court and promptly lost again.
The next month, hundreds of community members showed up to a school board meeting where Policy 8040 was being debated. The overwhelming majority of attendees voiced concerns that the policy would effectively eliminate students’ safety and privacy in same-sex restrooms and locker rooms. Following a round of applause for one of the speakers opposed to the proposed policy, LCPS shut down the public meeting and arrested two individuals. When the meeting resumed, then-superintendent Scott Ziegler claimed that there were no records of assaults in LCPS bathrooms, and the school board passed Policy 8040 six weeks later, again over fierce vocal opposition from the community.
In October 2021, The Daily Wire broke the story that one of the individuals who had been arrested at the June meeting was the father of a girl who had been raped in a bathroom at Stone Bridge High School by a boy wearing a skirt. To make matters worse, the boy was quietly transferred to a different school, where he sexually assaulted a second girl. According to sworn testimony in court, the boy identified as “gender expansive.” This became national news, the subject of congressional oversight hearings, and arguably a motivating factor in Virginians electing Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Sears, and Jason Miyares as governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, respectively. This remains the subject of an active Department of Education Title IX investigation and a federal lawsuit filed by the victim.
Upon taking office, Miyares opened an investigation, which ultimately ripened into a special grand jury investigation and the indictments of then-Superintendent Ziegler and then-Public Information Officer Wayde Byard. Byard was ultimately found not guilty of felony perjury, but Ziegler was convicted of using his public office to retaliate against a teacher who spoke up about being inappropriately touched by a student. While Ziegler’s conviction was ultimately vacated due to a flawed jury instruction, the school board fired him.
For the next four years, parents continued to show up at school board meetings, pleading with the board to repeal Policy 8040 and restore some level of sanity to its schools. In July 2025, following AFL’s formal request that the federal Department of Education open a Title IX investigation into Policy 8040, the Department of Education announced it had determined that LCPS’s policies constituted unlawful sex discrimination under Title IX. LCPS would have to rescind its “transgender” policies to come into compliance with federal law or risk losing all federal funding. In a move that would surprise no one in Loudoun County, LCPS voted to refuse to comply with the Department of Education’s requirements to resolve the matter.
And, just days after telling the federal government to pound sand, LCPS suspended two boys for objecting to an allegedly “transgender” female student using their locker room and filming other boys while she did so. Charged by LCPS with violating Title IX, the boys filed their own Title IX complaint against the female student for filming them and others in a boys’ locker room. LCPS dismissed their complaint. Enter the Department of Education yet again. The Department opened another Title IX investigation, finding the school system had engaged in sex discrimination against the two boys. The two boys also brought a federal lawsuit against LCPS, which led to a settlement this past February.
Loudoun County Public School parents have every right to wonder how a student could have surreptitiously recorded over 40 other students using the restroom over a three-year period. It strains credulity to believe that this situation had never been brought to the attention of teachers or administrators until now. And given that LCPS has shown a clear pattern of preferential treatment toward anyone who identifies as “transgender or gender expansive,” it would surprise absolutely no one if this student’s behavior had been covered up for that exact reason.
The good news is that parents in Loudoun County may soon get long-deserved answers about the dumpster fire that is their school system. That is because LCPS Superintendent Aaron Spence has been called to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee on June 10 at a hearing titled “Breaking Trust: Attacks on Parental Rights, Inappropriate Content, and Legal Abuses in America’s Schools.” LCPS may have been able to evade the tough questions over the past five years by limiting public comment, turning off cameras during school board meetings, and labeling every inconvenient fact “Misinformation and Disinformation.” Now, however, the most infamous school system in America will be the subject of a must-see congressional hearing on Capitol Hill. Get the popcorn ready. This will be a good one.
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Ian Prior is senior counsel at America First Legal and former deputy director of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice.
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