CLAREMONT — The city’s School Board will discuss and consider rescinding its 2016 policy on transgender and gender non-conforming policy in the wake of an executive order President Donald Trump signed in January.

The New Hampshire School Boards Association is recommending Claremont’s policy be withdrawn because failure to comply with federal law could jeopardize the district’s federal funding, which pays for multiple programs including free and reduced-price lunches, Claremont School Board Chairwoman Heather Whitney said Monday.

Title I funds, for instance, support programs for low-income students, and Title III provides federal funding for language enhancement for those learning English.

Should the board decide to keep the policy in place as written, it could have consequences.

“It would be a substantial amount (of money) and would negatively affect our most vulnerable population,” Whitney said. “We can’t go a week without federal money.”

For the 2024-25 school year, Claremont received $2.15 million in federal money, exclusive of free and reduced lunch, which is not calculated until the end of the fiscal year in June.

The money represents about 6% of the district’s $38 million budget.

The school’s policy conflicts with Trump’s executive order in that it acknowledges that transgender people exist.

The School Board’s policy says it seeks “to ensure the safety, comfort, and healthy development of the transgender or gender nonconforming student while maximizing the student’s social integration and minimizing stigmatization of the student.”

The policy addresses issues related to locker room and restroom accessibility, gender-segregated activities and interscholastic sports. In each circumstance, the policy states students can use a facility or participate in an activity consistent with their gender identity.

Meanwhile, Trump’s nine-page Executive Order, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” issued shortly after his January inauguration begins with a declaration that there are only two sexes, male and female, and they are not interchangeable.

Federal law “supercedes local and state policy in all matters” and the board has to consider that reality when it decides its approach to this issue, Whitney said. The board and administration, she said, will endeavor to reach an outcome that considers first the well-being of all students.

Whitney said she doesn’t believe it is an all or nothing proposition for the School Board. Instead, she said she believes the board can find middle ground that protects federal funding and also the rights of transgender people.

Besides rescinding the policy, the board could approve amended language, or send it back to the board’s policy committee for review, Whitney said. One other option is to delay any decision with a motion to “lay on the table.”

“It doesn’t have to be draconian if handled correctly,” Whitney said. “I hope we can craft a policy that keeps a lot of the language so people feel we are acknowledging the vulnerability of that population of students.”

Whitney also does not believe the executive order by Trump, signed Jan. 29, is as “far reaching” as many believe and is primarily about athletics.

“It does not say you can’t acknowledge transgender students,” she said.

In February, New Hampshire’s governing body for public school athletics, New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association, NHIAA, instructed school districts to enforce a federal ban on transgender students playing on sports teams that do not match the gender at birth.

Wednesday night’s School Board meeting begins at 6:30 in the Sugar River Valley Technical Center.

The school district’s transgender policy is available at sau6.org.

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.