(Center Square) – Incumbent Chris Reykdal has officially won a third term as Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction.

With a remarkable 160,000 votes nationwide Wednesday, Reykdal leads his opponent, David Olson, by nearly 205,000 votes.

Olson fared better than nearly all Republican contenders in statewide executive races, garnering more than 46 percent of the vote. Only the Republican candidate for state land commissioner, Jaime Herrera Beutler, won a higher share of the statewide vote for a Republican, with 47 percent overall. King County Council President Dave Upthegrove won the land commissioner race.

Olson, a Peninsula School District board member, told The Center Square he was disappointed with the outcome.

“The geographic majority of the state voted for me, but this pocket of King County (33.6 percent for Olson) continues to control how everyone else in the state has to live their lives,” Olson said, noting he was encouraged of the support he received.

“A million and a half people in our state saying they’re unhappy with the guy running our show is an indictment, in my opinion,” he said. “I think we will continue to lose a significant number of students in the coming years, either to home school, private school or out of state.”

That previously reported by The Center Square, enrollment in Washington public schools is down 4 percent since 2019.

“I ran to restore public confidence in our public schools and to try to reassure parents that our public education is focused on educating children against pressing social and political ideologies,” Olson explained.

One of the most controversial issues facing public schools today concerns the changes to Title IX under the Biden administration. The Biden final rule the changes, which took effect in about half of US states, expanded federal protections for LGBTQ+ students in athletics and expanded protections against sexual harassment, among other changes.

Legal challenges have blocked more than half of all states from implementing the updated regulations, but not in Washington.

Reykdal also received rejection after recounting school districts not to enforce recently passed Initiative 2081, the parents’ bill of rights that allows parents and guardians of children in public schools to review instructional materials and inspect student records.

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Supporters said it’s a way to make sure parents don’t feel left out of their children’s education.

Reykdal told the state’s 295 public school districts that federal law provides protections that I-2081 conflicts with.

“Some of these records contain personal information and are protected by the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and, as such, cannot be disclosed without the student’s consent,” it said. read in a summer. press release from Reykdal’s office.

Independent Women’s Forum Senior Counsel Beth Parlato told The Center Square that Reykdal has no legal standing in the matter.

“He’s wrong because there’s no federal law that says you can keep information about your students under 18 from their parents,” Parlato said. “I can tell you, as a lawyer, it doesn’t matter what he says, because it’s the law; passed and passed by wide margins. He has no authority to tell anyone to break the law.”

The IWF has joined lawsuits in other states that have successfully fought against Biden’s Title IX changes.

“We have a new administration on January 20th, and I can almost guarantee that this will be a high priority for the incoming administration, and Biden’s illegal rewrite will no longer be in place,” Parlato continued.

Part of Reykdal guidance for school districts when the changes to Title IX went into effect was to provide training for each school to appoint a Title IX coordinator to answer any complaints or questions from students, staff or parents.

OSPI’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights was established to address these issues.

Center Square asked OSPI if the Office of Equity and Civil Rights has had to respond to any issues so far this school year.

“The Office of Equity and Civil Rights has been contacted by several school districts with questions about changes to Title IX rules that went into effect this summer,” OSPI spokeswoman Katy Payne responded in an email. “The ECR team would not characterize them as complaints; rather, there were questions about implementation, which is very common with any change to the law.”

That reported by the Associated Press this week, the incoming Trump administration is expected to quickly make changes, including one that could exclude transgender students from Title IX protections that affect school policies on student use of pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms.

Chris Reykdal has been re-elected as WA State Superintendent of Public Instruction