Gwinnett County Public Schools is currently one of 137 K-12 school districts under investigation by the Office for Civil Rights for 154 Title IX sexual-violence complaints, according to a spreadsheet, dated August 2, the department provided to The74Million.org, which published this story in partnership with The Atlantic. The pending investigations—against public districts, private institutions, and charter school networks in 37 states and the District of Columbia—stretch back as far as December 2010. On the university level, the office currently has 350 investigations pending at 246 postsecondary institutions, according to an Education Department spreadsheet also dated August 2.

Though Kimmel suspects the investigation against Gwinnett County is nearing a close, she said the outcome is up in the air as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos considers highly contested changes to the way the federal government holds schools accountable for sexual harassment and student assaults. The closely watched debate has converged around sexual violence on college campuses but it could also have huge ramifications for students in K-12 schools.

“What you see most commonly is that colleges are far ahead of K-12 schools in the development of their sexual-misconduct policies and procedures, their training, and their education of staff and students, making sure that students know who the Title IX coordinator is,” Kimmel said. “My concern is that—with the changes that seem to be coming from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights—K-12 schools are going to fall even further behind in terms of Title IX compliance.”

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Victims of sexual assault on college campuses found a national platform as the Obama administration placed a clear focus on Title IX enforcement, most notably for articulating the evidentiary standard for findings of wrongdoing in campus sexual-violence cases. While K-12 schools have largely been left out of the debate, in recent years the Office for Civil Rights has seen a surge in Title IX complaints against these schools similar to those targeted at colleges and universities.

Following a series of July listening sessions with victims of sexual violence, students who say they were unfairly punished under Title IX, and education leaders, DeVos is contemplating a philosophical and practical shift at the department’s civil-rights division, which the new administration plans to revive as a “neutral, impartial, investigative agency.” “A system without due process ultimately serves no one in the end,” DeVos said.

“There are some things that are working. There are many things that are not working well,” she told reporters. “We need to get this right.”

Obama-era Title IX guidance has been a thorn for Republican lawmakers and advocates who have alleged—including in lawsuits—that the former administration stripped due-process rights from students accused of sexual harassment and assault. At the heart of that complaint is a 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter that urged colleges and K-12 schools to better investigate reports of sexual violence, specifying that educators “must use a preponderance of the evidence standard” in campus investigations, rather than the more rigorous “clear and convincing” standard. Advocates for sexual-assault victims note the “preponderance of the evidence” standard is used to adjudicate other civil-rights claims, including discrimination.