As Students Return to School, Educators Grapple With Chaos From Washington
By Linda Jacobson
For educators, there’s something about this back-to-school season that feels familiar.
It’s “the amount of information that’s coming to you all at once,” said Jeremy Vidito, chief financial officer for the Detroit schools. On a recent webinar, he laid out a litany of hardships, including figuring out “what’s true, what’s not. Emergency orders. Budget cuts.”
Leaders felt similar uncertainty in the fall of 2020, when the pandemic forced them to scramble to educate, feed and transport students. But this time, as 47 million students return to school in the coming weeks, the source of the unease is the federal government. The Trump administration has already frozen and unfrozen education funds, and seeks to further reduce school spending. Vidito said he’s urging principals in his district to stay calm, but “a lot of the stuff, we can’t control.”
As Education Secretary Linda McMahon travels to schools across the country to spread her gospel of returning control to the states, leaders say they’re hoping for something simpler: a return to normalcy.
“What is the next freeze, or what is the next issue that the administration may have with some of the funding that school districts get?” asked Mark Sullivan, superintendent of the Birmingham, Alabama, schools.
At a meeting with governors last month, McMahon offered “no guarantees” that she could prevent the kinds of “communication gaps” that led to previous dustups. Her comments came the same day that the Office for Management and Budget completed its unexpected review of several annual grant programs for schools. Officials said their initial inspection turned up expenditures at odds with Trump’s agenda — offering up, without elaboration, the use of school improvement funds on “a seminar on ‘queer resistance in the arts.’ ”
But after seven months with Trump in office, some district leaders have grown cynical.
David Law, superintendent of the Minnetonka Public Schools in Minnesota, doubts there ever was a thorough analysis and suggested that the few examples cited were meant as a warning.
“I think the pause was intended to let people know, ‘We don’t like these things, so if you’re doing them, you should be worried,’ ” he said. As they try to prepare for additional shocks to their budget, leaders nationwide, he said, are adjusting to the pendulum swing over diversity, equity and inclusion.
Under the Biden administration, “we were trying to prove we were caring about kids enough,” he said. “Now we’re trying to prove that we’re not meeting the definition of indoctrination. It’s a bit of a wild ride.”
‘Safe to speak’
For now, Congress has rejected Trump’s proposed cuts to K-12 funding. But OMB has still floated the possibility of a rescission package that would claw back unspent education funds from the current budget before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. Congress’ watchdog agency says that if the administration doesn’t give Congress ample time to approve or reject the cuts, the move would violate the law.
In a CBS interview, McMahon said funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act will flow with or without the Department of Education.
But reports that the administration might cut some special education grants already awarded for research, technology, and teacher and parent training alarm district-level staff.
“A reduction in this funding will create challenges for districts and could lead to the need to re-evaluate essential programs that help to support students eligible for special education services,” said Jessica Saum, a special education coordinator in the Cabot Public School District, outside Little Rock, Arkansas.
President Donald Trump has said that ensuring schools teach children English is the federal government’s only education-related obligation. But Vidito in Detroit said he’s still bracing for the elimination of funding for English learners.
Federal officials rescinded 2015 guidance stating that districts must take “affirmative steps to ensure” that English learners “can meaningfully participate in their educational programs and services.” The move expands on a July memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi saying that despite the president’s executive order declaring English the official language, the government should “minimize non-essential multilingual services” and focus on assimilation.
The unpredictability of this moment has prompted Merica Clinkenbeard, who directs English learner programs for the Springfield, Missouri, district, to remind teachers that the federal money is supplemental: Teachers are responsible for ensuring students become proficient in English with or without it.
Due to the threat of federal funding cuts, she lost three members of her leadership team.
“They felt like perhaps they would not have jobs in this field ever again,” she said. Now she has two positions she can’t fill. “I was telling my husband, ‘This is just like COVID, like everything I’ve known is going away.’ ”
Districts serving large English learner and immigrant populations are more cautious than most as students return this fall, especially after Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials detained an 18-year-old Los Angeles student last week while he was walking his dog. Officials said he had overstayed his visa by two years.
The fear of ICE raids has prompted more parents to ask about remote learning, said Sharon Balmer Cartagena, an attorney with Public Counsel, a nonprofit public interest law firm. She’s been holding “family preparedness” workshops for southern California districts, encouraging them to update emergency contact information in case a parent is deported.
Los Angeles Unified is one district trying to prevent ICE raids by stationing volunteers, staff and campus police around school zones. But she expects enforcement actions to ramp up with the start of the school year. Even so, she encourages parents to send their children to school in person.
“We saw what happened during COVID with younger kids learning remotely,” she said. Students in the early grades didn’t learn as well as they would have in a classroom and experienced both academic, social and behavioral setbacks, studies show. Now, many of those students are in middle and high school.
“To have that hit them again would be really detrimental,” Cartagena said. “Some of them are just starting to catch up.”
‘Doing it right’
Not all education leaders are dreading the next announcement from Washington. Louisiana Superintendent Cade Brumley welcomed McMahon to Baton Rouge Aug. 11, where she celebrated the state’s rising performance in reading. On the last National Assessment of Educational Progress, the state scored above the national average after trailing the rest of the country for years.
McMahon also hit Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida last week, three more states that embrace the Trump administration’s plans to reduce federal education oversight. Since her confirmation, she has limited most of her school visits to charter and private schools, to emphasize the administration’s focus on expanding choice. But this tour is giving her more exposure to traditional district schools.
“Louisiana is doing it right — and they don’t need the federal bureaucracy to make it happen,” McMahon posted on X after her visit to Jefferson Terrace Academy in East Baton Rouge.
But the state did need federal money, specifically the COVID relief funds, Brumley said during the CBS interview.
“We were able to use those pandemic dollars around the academic efforts that we knew were best for students,” he said. He agrees with McMahon’s position that fewer strings tied to education funding will lead to stronger results. “We’re just really excited about … not having these excessive restrictions and bureaucratic needs surrounding dollars.”
Educators want assurances that the funding their students count on is stable, said Saum, in the Cabot district. Some students with disabilities require significant hands-on help from staff members.
“Parents are following along,” she said “They want to know ‘Is my child going to get what they need to be safe and cared for at school?’ ”
With the formal title of “inclusion coordinator,” Saum said she has to be clear about her role at a time when the administration is trying to ban DEI-related programs.
“It can be so divisive when people don’t really understand we’re talking about children with disabilities,” she said. Others with similar positions, she said, have changed their titles to emphasize “meaningful access.”
If anything, Law, from the Minnetonka district, said the administration’s “critical lens” on schools have forced leaders to be “crystal clear” about their work. During a recent visit to a nursing home, as part of his efforts to connect with members of the community, he said a resident told him, “You should be teaching all these kids English.”
“ ‘I have great news. The only thing we’re teaching these kids is English,’ ” Law said he told him. “There will always be people that say you don’t need to kowtow to certain populations. I’m still going to say public education is all students getting free education.”