There’s lots of discussion but little concrete detail surrounding the Trump administration’s aim to ‘dismantle’ the Department of Education.
Ostensibly, those top-level tasks and the federal funds tied to them will be turned back to the states or, perhaps, allocated among other agencies. That’s if the president pursues an executive order and if the action passes muster in Congress.
In the meantime, local administrators say they’re in the same boat as other Americans – watching the same broadcasts and reading the same news to divine what may be coming down the pipeline in the future.
“That’s where we’re getting information,” Gladewater ISD Rae Ann Patty said Friday. Meanwhile, “I’m reaching out to the U.S. Congressmen. They’re awaiting guidance on how to assist us as well.”
She steers clear of the politics of it all, focusing on the facts and how the capitol’s changes in federal funding could have an impact here.
“There are a lot of unknowns,” Patty added. Right now, nothing’s changed so nothing changes: “We’re going to continue business as normal. We’re also going to be planning and looking at the needs of our kids, just like we do every year.
“That’s just a normal, best practice. Plan for the needs of your staff, plan for the needs of your kids, plan for the needs of your community.”
Down the road, White Oak ISD Superintendent Jack Parker says much the same – there have been no updates from Texas Education Agency, Region VII Educational Service Center or similar agencies regarding what’s brewing at the DOE in D.C.
“I just kind of follow the national news. Right now, I know as much as you know,” he said last week. As for what funding might be impacted if the department is abolished, “The biggest thing is our Title funds that we get. It affects every student on the primary and independent campus because that’s where those funds go.
“I can’t say the individual effect it would have on each student, but it would definitely have an impact on our budget. Therefore it would impact the students in the long run.”
In addition to grants under the ‘Every Student Succeeds Act’ and similar, Title funds fuel everything from closing achievement gaps (Title I) to teacher retention and professional development (II) to health, wellness and safety (IV).
“You’re going to have some salaries in there, you’re going to have some supplies, you’re going to have some people we pay to do professional development,” Patty said. “Dismantling all that (under DOE), you’re going to want to know what happens with those funds.”
Accountability comes into the equation as well – how would changes under new Secretary of Education Linda McMahon affect the balance of state and federal accountability requirements?
“We’re all on pins and needles about accountability and what’s that going to look like,” Parker echoed. “How many tests are our kids going to have to take?
Granted, “Right now we’re more worried about the state budget than anything we’re going to lose from the feds. That’s at the forefront of every superintendent in the state’s mind. That’s the biggest impact to us in the immediate future.”
School districts have already been dealing with the end of COVID-era funding through Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER).
“We were propped up with all this ESSER money for three years. Now that’s gone and that’s impacting the budget. A lot of school districts did pay for staffers out of that and took all the precautionary measures we did during COVID,” Parker explained. “Now we have to pay some of those staff members out of our regular budget and not COVID money.
“If we lose federal money again… that’s going to impact our budget. That’s going to be back-to-back years of federal cuts on the budget, and that’s super scary.”
The yes or no, good or bad debate on the Department of Education at the top is one thing. On the ground, changes would have ripple effects, large and small, immediate and long-term.
Among them, Gladewater ISD’s feeding program. The district receives funding through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) administered by Texas Education Agency. When a school meets a certain threshold for the number of students eligible for free or reduced lunch, meals can become free or reduced for every student. That’s the case at GISD.
Notably, that threshold is set by the Department of Agriculture but the program intersects with the DOE.
Likewise, Patty said, “Another place we receive federal dollars is the Head Start Program,” early childhood education targeted for the low-income demographic. “Pre-K is funded through state and local tax collections, but Head Start is federally-funded.”
With so many unknowns in the conversation, the gameplan is to keep serving the students and the teachers at the core of the local districts.
“I really think we have the best teachers in East Texas,” Parker said. “They come to work, they care about our students, they put their nose down and they just get after it every day. I’m very lucky, the district’s very lucky we have such great teachers in the classroom who really take our students into account daily.”
GISD keeps moving forward business as usual for the foreseeable future, Patty says.
“The kids are always going to be No. 1 for us,” she said. “We have to have staff. We have to do all these specific things to meet their needs. What staffing and resource needs do we have based on those needs?
“We want to be prepared, but we also want to meet the needs of what we do as well and get ready to roll into the 2025-2026 school year doing the best we can for kids.”