And yet, we have reached what is perhaps a zenith in Trump-era politics of . The administration’s response to America’s youth crisis has been stunningly consistent: again and again, it has balanced occasional, to do something to address or on the one hand with real and stunningly on the other. 

Perhaps the most direct and comprehensive assault on children is coming through the administration’s war on Head Start. , it’s the federal government’s largest-single investment in early learning, and it . Over its 60 years, Head Start has provided high-quality early learning as well as connecting around and their families to health and dental care, nutrition and housing assistance. 

During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump echoed the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook in . This was hardly novel: though Head Start has long enjoyed bipartisan support, a subset of , and have spent decades attacking the program. 

While the administration’s chaotic first 100 days of the federal supporting health and well-being, its attacks on Head Start have been uniquely unpredictable. , as Elon Musk and his underlings at the Department of Government Efficiency hacked away at the federal civil service, Head Start providers across the country reported that they were unable to access their normally scheduled federal payments. This posed a particular challenge for Head Start center directors navigating the tight margins that define the early education market; hundreds of early care and learning centers warned that they were at risk of closure. 

Later in the spring, the administration abruptly that offer resources, support and oversight for Head Start providers. 

Several weeks ago, it appeared that the administration was preparing to act more decisively to abandon U.S. kids and families who depend on Head Start. On April 17, the indicating that the Trump administration would erase Head Start funding in its forthcoming budget proposal. Once this hit the news, Head Start supporters to save the program, and the administration . 

While it appears that the administration isn’t (yet) ready to deliver on this promised assault on children’s well-being, it’s worth reminding ourselves just what a stunning mistake it would be to reduce this particular investment in U.S. kids and families. 

Head Start has been studied many times, and the results are broadly positive. Research on it — and other early education programs — finds a relatively consistent pattern:

• Early education programs are reliably good for families and at preparing kids for kindergarten
  
• There’s some waning of positive academic impacts as kids go through K-12
  
• But the long-term impacts of early ed investments are generally positive. 

First, at helping children from historically marginalized communities. Perhaps most importantly in the present political context, early education programs tend to promote better child development outcomes that create cost savings for school budgets. This mostly results from pre-K programs like the likelihood that children will later require special education services or need to repeat a grade. 

For instance, economist Tim Bartik notes that studies show possible of “23 to 86 percent.”   Meanwhile, if a child repeats second (or any) grade, the public pays an additional year of per-pupil funding, and it also delays their entry into the workforce. As such, and keep students on track for college and career is a efficient . Finally, early education programs like Head Start are a boon for working families because get after having a child. 

Most encouraging of all, Head Start appears to create some long-term positive effects. In 2022, the children of Head Start participants garnered benefits like higher high school graduation and college attainment rates, lower rates of teen pregnancy and reduced rates of interaction with the criminal justice system.

For instance, often point to the federal , which gathered data on programs in the early 2000s. It largely found that Head Start had positive initial effects on children’s development, but that these effects “faded out” as kids worked their way into the K–12 education system. But prompted a field of its findings in the 2010s, with concluding that it meaningfully Head Start’s to . 

This begs some critical questions about how the public should measure “success” for Head Start. Begin here: nearly every study of nearly every early education investment shows that these programs are effective at getting kids ready for K–12 schooling. Put simply, pre-K appears to be good at getting kids “pre”-pared for K(indergarten). 

The trouble is, political rhetoric about early education investments has sometimes presented them as an invulnerable “” against all challenges that children may face later in life. This is the wrong way to think about whether early education investments “work,” because it sets an impossible bar for success. Head Start — or pre-K programs more generally — cannot wholly blunt poverty, poor health or the impacts of low-quality K–12 classrooms.

Indeed, even , like those in a recent study of Tennessee’s public pre-K program, indicate a positive path forward for public early education investments. Initial studies of the program garnered headlines. While Tennessee pre-K attendees were than their peers who did not attend the program, pre-K attendees scored worse on a range of metrics by the end of elementary school. 

This is concerning! But a pre-K’s benefits were “most likely to persist until 3rd grade among those students who went on to attend high quality schooling environments and were taught by highly effective teachers.” That is, Tennessee’s pre-K programs succeeded at preparing children for kindergarten, and kids who went from those programs into higher-quality elementary classrooms continued to do better. 

In other words, if Head Start and other pre-K programs are measured as a one-time public investment that will solve all systemic inequities in American schools and society, they will inevitably appear to fail. But if they are measured against their ability to prepare children for elementary schools, it is clear that they are a success. 

Furthermore, this fairer definition of Head Start’s effectiveness would allow policymakers to focus their attention on the necessary work of investing and improving K–12 schools so that they bolster children and families beyond the early years. 

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

Chalk one up for the 4-year-olds.

Thanks to a relentless onslaught of pleading, cajoling, lobbying and public pressure, Head Start appears to have dodged the federal budget axe — for the time being.

Last month, President Donald Trump’s early budget draft of Head Start, the free early-childhood program for low-income families. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative policy roadmap, also called for the , saying it has “little or no academic value.”

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

That triggered an all-hands-on-deck response from Head Start staff, families and alumni, who touted the program’s success in propelling families out of poverty. The National Head Start Association said advocates sent more than 300,000 letters to Congress, added more than 50,000 signatures to and attended rallies throughout the country.

Meanwhile, Head Start advocates took to social media and to plead their case and visited Republican members of Congress to convince them of the program’s value. They reached out directly to the White House. In their free time, advocates said they lobbied everyone from neighbors to hairdressers to gardeners — anyone who had even a remote interest in the program.

It appears to have worked: The latest draft of Trump’s budget proposal, released last week, doesn’t call for any changes to the $12.27 billion program. Still, advocates worry that new cuts may lie ahead.

“We mobilized absolutely everyone,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start in California. “We launched a very intensive campaign. We still have a lot of concerns, but right now there’s a sigh of relief.”

From prenatal to kindergarten

Head Start, launched in 1965, served about 800,000 children last year, including 83,000 in California. Originally a preschool, the program now serves children from birth through age 5. Children get meals and a play-based academic curriculum that prepares them for kindergarten, while families get housing and job assistance, referrals to social and medical services, prenatal visits and parenting support.

To qualify, families need to be below the , which is $26,650 for a family of three, be homeless or receive food assistance. Children in foster care also qualify.

The program is relatively cost-efficient: The per-pupil annual cost is about $13,700, compared to the cost of private preschool, which in California can easily exceed $20,000 a year, depending on the location.

Research is mixed on the program’s effectiveness. found that Head Start alumni had significantly higher rates of high school and college graduation. But found that children who attended Head Start outperformed their peers at first, but by third grade the advantage had all but dissipated.

Regardless, the program is immensely popular with families and programs typically have waiting lists.

Head Start is helping families in San Diego

Oscar Gomez, vice chair of Episcopal Community Services’ board of directors, a Head Start provider in San Diego, attended the program as a child growing up in Tulare County. While his mother worked in the nearby almond and orange orchards and took English classes, Gomez and his three siblings learned to share and take turns, count to 20 and write their names.

Head Start imbued him with a love of school and allowed his mother to take classes that led to higher-paying jobs, he said. Gomez went on to get two master’s degrees and his mother now conducts home visits for Head Start.

“I can honestly say that without Head Start I would not be where I am today, and there are millions and millions of people like me,” Gomez said.

Episcopal Community Services runs 17 Head Start programs, serving 1,200 children from Chula Vista, San Ysidro, San Diego and other communities. Parents typically work in local restaurants or hotels, and 60% share their living quarters with other families.

If they lost Head Start, families would either have to curtail their work hours or leave their children with neighbors or other family members, arrangements not likely to provide the same high-quality curriculum or services, said Rosa Cabrera-Jaime, the organization’s director of early education and family services.

“Absolutely, some of our families would become homeless if they lost Head Start,” she said.

Precious Jackson, a single mother of four, has relied on Head Start while she earns her bachelor’s degree and works as a substitute school librarian in San Diego. She also credits Head Start for providing speech therapy to her son, when he wasn’t talking as a toddler, and providing an extra academic boost to her daughter, whom she believes is intellectually gifted.

“Head Start has made a tremendous difference in my life,” Jackson said. “I am not wasting one drop of this opportunity.”

Without Head Start, she’d be working two or three jobs just to pay for child care, she said. Now, she can plan a higher-paying career. She hopes to graduate soon with a degree from University of Arizona’s online campus and work as a school librarian.

But she’s rattled by potential cuts to Head Start, which could derail her own education.

“For me, Head Start is a necessity,” she said. “I want to tell Congress, Head Start works. Let’s keep it rolling.”

‘Folks are scared’

Congress will release its budget in the next few weeks, and Head Start advocates are confident that it will reflect Trump’s wish to save the program. But it’s not guaranteed, and the final budget may still include steep cuts. In addition, they worry about cuts to other programs, such as Medicaid, that could cause Head Start families to lose health care and other services.

Neither Trump nor Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., who oversees Head Start, have addressed Head Start cuts directly, but Trump has said he wants to hand more education programs to the states and reduce federal spending. Meanwhile, some Republican lawmakers have come out in favor of Head Start, including numerous members of the California Legislature who last week joined their Democratic colleagues to send to Congress asking to protect the program.

Cuts to HSS have already affected services, Cottrill said. Amid a , the agency closed half of its regional centers, including one in San Francisco, leading to long delays in getting help and receiving payments. An HHS has prevented Head Start staff from getting clarity on funding.

“We’ve had programs within hours of closing their doors,” Cottrill said. “It’s been so hard to keep morale up and keep staff focused on their jobs, if they don’t know whether they’ll have a job tomorrow and families don’t know if they’ll have someplace to take their children.”

Head Start staff also worry about the Trump administration’s anti-diversity orders. The program requires a approach in the classroom, which includes bilingual education and meals that children would recognize from home, among other things. Staff aren’t sure how to comply with Trump’s orders while also meeting program requirements.

Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, said the recent tumult has left staff and families nervous.

“Folks are scared. The fact that eliminating Head Start was even under consideration has been scary,” he said. “We’re confident that Congress will do the right thing, but even a 25% cut would be pretty austere.”

This article was and was republished under the license.

On Friday, several hours after The 74‘s story published, the Washington state nonprofit that operates the seven shuttered Head Start and 11 Early Head Start programs received the Notice of Award it had been waiting for, confirming its funding was coming. Inspire Development Centers has since been “moving quickly to recall all children and staff for a Monday morning start,” CEO Jorge Castillo said in a text message.

On Tuesday afternoon, instead of welcoming her son’s Early Head Start teacher for their weekly home visit, Gricelda Valenzuela brought 2-year-old Abram to his teacher’s office to say goodbye. The mom said she got choked up as she gave the teacher a parting thank you gift and Abram reached out for a hug.

“He looked at her, and when she carried him to say goodbye, he kind of just put his head on her shoulder,” Valenzuela said. “I’m not sure how much he understands of this, but I know he built a great relationship with her. I’m not sure if in the weeks to come he will feel that void of not seeing her or getting out of that routine.”

Abram is one of the at least 400 children in eastern Washington state who abruptly lost access to their Head Start or Early Head Start programs Wednesday morning, and his teacher was one of nearly 75 staff members who were laid off. 

“I was just in shock,” said Valenzuela, who first learned about Early Head Start when she was pregnant with Abram and a blood test revealed he’d likely be born with Down Syndrome. “[The government can] just do that? It’s just gone? With no warning, nothing? There goes my son’s help.”

Jorge Castillo, CEO of , the nonprofit that operated Abram’s program and others, said the federal funding award they were supposed to receive in mid-February still hadn’t arrived — nor had any communication about its delay. Without his regional Head Start office to turn to and not knowing when, or if, he would be reimbursed for expenditures, Castillo was forced to close seven Head Start and 11 Early Head Start centers that served predominantly low-income and Latino kids and families.

While he hopes the move is only temporary, he has no idea how long it will last or if the teachers he just let go will still be there if can rehire them at some future date.

“I’d never thought we’d even see this day,” said the veteran early child care provider who has been with his organization for 31 years.

‘Programs will go under’

The Washington state closures are the outcome most feared since President Donald Trump took office and plunged Head Start programs across the country into chaos and uncertainty. 

The administration has frozen — then quickly unfrozen, then delayed — grant funding, shuttered five regional offices and fired scores of employees. 

In interviews with over a dozen people currently or formerly affiliated with the early learning and wraparound support programs created in 1965 to combat poverty, it’s clear the last three months have left providers, educators, parents and staff scrambling and afraid.

Their sense of panic ratcheted up considerably after first and then reported that Trump’s 2026 proposed budget would fully defund and eliminate the Office of Head Start, reflecting a long-held wish of right-wing conservatives and a recommendation outlined in , the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for how the administration should dismantle the federal government.

Neither the White House nor the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start, responded to requests for comment. Funding for the Office of Head Start can’t be eliminated without congressional approval. 

The prelude to the proposed elimination occurred on April 1 when approximately 500 employees under the Office of Administration for Children and Families, the HHS division that runs the Office of Head Start, received termination notices, according to a created and maintained by former ACF staff. 

They encompass the fired regional staff in Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco, who were employed across a number of divisions beyond Head Start. Those include Family and Youth Services, which works to put an end to homelessness, adolescent pregnancy and domestic violence, and the Office of Family Assistance, which administers grant programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. 

Overall, ACF’s footprint dropped from approximately 2,400 people in January to about 1,500 after April 1 — a greater than 35% reduction in staff in just three months, according to the tracker. 

“This administration is clearly taking a behind-the-scenes, death-by-1,000-cuts approach where they try to cut it off at the knees,” said Katie Hamm, former deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development under President Joe Biden.

Before their firing, the six or so staffers assigned to Head Start in the Seattle office supported 58 Head Start and 53 Early Head Start grantees, serving over 28,000 children across four states, according to the Washington State Association of Head Start and the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program.

These employees were considered experts in their regions and had a wide range of responsibilities, including processing grants and providing child safety oversight. Program leaders say they have nowhere to go now with their questions, needs or grant applications beyond a generic federal email address many say they don’t trust based on the administration’s actions so far.

“Programs will go under” as a result of these closures, said one of the dozens of fired Seattle regional office employees, who asked not to be identified by name for fear of losing his administrative leave benefits. 

He pointed to Castillo’s organization as an example saying, “early learning programs are closing their doors. We’re going to lose out on child care slots — specifically in Tribal communities — because dollars are time limited and there’s just way too much work … to [get] money out the door. We’re going to see the work just not getting done and programs [not] being funded.”

Slashing the regional offices is like, “destroying the pipes that bring water to a community,” said Melissa Boteach, chief policy officer of , a nonprofit advocacy organization. “If you’re gutting the staff that is overseeing and distributing the funding for a program, you’re going to end up restricting access to the end product, and in this case, that’s high-quality early learning for children. It’s going to be especially acute in rural areas and for children with disabilities.”

Valenzuela, the Washington mother and a high school math teacher, and her husband began looking for resources for Abram while she was still pregnant. Because of his disability, they were connected with Early Head Start. Since then, a teacher had been coming to their Sunnyside home for weekly visits to work with Abram on meeting his educational and developmental goals. Every other week, Abram would go to an Early Head Start classroom where he played with other kids and strengthened his sensory and fine motor skills.

“[He] has made great strides,” his mother said. 

While she’s devastated to lose the program, she knows she and her family are privileged to have the resources to support Abram in other ways. But she’s worried for fellow community members who may not have the same access.

Almost 1 in 5 Sunnyside residents About 87% are Hispanic and the most common employment sector is agriculture and forestry. Valenzuela said she knows many of these parents rely heavily on the Head Start program.

“How are we going to leave this whole section of students without the help that they need?” she asked.

Waiting for May 1

All of this is part of a larger effort to “implode the program from the inside,” according to Joel Ryan, executive director of the, which represents providers and families. “They’re basically trying to kneecap the program so that the Head Start programs can’t operate as effectively.”

Some providers reported “rolling blackouts” to the payment management system in the weeks following Trump’s Jan. 27 , later , calling for a temporary federal funding freeze to “grant, loan and other financial assistance programs.” The outages prevented them from accessing federal funds and for a number of days, according to Ryan. 

Then came the firings of federal probationary employees — those that were newly hired or promoted — which resulted in a loss of about 18% of the Head Start staff, according to Hamm, the former Biden administration deputy assistant secretary.

Two months later, on March 27, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a of HHS, which would reduce the workforce by about 10,000 full-time employees and consolidate 10 regional offices to five. 

Most program and support staff across the five shuttered regional offices were fired and only learned of their terminations hours before the work day on April 1 via a mass email, Ryan said. Some didn’t realize they had lost their jobs until they arrived at the office that morning, only to be locked out of the building.

In total, the staff — some of whom had worked at the offices for decades — served 22 states, a number of territories, and hundreds of thousands of children, pregnant women and their families. 

Head Start providers and grantees who report to those regional offices largely heard about the fallout through word of mouth and panicked texts and LinkedIn posts. They said they didn’t receive any official notice from the federal government until a boilerplate email arrived in their inboxes two days later.

Some providers are scared that if they call attention to their centers by asking for help they may face punishment from the administration so they’re avoiding official channels altogether and attempting to troubleshoot issues on their own. Others told The 74 they were too anxious to share their stories with the media — even anonymously — out of fear the Trump administration might still identify them and withhold their funding in retaliation.

Since its inception in the 1960s, Head Start programs have reached and their families, the majority of whom meet federal low-income guidelines. the $12 billion program served over 778,000 children from birth to age 5, pregnant mothers and their families in urban, suburban and rural areas in all 50 states and six territories.

Just over a third of those enrolled in were Latino, 29% were Black and just under a quarter were white. About 48,000 families served during the enrollment year experienced homelessness, and around 51,000 families received housing assistance through the program.

Head Start programs also connect families to community and federal assistance and can help provide a career pathway for parents into early child care and education. The 1,600 local agencies are funded by the federal government, though many also tap into state and local revenue sources.

In arguing for its elimination, Project 2025 asserts that Head Start has “little or no long-term academic value for children.”

While research around Head Start has found the program appears to increase children’s economic opportunities and reduce poverty according to out of the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Nebraska. Kids who attended Head Start were 2.7% more likely to complete high school and 8.5% more likely to enroll in college. College completion rates rose by 12 percentage points — an increase of 39%. And participation in Head Start appears to have reduced men’s reliance on public assistance and adult poverty rates among women.

Providers across the country now have their eyes set on May 1, when a number of them are expecting approvals of their next round of grants. Experts are concerned that the closure of the regional offices could result in a backlog of processing, which could then lead to more service disruptions for kids. 

One program director said that even though her grant is not up for renewal quite yet, she’ll be closely watching those that are. 

“Those guys I feel like are going to be the canary in the coal mine to let us see what happens,” she added.

Every school in Kentucky’s LaRue County provides free breakfast and lunch to any student who wants it.

It’s been that way for a decade, ever since the federal government launched a program allowing LaRue County Schools, and thousands of other districts nationwide, to skip the paperwork asking how much families earn.

In these communities, lots of kids already receive other kinds of assistance for low-income families. Federal officials saw a way to make the subsidized meals program more efficient: Cover meal costs based on how many children are in similar assistance programs, rather than verify every family’s income.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

But LaRue County Schools won’t be able to do that anymore if sweeping changes to social programs proposed by congressional Republicans become law. GOP lawmakers say they want to ensure only eligible families get help and that taxpayer dollars are reserved for the neediest students, so that federal subsidies for school meals remain sustainable. But by one estimate, the Republicans’ plan would affect nearly a quarter of the students in the nation’s public schools.

, increase test scores, and decrease suspensions, likely because it eliminates the stigma students often associate with the free meals. Taking them away from students on a large scale could also have downstream effects on everything from families’ household budgets to local unemployment.

Stephanie Utley, the LaRue County district’s director of child nutrition, said that inevitably, fewer kids would eat school meals, either because their families no longer qualify for free breakfast and lunch or because they cannot produce documents to verify their income.

When fewer kids eat school meals, it’s harder for districts to cover their costs. To save money, Utley would likely swap higher-quality foods for cheaper ones, she said.

Apples and beef from local farms would go. The high school would serve fewer salads — they’d be too labor-intensive to prep. And a popular chicken breast sandwich would become a ground chicken patty.

Utley may have to lay off staff, too, she said, which would hurt the rural community’s economy.

“We’re the biggest restaurant in town,” she said. “It would be a nightmare.”

GOP school meals proposals would impact states

Republican lawmakers are considering a trio of proposals to help offset tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump that would be “devastating” to children and schools, said Erin Hysom, the senior child nutrition policy analyst for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center.

One proposal would dramatically increase the share of students who need to be enrolled in aid programs — such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — for schools to be eligible to serve free meals to all kids through the .

Right now, schools need to show 25% of students are enrolled in those kinds of assistance programs to participate in community eligibility. The House Republican proposal would raise the share to 60% — higher than the threshold has ever been. That would kick more than 24,000 schools off of community eligibility, and some 12 million students would no longer automatically qualify for free meals, .

Essentially, only communities where nearly every child qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch could serve free meals to all kids.

“They’ve really moved the needle to the upper echelon of poverty,” Hysom said. “You couldn’t get any higher than that.”

Another proposal would require all families who don’t automatically qualify for free school meals through programs like SNAP to submit documents to verify their income with their application. That would burden families and schools with time-consuming added paperwork. Schools could end up cutting staff who serve food and work on school menus to hire more people to process applications.

Together, those changes would save $12 billion over 10 years, according to , the Republican chair of the House budget committee.

A third proposal would change how families qualify for SNAP and likely for free school meals. That would increase the paperwork burden even more.

All of that would make it more costly for to run their programs, because they rely heavily on federal reimbursement. whether they .

These three proposals are part of a process known as budget reconciliation that GOP lawmakers are using . As of Wednesday, that would keep funding essentially flat for the Agriculture Department, which pays for the school meal program, through the end of September.

School staff and child nutrition advocates are taking the House’s budget reconciliation proposals seriously. The Trump administration has already .

Free school meal cutbacks would have ripple effects

If fewer kids have access to free meals at school, more families would likely struggle to afford groceries at home. Many families who don’t qualify for free meals struggle to pay for food. This school year, a family of four qualified for free school meals if they made under $40,560 a year.

When schools eliminated free school meals for all following the pandemic, there was a , an issue school staff say will only intensify if these proposals go through.

Right now, schools typically have to verify the family’s income for 3% of their applications. If schools had to check income for every application, the burden would be enormous, school staff and child nutrition advocates said.

Many families who eke out a living working multiple jobs would have a hard time gathering up all the required documents to show how much they earn. Though children can participate in the school meals program regardless of their immigration status, undocumented parents may be afraid to hand over personal documents when Trump is threatening mass deportations.

“Eligible children are going to fall through the cracks,” Hysom said.

Many schools are already facing financial pressures from higher-than-usual food and labor costs, a . On top of that, schools are navigating new and stricter requirements for how much salt and sugar can be in food served by schools.

Schools have to buy most of their food from American sources, but if Trump puts certain tariffs in place for the long term, that could create new financial constraints.

“Cost is absolutely a concern,” said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition directors and conducted the survey. “When avocados or tomatoes from Mexico become much more expensive, that will cause an increase in demand for domestic produce, and an increase in price, as well.”

Shannon Gleave, the president of the School Nutrition Association, understands the need to make sure the school meal program runs as it should.

In Arizona’s Glendale Elementary School District, where Gleave is the director of food and nutrition, kids can speed through the lunch line because everyone qualifies for free meals. But staff scan student ID badges to make sure each kid only takes one meal, and that children with dietary restrictions get the right food.

Upping the verification requirements a little could work, she said. But verifying 100% of applications “is not an efficient use of time.”

“There is no way my existing staff could do that now,” she said. “You have to figure out a way to be good stewards of resources, but also look at the amount of administrative burden that it’s going to entail.”

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

The city of Providence has halted all discretionary spending and imposed a hiring freeze to comply with a court mandate to fund the city’s public schools — with the potential for cuts to municipal services and even a property tax hike, Mayor Brett Smiley told reporters gathered in his office Tuesday.

The warning about tough choices ahead comes three days after a Providence Superior Court judge (RIDE), which is withholding millions in state aid to Providence until the city appropriates local dollars to fund its public schools, which have been under state control for the past five years.

“The decision the court handed down put the city’s finances at risk,” Smiley said. “And we’re going to have to make very difficult decisions in the days ahead.”

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

That could include cuts to all grant programs for the community libraries, housing support, and parks programs. Smiley said his office would also consider rolling back police patrols at PVDFest and other holiday celebrations.

“That will all have to stop,” he said.

Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Lanphear on Friday upheld a request from Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green to state Treasurer James Diossa to withhold $8.5 million in state car tax payments from the city, claiming Providence owed nearly $30 million to the district under the that authorized RIDE’s 2019 takeover of the Providence Public School Department.

A decision on how much the city must pay was originally scheduled for Wednesday morning but was postponed to Nov. 20. The City Council’s Committee on Finance was scheduled to meet to reallocate $1.5 million in federal COVID relief funds to help cover school budget shortfalls at its Tuesday meeting, but postponed that part of its agenda to Monday, Nov. 18.

Michelle Moreno Silva, spokesperson for Diossa’s office, declined to comment on the Superior Court’s ruling.

“Our role here is very minimal,” she said in a phone interview. “We just hold the money.”

Smiley told reporters Tuesday that the city may have to conduct layoffs and furlough additional employees — which he said would save the city $200,000 per day. Also possible, he said, the city could impose a mid-year tax hike, something it can’t do without General Assembly approval.

“If legislation is introduced, it will be thoroughly reviewed through the public committee hearing process,” Senate spokesperson Greg Pare said in an email.

Last week’s Superior Court ruling intensified the battle over funding obligations to the district. The feud went public in early October after Smiley to reveal an “ultimatum” made by Providence Superintendent Javier Montañez asking for $10.9 million for the district.

Montañez warned Smiley that without the cash from the city, the district would have to cut winter and spring sports, along with revoking students’ Rhode Island Public Transit Authority bus passes.

Smiley responded with a $1 million offer the following day, promising to use money from a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement recently struck with Lifespan Corporation, plus a parking agreement with the Rhode Island School of Design. The City Council promised to repurpose $1.5 million from its share of federal pandemic relief money.

But Smiley said the combined offer was not accepted as of Tuesday.

“All of this is in the context of irresponsible spending from the school department,” he said Tuesday. “We all know there was going to be a fiscal cliff when the federal COVID aid expired and they did nothing to plan for it other than to send us the bill and expect Providence taxpayers would foot that bill.”

Smiley blamed Infante-Green’s administration at RIDE for a lack of collaboration, adding the city would help to instill discipline and oversight on state spending.

“It is clear the commissioner views her ability to run our schools as one without checks and balances,” he said. “Cooperation is a one-way street with her.”

Smiley and City Council President Rachel Miller called on the state to put the district back on local control — something the Rhode Island Council on Elementary and Secondary Education declined to do , instead extending the takeover through 2027.

“Our city is not a bank for a state-controlled experiment,” Miller said. “After four years, it has become abundantly clear the state takeover is not working to promote the collaboration and the transparent decision making that our students need.”

RIDE spokesperson Victor Morente said it was a lack of city resources and underperformance that led the state to take over the school district in the first palace.

“City leaders have repeatedly stated they are ready to prove to the State that they are prepared to regain local control, but their budget priorities say otherwise,” Morente said in a statement.

The budget feud led outside of City Hall on Tuesday.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. Follow Rhode Island Current on and .

According to a survey of more than 3,000 teachers conducted by AdoptAClassroom.org, a nonprofit crowdfunding platform, teachers received a median classroom school supply budget of $200 last school year – an amount that 93% of the respondents said was not enough to cover their in-class needs.

Many teachers choose to subsidize the remainder of the costs, but it comes at a steep price. Out-of-pocket spending among teachers has increased by 44% since 2015, the survey found, with teachers reporting that they spent an average of $860 of their own money on supplies and other expenses during the 2022-2023 school year.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

“Teachers spend their classroom supply budget fast,” Melissa Hruza, Vice President, Marketing & Development at AdoptAClassroom.org, told The 74. “Even though they are willing to provide basic items like food and supplies for their students, their ability to pay for it is decreasing.”

One big reason: teacher pay has failed to keep up with the sky high rate of inflation in recent years. Adjusted for inflation, teachers are making $3,644 less than they did a decade ago, according to the National Education Association.

Communities and parents appear to be recognizing the challenges teachers face. AdoptAClassroom.org said its site has received more donations to teachers for the 2024-2025 back-to-school season than last year.

“Comparing July and August 2024 to the same period in 2023, the number of contributions to educators on AdoptAClassroom.org is currently up 13% from 2023 to 2024 so far this year,” Hruza said. “There’s also been a 9% increase in the number of both new fundraisers and total number of teachers with active campaigns.”

GoFundMe has seen a similar bump. So far this year, more than $12 million has been raised for K-12 education on the crowdfunding platform. In 2023, total funds raised for educators reached over $24 million — a 7% increase from the previous year.

“[P]eople don’t always see the hidden costs that end up on teachers’ hands, like providing additional resources for students who can’t afford small items like pencils,” Shawn An, a first-year earth and environmental science teacher at Julius L. Chambers High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, told The 74.

To ensure he and his students were fully prepared for this school year, An launched a GoFundMe campaign called A Classroom for Future Scientists, with a goal to raise $1,000. He ended up receiving $1,045 in donations.

“What this funding created is the opportunity for me to bring the basic necessities into the classroom I need to succeed, like organizers and writing utensils to grade with,” An said. “It’s helped me create a space where I can be efficient and to find resources for students to engage in the work we’re asking them to do.”

Lightening the load

To help teachers afford the supplies they need, GoFundMe launched its own fundraising initiative called the Education Opportunity Fund. Since the fund’s launch in 2020, GoFundMe has raised more than $240,000 and has distributed more than 550 grants to teachers in order to help them afford classroom supplies and other educational resources, Leigh Lehman, GoFundMe director of communications, told The 74.

“The grants were an additional step to offer help to educators and lighten their load a bit, and there are still grants available for teachers who are in need,” Lehman said.

Grants of can be put toward common classroom items like school supplies, books and class decorations. Funds can also be used for other educational resources or items like field trips, playground equipment, updated technology and extracurricular activities.

Similar to GoFundMe’s grant initiative, AdoptAClassroom.org provides funding through their Spotlight Fund Grants program. This program targets classroom initiatives that address things like social-emotional wellness, Indigenous language, arts, STEM education and racial equity. Eligible teachers can apply for grants of $750 or more on AdoptAClassroom.org.

“People all around the country want to find ways to help more teachers,” GoFundMe’s Lehman said. “They understand there is a gap in funding and that teachers are incredibly stressed.”

Keeping kids engaged

Hana Syed Khan, a fourth grade teacher in New Jersey’s South River Public Schools district, started her own GoFundMe campaign, A Classroom Built on Kindness, in August to support her efforts to make her classroom “as useful, accessible and hands-on as possible.”

Entering her fifth year of teaching at a new school in a new district, Syed Khan knew she had to be more creative with the amount of classroom space she has, materials needed and the resources available.

Her campaign raised $1,920 in funds, which she used to purchase a spin-the-wheel device, a carpet for reading time, books for the classroom library and the classroom staple Better Than Paper.

“The [kids] want to touch everything, and they should be able to. It’s their room,” Syed Khan told The 74.

Through sharing via family group chats, her husband’s LinkedIn account, word-of-mouth and other social media platforms, like and , Syed Khan said she “feels fortunate to have set up the fundraiser and leverage community support for her classroom.”

She plans to keep her fundraiser open to donations so she can continue to afford classroom activities and incentives with hopes to keep students engaged through the year.

“Students in this district suffer from chronic absenteeism, which may stem from lack of transportation, parents’ schedule or a lack of motivation for themselves,” Syed Khan said. “Classroom incentives, like parties at the end of the month, are a really big part of what I want to use the funds for next.”

Drawing from his own school experience, An said he understands that many of his students face challenges outside of the classroom. Bringing smaller tools and supplies like writing utensils and paper to class is not the first thing on their mind.

“That can be a real barrier for students to access what teachers are asking them to do,” An said. “Using the donations to directly address those barriers helps students stay engaged to do their best in the classroom.”

He used a portion of the donations he has raised to purchase a rolling cart that allows for easy access to classroom supplies.

An and Syed Khan hope their efforts inspire other teachers to overcome the fear of asking for help. For Syed Khan, it was difficult to find the right words for the campaign and the video she included to go along with it. She wanted to ensure her classroom needs were as clear as possible to potential donors.

“Trying to figure out what to say to grab people’s attention was the most challenging part,” Syed Khan said.

“It definitely wasn’t easy,” she said. “But when people see someone speaking and explaining what the funds will be used for, it can attract many people because they see a real human.”

An experienced similar doubts about asking for help. He credits his family for providing feedback on his campaign narrative and helping him to frame his message.

“My family and I went through a co-writing process to get the point across that this was me, just as a person, asking a personal favor of people who were available,” An said.

GoFundMe currently hosts webinars for educators and education-related organizations to help them learn how to effectively fundraise. They’ve also updated their with tips for teachers to share their campaign and keep communities engaged.

“Seeing more teachers turn to external sources of funding to help support their students’ needs is definitely eye-opening,” An said. “It highlights the fact that not as much care is funneled into education as I think it should be.”

Oregon school finances have not been in greater jeopardy for decades.

Large Oregon school districts are cutting millions of dollars from their budgets, which translates into significant cuts in personnel and larger class sizes, as state funding has failed to keep pace with inflation and expanding expectations.

The problem isn’t limited to large school districts. Medium and small districts face the same financial stress. More school districts will face the dual threat of teacher strikes and deep personnel cuts as they enter collective bargaining this year.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

The challenge faced by public education runs deeper than budgets. Schools have inherited a new generation of students and, along with them, a new paradigm for education.

Students in K-12 school classrooms today are demonstrably different than their counterparts just 20 years ago (Facebook was founded in 2004). Educating these students requires different teaching methods, updated classrooms and a wider array of support. It also requires a different approach to school funding that recognizes new demands on students, teachers and support staff.

Today’s students are internet natives, have experience with online learning, depend on school-prepared meals and fear college student debt. Classrooms are impacted by aging infrastructure, overflowing classrooms, lack of connectivity, increasing student diversity, chronic absenteeism and the threat of school shootings. More students face mental health issues, increasing demand for school nurses, counselors and social-emotional teaching techniques.

Teachers, many of whom are parents of school-age children, share the trauma. They are on the front lines of teaching students who need individual instruction. They manage in classrooms that lack adequate heating and cooling. They struggle to keep up to date on digital trends and educational innovation. Burnout is an occupational hazard. Good teachers leave because they earn more in other occupations.

Funding schools based on enrollment doesn’t capture the complexity of educating and preparing today’s K-12 students in the face of rapidly changing job markets. Head counts don’t capture the dimensions of pandemic learning loss, unequal digital resources, special education needs and emotional stress that are the everyday stuff of today’s K-12 classrooms.

Declining public school enrollments, resulting from low birth rates and flight to private schools by those who can afford it have resulted in funding reductions and will force closure of neighborhood schools, as parents in Seattle Public Schools are discovering.

We must find the right school funding formula. The one we have doesn’t work anymore because it doesn’t reflect demands schools are expected to meet every day and the individualized education students deserve.

Oregon lawmakers have tried to reconcile funding with emerging educational needs. But the result has been a hodgepodge of grants and directed spending that has been tacked on to a school funding formula designed to ensure equity among school districts after passage of major property tax limitations in the 1990s.

Finger-pointing is unproductive. We need an informed effort to rethink how schools are funded in light of current-day expectations. Just as important, we need to see school funding reform as critical to restoring public and parental trust in our schools.

There is no time to waste. The 2025 Oregon Legislature reconvenes in six months.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on and .

Assembly lawmakers approved a bill Monday intended to help school districts that have seen by extending one-time grants and allowing them to hike local taxes above the state-mandated 2% cap without getting voter approval.

, approved in a 51-20 vote almost entirely along party lines, would allow districts that have seen cuts since the 2020-21 school year to raise their levies by up to 9.9%, with hikes capped to the amount of state aid the district has lost over that period.

“We’re here today to present a solution for this year. That’s why we’re here under a short time frame. That’s why it’s happening quickly — because school boards must act,” said Assemblyman Roy Freiman (D-Somerset), the bill’s prime sponsor.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

The bill’s proponents have cast it as a sorely needed Band-Aid to address steep swings in state aid that roughly a third of New Jersey’s school districts have seen annually since 2018. That’s when lawmakers approved a bill, called S2, meant to shift aid from historically overfunded districts to historically underfunded ones.

Though they were controversial from the outset, the aid adjustments have drawn consternation from lawmakers and school officials after rising home valuations and inflationary pressures led to state aid reductions that were far steeper than anticipated.

In the coming school year, 140 districts face nearly $106 million in combined cuts, with the reductions ranging from $989 in West Wildwood to $10.4 million in Long Branch.

Republicans largely opposed the bill, favoring a competing measure sponsored by Assemblyman Brian Rumpf (R-Ocean) that would cap school aid cuts to 1%. GOP legislators said lawmakers should instead look to make permanent changes to the school funding formula signed into law in 2008.

“School board members in the 24th Legislative District are not asking for a mechanism to dramatically increase property taxes above that which they are currently allowed. What they’re asking for is fair school funding from the state of New Jersey,” said Assemblyman Mike Inganamort (R-Morris).

Six Republicans — Assemblymen Michael Torrissi, Erik Simonsen, Antwan McClellan, Alex Sauickie, Robert Clifton, and Rumpf — voted in favor of the bill that passed Monday. Democratic Assemblymen Dan Hutchison and Cody Miller voted no.

Separate provisions of the bill would create a $71.4 million grant program meant to defray two-thirds of cuts proposed for the coming school year in affected districts.

Districts could receive the grants if they face a state aid reduction for the 2024-2025 school year. Schools receiving such grants are barred from cutting staff past what is needed to account for changes in enrollment.

Assemblywoman Rosy Bagolie (D-Essex), who is East Newark’s superintendent, said school budget timelines made Republican urgings against the bill untenable, noting officials have just weeks to finalize budgets amid still-shifting aid figures.

“Either it’s Christmas, and we get our funding, or Krampus comes and takes the floor from under us. We cannot mitigate as superintendents — within the timeline that we have to present budgets, to rehire teachers by May 15th — to do what you’re asking us to do,” she said.

Lawmakers are exploring changes to the state’s funding formula that would bring some uncovered expenses, like certain transportation costs, under its auspices, as the state approaches the final school aid increase called for by S2.

Some Republicans urged their Democratic counterparts to speed up that process.

“It’s not like a phenomenon of the weather, that you just watch it come down and it affects our school districts in some strange way,” said Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris). “You’re the majority party. If you don’t like the school funding formula, change it. If you think it has all these awful effects, let’s do a new one.”

Acting Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer last week told Assembly lawmakers the department expects outsized changes to state aid to , though some shifts will still be caused by other factors, like changes to enrollment.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on Monday signaled skepticism over the supposed end of steep aid swings.

“We still are going to have to come together to address the bigger issue, which is what’s going to happen in out years,” Freiman said. “We still are faced with the scenario of next year: What do they do?”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles will require roughly two dozen schools to cut 12 percent of their budgets next year, initiating a painful but expected process meant to bring campus-level spending in line with declining enrollments.

The cuts will target schools not participating in Miles’ “New Education System” next year, whose budgets are managed by campus principals. HISD manages the budgets of schools in the NES program and funds them at a significantly higher level than other schools.

On Tuesday, HISD provided half of the district’s principals with preliminary information about their campus budgets for next year and plans to provide information to the other half Wednesday. Most of HISD’s roughly 140 non-NES principals will have to make cuts in their spending, capped at a 12 percent reduction, due to decreases in the number of students attending their schools.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

Roughly 25 schools will have to slash the maximum 12 percent, while about 35 schools will see increases to their budgets, Miles estimated in a Monday interview with the Houston Landing. That leaves dozens more schools to reduce spending between 1 and 12 percent. HISD declined to say which schools will be subject to the steepest cuts.

The tough financial pill stems from a decision by Miles to end HISD’s pandemic-era policy to insulate schools from budget cuts, even when their enrollment and attendance decline. With pandemic relief money set to soon run out and with HISD expected to run a this year, Miles said it is time to bring spending in line with student counts.

“People have known this is coming,” Miles said. “If they’ve lost 100 kids, they are going to have to cut some staff. At some point, we do have to stop paying for kids who actually aren’t there.”

In recent years, HISD has lost about 32,000 students, . Since the policy of not reducing schools’ budgets based on attendance went into effect, more than 150 schools have lost 12 percent or more of their student enrollments, including more than 60 non-NES schools.

In total, the cuts will save about $15 million across the district, Miles said. The savings represent a of Miles has said he plans to make next year. However, they represent the first time Miles has outlined plans likely to result in widespread staffing reductions at the campus level.

Due to a in 2024-25 and a dramatic increase in the number of overhauled schools paying teachers salaries $10,000 to $20,000 above their typical rates, HISD plans to spend an additional $114 million on staff next year, including $74 million at NES schools, according to Chief of Human Resources Jessica Neyman. Miles has said he plans to present a draft budget proposal for next year’s spending to HISD’s board of managers in May.

Schools undergoing Miles’ transformation, which typically have a quarter to a third more employees than other HISD schools, also will be subject to limited staffing cuts if they have lost students, Miles said. He estimated  NES schools could lose one to two non-teaching roles.

Former Love Elementary Principal Sean Tellez, who resigned in early March, said he thinks the cuts fall unfairly on schools not participating in Miles’ overhaul program. The end of the policy insulating campuses from attendance-related budget cuts did not surprise him, because former HISD Superintendent Millard House’s administration had warned it was coming. However, he thought the whole district would be subject to the painful spending decisions, rather than just the half not participating in Miles’ NES program.

As a principal, Tellez had to make budget cuts, including last year reducing the work hours of the Love Elementary nurse and librarian, eliminating a technology role and cutting a front office worker. If he were forced to eliminate 12 percent of his spending, he would have to cut at least one teacher and it would be “virtually impossible” to keep students from feeling the losses, he said.

“The overwhelming vibe, or feeling, amongst the non-NES principals has been, because we’re not NES, we’re going to have to bear the burden of this increased budget for NES schools and we’re going to be on our own,” Tellez said.

Researcher Chad Aldeman, who previously served as policy director at Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab and now runs the organization , studies school enrollment and staffing trends nationwide. Across the country, most school districts have seen increasing numbers of staff-per-student ratios since the pandemic, mostly due to student headcounts falling faster than staffing levels, he said, creating looming budgetary difficulties.

However, while making cuts to balance staffing levels may be necessary in many instances, it rarely is straightforward, Aldeman explained.

“Let’s say you lose 20 students across an elementary, they’re not going to be all in one grade. … So, you might lose two students or two-and-a-half students from every grade, and you can’t just reduce your staff by one fourth-grade teacher,” Aldeman said. “None of these things are fun. They’re not good for kids.”

Miles said he empathizes with principals now facing dreaded decisions, but said he had no other choice. HISD is easing the process for principals by covering certain expenses, such as approved curricular materials, he said.

“I’ve been a principal, I’ve been a charter school principal, and I know what it is to have to do a budget and I know what a cut looks like, even a 10 percent cut,” Miles said. “​​If I can protect the classroom from any cut, that’s what we’re going to do. But we do have to live within our means now.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Those initiatives, created to help the high-poverty district’s students after schools closed during the pandemic, are among the highest-profile cuts out of $91 million proposed by new district CEO Warren Morgan.

Other proposals to cover the loss of an additional $12,000 per student in COVID aid also include ending a decade-long experiment of year-round classes in some schools.

“We got almost $500 million in COVID relief dollars from the federal government that allowed us to do really extraordinary things during an extraordinary period of time,” Morgan said as he announced his plan. “Those dollars go away, creating a little bit of this cliff.. in the financial situation that we’re in.”

A placed Cleveland with the third-highest per-student grants of big cities in the country, after Detroit and Philadelphia.

The exact details of cuts will be set over the next few months. More cuts are expected for the 2025-26 school year.

But the broad plan for cuts outlined by Morgan and which the school board will vote on Tuesday is Cleveland’s first public attempt to sort out which pandemic programs are worth keeping and what older efforts must be cut as a tradeoff.

Cleveland is not alone in having to make cuts as the $190 billion infusion the federal government gave schools through relief grants known as CARES, ESSER and ARPA run out. 

But both the financial boost from pandemic aid, and now the crash, is far more dramatic for high-poverty districts like Cleveland, which has the highest child poverty rate in the country among big cities.

Because the aid formula sent more money to high-poverty districts than affluent ones, the pandemic grants gave the neediest students more help with tutoring, laptops, better ventilation, mental health and other programs to catch up from lost school time. 

The Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University reported in the fall that .The , though enrollment swings the last few years make exact numbers impossible.

“For many of those districts, it made up an outsized percentage of their usual budget, which we think from an equity perspective, was a great thing because it allows those districts to make investments that they have long needed,” said Qubilah Huddleston, who works on school funding issues for the Education Trust. “That said, they are also now faced with making some of the toughest budget decisions that they probably had to make in a while.”

Huddleston also cautioned that other factors, including state aid changing as enrollment fell across the country, are adding to districts’ budget troubles.

”Districts are dealing with a lot more than just the ESSER loss,” she said. “It’s certainly the factor that’s contributing the most, but they have also experienced enrollment declines that they did not expect. They have also inflation, right, things costing more, whether it’s energy, whether it’s labor… happening all at the same time that this loss of ESSER dollars is happening.”

Cleveland has its own local issues affecting how the cuts play out. The district has a new CEO, allowing him to pick his own priorities without being accountable for past promises. The district expected budget deficits in the next few years regardless of COVID and COVID aid, so typical financial needs are hard to separate from those caused by the loss of federal money. 

And the district is negotiating a new contract with the Cleveland Teachers Union, which will add costs, so Cleveland officials have incentive to highlight a lack of money while teachers have incentive to focus on what is still available.

Cleveland Teachers Union President Shari Obrenski said the long-expected cuts are not a crisis and noted that all the federal money may have bought the district an extra year before needing to ask voters for a tax increase.

“This is what I find frustrating about the narrative that’s coming from the district right now,” Obrenski said. “We were able to use our ESSER dollars to make our general fund dollars last longer, which I think was actually a very good idea.”

Some of Cleveland’s proposed cuts hit programs that started using federal aid, while others cut efforts championed by former CEO Eric Gordon that Morgan is re-evaluating.

Morgan has proposed cutting $6.4 million budgeted for providing every student a laptop and providing many with portable wifi hotspots when they do not have internet access at home. So-called “one-to-one” computer programs are increasingly common in suburban districts and was a goal of Gordon for years before the pandemic forced the district to buy devices for remote classes in the 2020-21 school year.

It was a huge step for Cleveland, ranked as the worst-connected city in America by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance.

The district also made continuing this program a key promise of its fall 2020 campaign for a tax increase for the schools.

But Morgan said not all students are receiving laptops and teachers are often not sending them home with students.

The district would not immediately answer questions from The 74 about how many laptops or hotspots are included in that estimate or how much progress has been made in attempts to provide affordable internet access in disconnected neighborhoods.

Cleveland’s summer learning program, which took traditional remedial programs and turned them into a mix of classes and fun activities as a way to re-engage students, is also being trimmed. Morgan estimated he can save $30 million over the next two years by cutting the program from 4,225 students last year to 3,500 this year with more class time in shorter days.

Morgan also proposed cutting $34.1 million over two years budgeted for afterschool programs run by outside groups like the Boys and Girls Club or America SCORES, a national program that mixes soccer with poetry. Traditional school athletic teams and clubs are not affected.

A coalition of providers, Clevelanders for Afterschool, has formed in opposition, saying cutting 93 programs from 17 providers will hurt students. David Smith, who runs some programs and is organizing the push to keep them, said they help students emotionally and academically, along with helping reduce crime in the city.

“It’s not a good idea to push these kids out in the streets after school and close the building behind them,” Smith said.

Morgan said he hopes these programs can find other funding or that city recreation centers can fill the gap.

Morgan also proposed saving close to $14 million by cutting extra school days from schools that have classes year-round or extra days in the school year. Gordon started several specialized high schools that focused on topics like STEM, medicine, or aerospace and maritime careers that run through the summer to keep learning momentum with students and avoid summer learning loss.

Those eight schools have 20 additional school days, while another 13 have 10 extra days added to their school years.

Morgan said the academic results of these schools are mixed, even though they receive more money than other schools to pay teachers for extra days.

“Right now, that sets up some inequities,” Morgan said. “We have schools that are receiving disproportionately more resources, more time and school days. Staff are receiving more resources. We do want to really make sure that we are equitable.”

Public school administrators were well aware that the last month would likely mean getting no new money for teacher raises and inflation adjustments this year. Gov. had long threatened to veto any education funding bill without a voucher component.

But they were surprised and disappointed that proposals that would have provided them with additional funds for school safety — a stated priority for many lawmakers in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting — also fell apart.

The fourth special legislative session this year ended without a vote on separate House and Senate bills that would have boosted school safety funding — both of which came after they didn’t have enough money to fulfill new safety requirements passed earlier this year.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

Now, with many districts already operating in deficit budgets, superintendents across the state say they will be forced to make significant budget cuts to meet the new safety mandates.

“Whether we’re rural, large, small, urban, suburban, when we superintendents get together and chat… all of us are like, ‘Where are we going to get the dollars? What are you cutting?’” Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde said. She added that her district might have to nix extracurriculars, field trips and transportation for students in magnet schools — along with laying off teachers and increasing student class sizes.

— which the Texas Legislature in response to the — requires districts to post an armed security guard at every school and provide mental health training to certain employees. To fund these measures, the law gave school districts $15,000 per campus and $10 per student, along with allotting $1.1 billion to the Texas Education Agency to administer grants that schools can apply for. In 2022, lawmakers also approved to help school districts pay for safety upgrades.

Last month, the House that would have boosted that funding by $1.3 billion. The Senate , which would have also increased the funding schools receive for safety upgrades and given the TEA $400 million more for its school safety grants. Both bills failed to advance for a vote in the opposite chamber.

Elizalde said Dallas ISD went into a $186 million deficit this year to keep up with costs, including the implementation of the new security measures ordered by HB 3. The district has recently acquired a grant of more than $20 million from the TEA, she said, but the one-time grant won’t ensure Dallas public schools can keep up with security mandates in the long term.

With more than 220 campuses, the district needs approximately $3 million annually to post trained security guards at every school, Elizalde said. It’s not that school board members and leaders don’t want to meet these new expectations, she added — they just don’t have the funds to do so.

“That has become our biggest obstacle — how do you, time and time again, continue to make cuts to make sure that we have the safest schools possible?” Elizalde said.

Issues hiring security personnel

Elizalde said Dallas ISD has opted to hire trained security guards instead of licensed police officers, both because of and because security guards typically cost less.

But even the cost of security guards is barely covered by HB 3’s funding, Temple ISD Superintendent Bobby Ott said. Hiring security guards across his 15-school district can cost up to $900,000, which would be on top of the $1.8 million needs to pay for all the required infrastructure updates, Ott said. The district only got $200,000 through HB3, and the state only awarded it $400,000 through the new grant program.

“I’ve always said that House Bill 3 has really just passed on debt to school districts,” he said.

The district can mitigate security guard costs by choosing the ” option in HB 3, Ott said. The program trains teachers to carry handguns in case of emergencies.

But critics have this approach, saying it introduces yet more guns into schools. Ott said his district doesn’t support a guardian program because police officers are ultimately trained to eliminate risks — and if an officer is called to one of his schools during an emergency, they might accidentally target a teacher who is carrying a gun.

Ott said it’s a “sad state of affairs” how lawmakers have approached school safety, especially given Texas’ this year.

“I agree with the safety requirements. They’re all fantastic, and they’re what schools need,” Ott said. “What I don’t agree with is sitting on the largest surplus that we’ve had in our economy [in Texas] and not providing funding to public schools.”

Hurdles with grant-based funding

Craig Bessent, assistant superintendent of school operations for , said his district has posted former law enforcement officers on its campuses since 2013 by paying them out of Wylie ISD’s general salary budget. This isn’t a feasible option for most underfunded school districts, he said.

Both the House and Senate’s failed school safety bills would have introduced additional grant money to help schools cover those expenses. But educators said a grant-based funding program poses extra logistical hurdles for schools and isn’t helpful in the long term. Bessent, who is also a board member appointed by Abbott, said grants work well for one-time expenses, such as building fences or securing doors.

“Once you hire someone, you’re trying to keep them on, just like teachers,” he said. “If you told a law enforcement officer, ‘I’m going to hire you, but you’re only going to for sure be here one year [with this grant]’… that’s not very good job security.”

Navigating a grant application process is also tough for smaller, rural schools, said Michelle Carroll Smith, superintendent of . Her rural district was able to submit an application since it has a temporary, grant-funded staff member to write funding applications, she said. But not all small districts have someone on staff to spearhead these processes.

“It comes with a lot of red tape,” Smith said. “Something as serious and important as safety and security should not be dependent on grants.”

Like many , Smith said seeing another legislative session end without additional school funding has left her frustrated and discouraged. Her district did not enter into a deficit budget this year but might have to if the Texas Legislature waits until the 2025 session to reconsider extra funding, she said.

“To pass bills and have mandates in them without adequate funding is irresponsible at best and political gamesmanship at worst,” she said of HB 3.

Superintendent Adrain Johnson said his rural district hired two full-time police officers for each of its campuses this year and purchased some security equipment like metal detectors. But the district is in a deficit budget and still needs an additional $500 million to meet the remaining safety requirements, he said.

Johnson said he particularly hopes to see more funding for mental health support in schools. Adding more security infrastructure and running regular active shooter drills can take a mental toll on students and staff, he said.

“When I visit the Capitol, I’m always pleased to see the strong security that exists there to protect democracy, to protect our legislators, to protect visitors, to protect us all,” Johnson added. “We want to see that same approach to our schools… because our education is part of our democracy, and it needs to be protected.”

This article originally appeared in at .

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

An important piece of ’s work focuses on improving the futures of Idaho youth, particularly those in rural communities. In a number of ways, AmeriCorps funding plays a key role in our programs.

Teach For America teachers are also AmeriCorps members. They can use Segal AmeriCorps Education Awards to pay for teacher certification or to pay down their existing student debt. Participation in AmeriCorps also enables them to defer their undergraduate loans for the first two years of teaching and have the interest, which accrues during those two years, paid off by the federal government.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

These awards help us recruit a more socio-economically diverse teaching force, which helps boost student learning in underserved communities. If this significant benefit were to disappear, it would have a strongly negative impact on our recruiting efforts. Since launching in Idaho in 2015, Teach For America teachers have reached more than 30,000 Idaho students.

It has been Teach For America’s experience that many individuals who want to serve, particularly as educators, are unable to do so. They face significant economic barriers, including high student debt and the cost of teacher certification, which make it difficult to enter a lower-paying profession such as teaching.

It’s important that people understand that beyond the overwhelmingly positive impact Teach For America has on students, our AmeriCorps members also gain a great deal of knowledge and experience from working with us. They frequently turn that experience into careers.

Former Teach For America teachers now work in all echelons of our state’s education system. Some are teachers, others are principals or school board members. Their experience in Idaho classrooms, made possible in part by AmeriCorps, represents only the beginning of their contributions to education in our state.

Idaho’s congressmenRep. Russ Fulcher and Rep. Mike Simpson should know that Idahoans value the programming made possible by the presence of AmeriCorps in our state.

Reducing its footprint would harm the people who need its services most. It is truly a hidden gem in the Gem State.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on and .