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A new round of layoffs in education department The deal is dismantling an agency that was hit hard by the Trump administration’s previous mass shootings, threatening new disruptions to the nation’s students and schools from special education to civil rights enforcement and after-school programs.
To put pressure on the government, the Trump administration on Friday started laying off 466 employees of the Education Department amid large-scale firing. democratic Lawmakers on federal shutdown. The layoffs will cut the agency’s workforce by nearly one-fifth and reduce its size by more than half during the president’s term. donald trump Took charge on 20 January.
The cuts are part of Trump’s broader plan to close the Education Department and turn its operations over to other agencies. Over the summer, the department began handing over its Adult Education and Workforce Program labor departmentAnd it previously said it was negotiating a deal to pass on its $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio treasury department,
Department officials have not released details on the layoffs and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AFGE Local 252, a union that represents more than 2,700 department employees, said staffing information indicated the cuts would eliminate many of the agency’s offices.
The union said all employees except a few top officials were being fired from the office that enforces the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that ensures millions of students with disabilities get support from their schools. The Office for Civil Rights, which investigates complaints of discrimination in the country’s schools and universities, is being fired upon by unknown numbers.
The union said the layoffs would eliminate or greatly reduce the teams that monitor the flow of grant funds to schools across the country. It affects the office that oversees Title I funding for the nation’s low-income schools, as well as the team that manages 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the primary federal funding source for after-school and summer learning programs.
It would also impact the office that oversees TRIO, a set of programs that helps low-income students pursue college, and another that oversees federal funding for historically black colleges and universities.
In a statement, union President Rachel Gittleman said the new cuts, in addition to previous layoffs, “will double the harm to K-12 students, students with disabilities, first-generation college students, low-income students, teachers and local boards of education.”
The Education Department had about 4,100 employees when Trump took office. That number will drop to less than 2,000 after the new layoffs. Earlier layoffs in March had nearly halved the department, but some employees were hired back after officials decided they had laid off too many.
The new layoffs were condemned by many education organizations.
Although states design their own competitions to distribute federal funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the small team of federal officials provided guidance and support “that is absolutely essential,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance.
“Firing that team is shocking, devastating, without any basis, and risks causing lasting harm,” Grant said in a statement.
The government’s latest layoffs are being challenged in court by the American Federation of Government Employees and other national labor unions. Their lawsuit, filed in San Francisco, says the government’s budget and personnel offices overstepped their authority by ordering agencies to make layoffs in response to the shutdown.
In a court filing, the Trump administration said the executive branch has broad discretion to reduce the federal workforce. It said the unions could not prove they were harmed by the layoffs because workers would not actually be laid off for another 30 to 60 days after receiving notices.
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