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EEmployees have recently been furloughed from the Education Department Mass layoffs of federal employees by Trump Warned that billions in funding across America and its special needs students are left with no one to pay the price.
“I feel more for the students with disabilities than for myself,” said one employee. Independent To speak openly on condition of anonymity. The staffer said the office has already made plans to spend federal money on special education.
“There’s no one monitoring billions of dollars in grants, so it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “So I feel like, if they weren’t why did they allow them to go out — like, there’s no one overseeing billions of dollars of grants.”
on weekends, ABC News And USA Today It was reported that the Trump administration laid off almost the entire staff of the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services. The move comes as the Trump administration Mass reduction in force begins amid the ongoing government shutdown as a means to convince Democrats to vote for a stopgap spending bill.
The office is specifically responsible for managing approximately $15.1 billion in funds to ensure that students with disabilities receive a “free appropriate public education” as codified under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. On Wednesday a federal Judge temporarily halts layoffs in California,
An employee who works in the special education programs office said he learned on Saturday that he was fired because he was not allowed to check his government laptop during the shutdown when he received a notice regarding his employment.
Since President Gerald Ford passed the Education for Handicapped Children Act in 1975, students with disabilities are entitled to a free appropriate public education until age 21. The law was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act when President George H.W. Bush reauthorized it in 1990. Bush’s son, George W. Bush, reauthorized the legislation in 2004.
A court petition filed late last week on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees says the Office of Management and Budget has sent reduction-in-force notices to 466 Department of Education employees.
The Trump administration has tried abolish the education department Through executive order, which is against the law and would require an Act of Congress. But now as the government shutdown continues, the department finds itself in Trump’s crosshairs. Trump threatened to fire workers and followed through on those threats last week.
The Department of Education press office sent an out-of-office email blaming Democrats for the government shutdown. The office later referred Independent When contacted, Education Secretary Linda McMahon posted a tweet.
“The RIF does not affect any education funding, including funding for special education, and the clean CR supported by the Trump Administration will provide states and schools with the funding they need to support all students,” she said.
The Independent has contacted the American Federation of Government Employees about the layoffs.
Another employee at the Rehabilitation Services Administration, which focuses on helping people with disabilities find employment, also spoke anonymously Independent To talk openly. The staffer said the administration administers one of the most financially complex grant programs within the federal government.
“You know the concern we civil servants have is that they are ignoring the very complex nature of the program,” he said. “It takes most new finance employees a few years to become confident with how all the pieces work together.”
Additionally, the employee said the financial unit head had been dismissed.
“Without these controls in place, you know, it’s much easier for programs to potentially take advantage of this,” he said. “First it would be easy for states to get away with it, or in some situations, whether intentionally or accidentally, because it would not actually result in the intended benefits for recipients.”
The move is already creating fear among parents of disabled children. A staffer who works in the Office of Special Education Programs said eliminating the agency would disproportionately harm students in red states.
“If you look at the percentage of special education funding in red states, it’s much higher than in blue states,” he said. “So honestly, they’re going to be hurt even more because they have more federal funding for special education.”
Anne Hayes, a Kansas mother of a child with dyslexia and another non-verbal autistic child, said she fears consequences for her children.
“For my daughter, like, if she didn’t have that in those early years of reading, I don’t think she would be successful in middle school,” she told. Independent“She got straight A’s, but if she didn’t learn this, you know different approach, she wouldn’t be successful.”
Hayes said she also fears for her son, who needs a one-on-one paraprofessional teacher.
“If these things collapse, our lives will collapse, you know, we’ll have to pay for it out of our own pockets,” she said. “And states have never been good at prioritizing special education. The idea that we can easily move it to the states without federal oversight is justifiable, that’s a lot.”