Education Department layoffs: How they could impact Long Island schools and colleges

Long Island K-12 schools and colleges could face disruptions in federal civil rights protections, financial aid and services for students with disabilities as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision Monday allowing the Trump administration to proceed with mass layoffs at the Department of Education, local officials said. 

The high court temporarily lifted an injunction that had prevented the administration from firing more than 1,300 employees, including four from Long Island, according to documents sent to the employees' union by the Department of Education in March.

President Donald Trump said on social media Monday that the court “has handed a Major Victory to Parents and Students across the Country,” saying the agency’s functions would be transferred to the states.

Local officials, though, expressed worry about potential problems accessing the funds and services the federal agency has provided for more than four decades.

The Roosevelt school district “is conducting a full review of federal grants, reimbursements and compliance timelines to ensure continuity of operations,” schools Superintendent Shawn K. Wightman said in a statement Tuesday. Educators are especially concerned about federal funds for high-poverty districts like Roosevelt, as well as services for students with disabilities and career and technical education programs, he said.

“We anticipate that the full impact of the layoffs will likely begin to emerge this fall,” he said. “And when delays hit, they don’t hit spreadsheets, they hit children. If a federal grant is delayed, that could mean a reading interventionist is not hired on time. If a civil rights complaint is dropped, a vulnerable student may not get the protection they need.”

The decision could also have an impact on college students, many of whom rely on federal loans to pay for school. It was unclear Tuesday what effect the ruling would have on federal student loans.

At Nassau Community College, school officials were not expecting major changes as a result of the ruling, said Jerry Kornbluth, the college's vice president for community and governmental relations. The Trump administration “wants to provide opportunities for people that are somewhat out of the loop, and community college is the perfect place for them to get a skill or get a degree and move forward.”

Still, he said, “Any time you're looking to dismantle a Department of Education … it is somewhat alarming, but I hope it's well thought out, and people know exactly what they're doing.”

At the Garden City college, 40% of students received federal Pell grants for low-income pupils and 20% received federal student loans, the most recent federal figures show.

Trump calls for shutdown

In an executive order in March, Trump called for the federal Department of Education to be shut down. The department had more than 4,000 workers before Trump’s inauguration, and its workforce has already been reduced through buyouts earlier this year.

Of the more than 1,300 employees whose jobs could be affected by the Supreme Court ruling, about 1,000 are represented by the American Federation of Government Employees union. Of those, 31 are from New York, according to documents provided to the union by the Department of Education.

The current Department of Education was created by Congress in 1979. The layoffs still face a legal challenge in the lower courts, with opponents charging that the effective dismantling of the agency without Congressional approval violates the Constitution.

Schools continue to face federal mandates, including a requirement to provide equal access to education to students with disabilities, said Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association.

“Long Island schools will continue to make sure that the educational needs of the children are met,” he said. “Most of the laws and the mandates that schools have to follow and the regulations that the federal government puts out, we're still going to have to follow them. … So I think initially, for schools, it's not going to be any major change.”

The agency’s work appears likely to be shifted to other agencies, Vecchio said. But, he said, “I think any major change like this will cause disruption for a period of time.”

Plus, he said, while the ruling does not translate into any decrease in local school districts’ federal funding, “We are concerned and worried that there will be a reduction in federal dollars.” 

Federal funding makes up 10% or more of the budgets of the highest-need districts and roughly 3% of the budgets of more affluent districts, Vecchio said. "Brentwood certainly gets a lot more federal dollars than Jericho does, but any reduction of any dollars to any district is a cause for concern," he said.

If there is a funding reduction, he said, it “will mean a shift of cost to the local taxpayers, because the regulations and the mandates will not go away, but if they reduce any of the funding, it'll just make it more expensive at the local level.”

The lack of information about what will happen poses its own challenge, said Lars Clemensen, superintendent of the Hampton Bays district, which receives about $1 million in federal funding, roughly 2% of its budget. The money helps pay for special education, services to students learning English, teacher training and other crucial work, he said. 

"If that were to change, districts would have to make some decisions about how to pay for those things with state and local money, or make tough decisions to stop doing certain things," he said. 

Knowing what will happen to federal funding "is critically important," he said. "If schools have to pivot and move in a different direction, we need a runway to do that, so that we don't fall short in serving kids in the way our communities want." 

By Maura McDermott

maura.mcdermott@newsday.commauramcdermott

Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.