The elimination of the US Department of Education could affect local school districts.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 20th saying that the department’s closure would “provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.”
Trump also said closing the department would drastically improve program implementation in higher education.
Manitowoc Public Schools Interim Superintendent Lee Thennes (Tennis) tells Seehafernews.com that the district is running business as usual right now, but that doesn’t mean things could change.
The US Department of Education provides money for the district for numerous programs.
“We have special education funding,” Thennis noted. “Title funding for low-income students and professional development. It funds support for our English language learners. It provides us with IDEA, its special education services, and free and reduced lunch programs.”
Thennes says his immediate concern would be the funding because MPSD gets about $4.9 million from the federal level for the programs.
If the money was gone, not only could the programs disappear, but they would also have to reduce staff more than they are already planning on doing, including 22 positions that would be eliminated because of their declining enrollment.
“When we’re making reductions to sort of align ourselves with the right class sizes and the right staffing for the district, it really concerns we’re talking 36 more,” Thennes said. “22 is already enough of a hit. And we’re just trying to do our due diligence with that.
If the Department of Education disappeared, the states would oversee school funding.
Thennes wants to work with the Wisconsin DPI and legislators on these issues and more.
“Not only are these critical programs and services that we are currently receiving from the federal government remaining in place, but we also really need to focus on working on our broken state funding system,” he told SeehaferNews.com.
The MPSD superintendent also mentioned that he’s heard about the frustration of referendums happening around the state.
According to an Associated Press article, a full dismemberment of the department couldn’t happen unless Congress passes a law, which created the department under Jimmy Carter’s administration.
