How Trump’s education cuts could hurt Minnesota’s most vulnerable students

ST. CLOUD – A Supreme Court decision this week will allow President Donald Trump to move forward with his campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education — creating more confusion for school districts and colleges just weeks before classes are set to begin.

But what’s more worrisome for education leaders across the state is that the cuts will affect the most vulnerable students the most: low-income and special education students, English learners and students with mental health needs.

“It is painfully ironic that politicians in Washington keep telling the schools to improve teacher training, upgrade STEM education for students, and bolster their career counseling for students, and then slash funding for these programs [with] no advance warning,” said Noel Schmidt, superintendent of Rock Ridge Public Schools on the Iron Range.

The Supreme Court decision allows Trump to lay off nearly 1,400 Education Department employees. Court cases fighting layoffs at the DOE, which will be slashed to about half its size since Trump took office in January, say the cuts will leave it unable to carry out duties required by Congress, including supporting special education, distributing financial aid and enforcing civil rights laws.

The news exacerbates other financial uncertainties for Minnesota districts, many of which are struggling with budget shortfalls from state funding that doesn’t keep up with personnel costs and other mandated programs.

And this week, Minnesota was among the more than 20 states to sue the administration over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for federal funding meant to support schools with high numbers of students from low-income families. In Minnesota, the frozen funds amount to about $67 million for teacher recruitment, professional development, after-school enrichment opportunities, adult basic education classes and English-learner supports, according to the state teachers union, Education Minnesota.

“It’s important for the public to understand that federal education funding is not discretionary. It’s specifically designed to support students living in poverty, English learners, and students with disabilities,” said Paul Peterson, superintendent of the Mankato school district. “Public schools are committed to serving everyone. Full stop. Losing targeted support for the students who need it most doesn’t make sense, and certainly doesn’t align with what our families or communities expect from their public schools.”

Budgets and staffing levels have already been approved for the upcoming year, so many districts are scrambling to save money in other ways. In St. Cloud, professional development activities are paused, and Superintendent Laurie Putnam has been meeting with companies the district uses for curriculum to see if they can be flexible with payment.

“We don’t know it’s not coming so we can’t assume it’s not,” she said. “But our philosophy is always to budget conservatively and hope for the best [but] plan for the worst.”

The frozen funds allocated to St. Cloud total more than $1 million and are crucial, Putnam said. Among the district’s 10,000 students, 65% qualify for free or reduced lunch, 25% receive special education services, one-fifth are English-learners and 7% are homeless. All those groups will feel the cuts, she said.

Putnam said the district is already “on the losing end” of recent bills passed by the Legislature.

“We were already short $1 million that we made cuts for in the spring because we knew those were coming based on the governor’s proposal,” she said. “This would be really challenging to now find another $1 million in cuts that we weren’t counting on.”

Putnam said the repeated cuts feel “undermining” but she also thinks this is what many people who voted for Trump “hoped for and expected.”

While the city of St. Cloud voted mostly blue, a majority of residents in the rural parts of the district heavily supported Trump.

“There is certainly a contingent in our community who believes that there’s excess spending or unnecessary spending,” she said. “As we watch the national and statewide debates around immigration and who gets access to what services, I do think that yes, this was a hope or an expectation.”

In other parts of the state where the majority of voters favored Trump, school leaders are sounding the alarm about the federal cuts amid rising costs for materials and insurance.

“Many districts are already feeling the pinch,” said Scott Lempka, superintendent at Lac qui Parle Valley schools in western Minnesota. “This is compounded by the fact that the costs of doing business are at an all-time high.”

In Long Prairie-Grey Eagle school district in west-central Minnesota, Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson is spending time talking with residents about how these federally funded programs aimed at struggling students ultimately improve the school climate for all students.

“I don’t think everyone understands that when students aren’t having their needs met, it will create problems for the rest of the student population,” he said. “These things that shouldn’t be political become political because people are looking for all these places where schools are pushing the liberal agenda.”

In his district, 70% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, a factor that has contributed to the district receiving more federal funding for technology or extra staff to help students struggling with math, for example. But those programs now are where “these slashes are hitting the hardest,” Ludvigson said, noting he doesn’t think that’s what the area’s Trump voters —including about 68% of voters in the city of Long Prairie and 81% in the township — were anticipating.

“Sometimes there’s a disconnect with what people think they want and the results they’ll get,” he said.

Trump has said he intends for some functions of the Education Department to be moved to other agencies.

Duluth Public Schools Superintendent John Magas said this will just make it harder to get assistance.

“To have one source of knowledge in one department is helpful,” he said.

About $550,000 in federal funds for Duluth schools is currently frozen. Magas said he hopes residents call their lawmakers about it.

“I think a lot of districts are reeling,” Magas said.

DOE layoffs include hundreds of employees from the student aid division, which is responsible for running the Free Application for Student Aid, or FAFSA, and other loan programs.

A spokesperson for Minnesota State, which oversees seven universities and more than two dozen public colleges in the state, said it’s too early to understand the impact of the layoffs.

David Jones, interim president of Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, said he’s monitoring changes to Pell grants, which provide federal aid to students below certain income thresholds. Students on SMSU’s campus relied on about $6.5 million in Pell grants last year.

He said colleges also depend on federal funding to support first-generation students.

“I’m hopeful that some elements of the Department of Education do persist,” he said.

Jp Lawrence and Jana Hollingsworth of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story. It also contains material from the Associated Press.