Trump's executive order on Department of Education leaves local school districts in dark

The executive order signed Thursday by President Donald Trump purporting to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education might have raised more questions than it answered. Questions like: What does "eliminate" mean? Can he do that, legally? Are the federal funds that schools rely on for special education and other programs going to keep coming?

Education officials in Ventura County don’t have the answers, but the ones who spoke to The Star about Trump’s order said they’re not expecting any immediate changes in their funding or operations. They're concerned about the future of their districts' federal funding, but they don't see it under immediate threat by the president's recent order.

Meanwhile, the county’s two congressional representatives say the executive order was unlawful and should be overturned in court. Because the Department of Education was established by an act of Congress, they said, it requires an act of Congress to end it.

The role of the federal government in K-12 education is relatively small. The federal Department of Education has fewer employees than many mid-sized local school districts. School policies and curriculum are set at the local and state levels, and most of the funding comes from the state.

But federal dollars are important in a few specific areas, primarily special education, and are weighted toward schools and school districts that need the money the most — the ones with the highest percentages of low-income students, special education students, students still learning English and others with particular challenges to their education.

Last year, the federal government contributed a total of $324 million to Ventura County’s 228 public schools, according to data provided by the Ventura County Office of Education. That was about 10% of the total revenue of the county’s schools.

"The federal Department of Education really has very little impact on what we do on a regular basis," said Victor Hayek, deputy superintendent for business services at the Conejo Valley Unified School District. "Education is mostly local. ... I can't tell you off the top of my head anything the federal Department of Education has mandated or brought down on us, other than the money that we get for socioeconomically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities."

What does Trump's executive order mean?

There isn't universal agreement on what Trump's executive order will do. The text of the order refers to the "closure of the Department of Education." It says that the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, "shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely."

But earlier on Thursday, Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that after the executive order takes effect, "the Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today," implying that the department will still exist.

The agency is already smaller than it has been in recent years. A week before his executive order to dismantle the organization, Trump told the department to lay off about half of its workforce of approximately 4,000 people. Among the hardest hit branches of the department, USA Today reported, were those that disburse federal financial aid to college students, investigate discrimination and conduct research about American students.

"It's disheartening," Cesar Morales, Ventura County's superintendent of schools, said of the layoffs. "It's a very lean department to begin with, and I do hope that some of those actions are overturned. We do not want a disruption, not only on the distribution of funds but on the services associated with the programs."

Morales said Trump's effort to "dismantle" the department "sends the wrong message about nation's commitment to students and schools. It's likely to create disruptions that impact our most vulnerable students."

Regardless of whether the U.S. Department of Education exists or how many people work there, it appears that the Trump administration still plans to distribute the funds the department pays to states and local school districts. In a statement released Thursday, just after Trump's executive order, McMahon said closing the department "does not mean cutting off funds from those who depend on them — we will continue to support K-12 students, students with special needs, college student borrowers, and others who rely on essential programs."

The Department of Education's biggest funding programs predate the department itself. The laws authorizing them were passed in the 1960s and the funding was administered through what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The Department of Education was established in 1980, by a law passed by Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter.

Because of that, it appears that the funding can't be unilaterally cut by the president or the education secretary. But the uncertainty still has some local school administrators concerned. If the funding programs remain in place, but the staff of the Department of Education goes to zero, will anyone be left to administer the programs and distribute the money?

"That is a concern, based on other things that are happening with the administration, but we haven't seen anything like that to date," said John Puglisi, the superintendent of the Rio School District on the northern edge of Oxnard. "What we're doing is assessing, if those federal monies went away or were diminished, how would we address that, and we're in the early stages of that."

Via email, a press officer with the Department of Education did not answer questions from The Star about the future of federal funding programs, instead pointing to the text of Trump's executive order and McMahon's statement.

Morales said he's "trying to remain as calm as possible and tell the community in the field to remain calm," given the uncertainty.

"I think it's important to know that our system presently is intact," he said.

House reps think order is illegal

Some of the Trump administration's efforts to remake the federal government have already been held up in court. U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, a Democrat who represents most of Ventura and the Ojai Valley, said he thinks the executive order on the Department of Education will also be stopped by a federal court.

"I think the law is clear," Carbajal said. "The executive branch, the president, doesn't have the power, without congressional action, to dismantle and get rid of the Department of Education. ... That's not to say he doesn't have some wiggle room to dismantle parts of the Department of Education and fire some of the staff and make changes, but he cannot get rid of the department."

U.S. Rep. Julia Brownley, a Democrat whose district covers the rest of Ventura County, agreed. In a statement emailed to The Star, she called the executive order "a dangerous overreach of executive power."

"Like all federal departments, it was created by Congress and only Congress has the power to eliminate it," Brownley's statement says.

Republicans do hold a majority in the House and the Senate, but Carbajal said he doesn't think a law to dissolve the Department of Education would pass. He thinks some Republicans would vote against it in the House, and even if it passes there, it could be stopped in the Senate unless the supporters have 60 votes to end a filibuster.

Carbajal called Trump's executive order "an attack on America's children."

"It's shattering their dreams, because all of these support services and programs the federal Department of Education provides are to help the most vulnerable and to make sure every child has equal access to a good education," he said.

Where the federal money goes

At the moment, Morales said, the biggest financial threat to Ventura County schools is the shrinking population of students, not anything happening in Washington, D.C. Schools are funded according to how many students they have, and most school districts in Ventura County have had declining enrollment totals for years. By 2031, Morales said, the total revenue of Ventura County schools will have dropped 16% due to enrollment declines.

While enrollment decline is hitting almost everyone in Ventura County, federal education dollars are distributed according to need and are meant to even the playing field between schools in rich neighborhoods and those in poor ones. That means some school districts get more money than others.

For example, in the 2023-24 school year, the Santa Paula Unified School District had $11.4 million in federal revenue or 11% of its total budget. The Oak Park Unified School District, which has far fewer students from low income families, got $1.4 million in federal funds, good for about 2% of its revenue.

"A lot of our students and families live in conditions of poverty, and these funds are designed to help them through that," said Tom McCoy, the superintendent of the Oxnard Union High School District.

The other main focus of federal spending is special education. Local school districts are obligated by law to provide every student with an education that's appropriate to their needs. For students with severe disabilities, that can mean paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for private schools or full-time, in-class help. Much of the money for that comes from the U.S. Department of Education.

Chaos and uncertainty

For local schools, the biggest impact of the federal mass layoffs and the subsequent executive order so far is uncertainty. McCoy said his district hasn't heard anything from the Trump administration. Instead, the news from Washington has been filtered through the California Department of Education in Sacramento.

"Things are so chaotic, and we just don't know what's coming next," McCoy said.

"We don’t have control over those things," Hayek said. "We're kind of the victims in this, and we have to adjust as best we can."

Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Trump's executive order leaves local school districts in the dark