On Wednesday, a contingent of about 450 principals fanned out across Capitol Hill to meet with their states’ representatives in Congress. Their ask was urgent and unified: don’t cut or reduce funding for federal grants, support public schools instead of school choice programs, and save the U.S. Department of Education.
Only a few blocks away, though, the department they’ve put their faith in for multiple years was being culled to half its size.
The Education Department layoffs and the Trump administration’s termination of programs that fund work in and for schools, like teacher-training grants and an effort to bring local food to school cafeterias, have made principals nervous about how they would retain essential services for students who depend on them for meals, mental health, and translation services.
The school leaders were in the nation’s capital as part of a two-day advocacy conference, hosted by the national associations for both secondary and elementary principals. Worried and weary principals swapped news stories and Facebook posts about the cuts as they made the long walks between congressional buildings or waited outside their legislators’ offices.
Chris LaBreck, the principal of Claremont Academy in Worcester, Mass., said he was approaching his advocacy efforts with an “awful lot of fear this year.”
“I don’t know what it’s going to look like a month from now in school. How do we continue to feed our kids who rely on school to eat? What’s the next thing to go?” said LaBreck, as he walked out of a plush meeting room in Democratic Rep. Katherine Clark’s office, where the Massachusetts contingent of school leaders met with a senior aide for the minority whip.
The aide, sympathetic to the principals’ concerns, couldn’t assuage their fears about the impending federal cuts, or the existential threat to the Education Department. Education Week sat in on the Massachusetts meeting, as well as the meeting of principals from Ohio.
“It feels like rather than planning for the future and improving, we are trying to fight the fire and maintain what we have,” LaBreck added. “There are no other funds” to rely on.
While President Donald Trump has vowed to abolish the Education Department, the elimination of the agency would require approval from Congress. And while the department oversees key federal funding streams for schools—such as Title I for schools that serve students from low-income communities and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for students with disabilities—that money is appropriated by Congress. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said the president’s goal is not to defund or reduce those programs.
Still, Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda whose architects are associated with Trump’s administration, proposed phasing out Title I funding over the next decade and converting the IDEA program to block grants or a private school choice offering. And given the rapid-fire pace of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting operations, some principals said they feared their schools’ federal dollars were at risk.
Principals emphasize the importance of federal funds in their schools
For districts that rely heavily on Title I funds, like LaBreck’s, any loss of funding would result in cutting back on teacher positions, larger class sizes, and less support for reading or other academic enrichment programs, he said.
Other impacts may be felt downstream but would be just as damaging, said Stephen Wiltshire, the principal of North Street Elementary School in Grafton, Mass.
If the administration slashes Title II funds, that would risk essential professional development for teachers who need training on high-quality instructional materials to be more effective, Wiltshire said. Schools might also have to cut positions for reading interventionists, paraprofessionals, or aides who help students close achievement gaps with their peers.
At a different congressional building, Sarah Williams, the principal of Mattie B. Luhr Elementary School in Jefferson County, Ky., echoed LaBreck’s sentiments as she waited to meet her state’s representatives. Williams said she wanted federal funds to continue to support the large population of special education students and multilingual learners in her school.
Teacher shortages are a big concern, too. Williams hasn’t been able to staff her library or hire enough support staff, and a position for a student success coach has been vacant for a few months.
The Kentucky contingent of school leaders said they planned to remind GOP representatives that their state voted down a ballot measure intended to allow state lawmakers to allocate public tax dollars to support students attending private or charter schools.
“Kentuckians made it known they support their public schools. Any legislature should be mindful of that,” said Williams.
Principals worry about states’ capacity to handle federal funds
The five principals from Wyoming were especially concerned about how federal funds would be disbursed if the Education Department were abolished. Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, the state’s lone House representative, assured the principals that the “funding wasn’t being abolished, only the bureaucracy,” a school leader told Education Week. Still, the leaders worried about the exact pipeline these funds may flow through.
“A lot of the federal dollars that flow through to Wyoming are for students most at risk. ... If it comes in as a block grant to the state, are we going to see the same levels of protections for our students funded through IDEA or Title I programs?” said Chase Christensen, the superintendent of the Sheridan County school district, and the principal of the 80-student Arvada-Clearmont school in the district.
“[We have to] make sure that the state will stand up and provide for our most at risk-population like the department has been,” he added.
Christensen said he also advocated for other types of grant funding that directly supported building stronger principal and teacher pipelines in Wyoming, as well as money that helps schools create paid internship opportunities for students.
Wyoming is home to the Arapaho Charter School on the Wind River Indian Reservation, which is led by principal Katie Law, and receives a slew of federal dollars through programs like Impact Aid, which reimburses school districts for the lost revenue of having nontaxable federal land in their district boundaries. Law is worried that housing programs like that in other federal departments could complicate her access to these funds.
If different agencies do take on education grants and programs, there would be a steep learning curve as they try and disburse funds that they’re unfamiliar with, said Eric Fox, the assistant principal of Jenks High School in Jenks, Okla.
“Who suffers while this gets figured out?” he said. “It’s kids, it’s families, it’s teachers.”
Smaller grants, like Project SERV, could get lost in the shuffle, too. Project SERV allocates $5 million every year for schools that experience a violent incident, like a school shooting, on their campus. This grant is run jointly by the Education and Justice departments.
For principal Greg Johnson, whose school in Ohio experienced a shooting in 2017, Project SERV helped his school hire a resource officer and mental health counselors in the aftermath.
Sitting in front of a small registration desk outside Republican Rep. Bob Latta’s office, Johnson told Latta’s aide that he was “gravely concerned” about where the Project SERV money would land if it were bundled into a block grant.
Principals say they’re energized to continue the fight
Principals told Education Week that being in the nation’s capital, and having the opportunity to meet their state’s representatives, has fueled their fight to keep supporting their students and teachers.
The five principals from Wyoming said they “felt heard” in their meetings with Hageman and other state representatives.
“I feel a lot better about today than when the day started,” said Josh Sandlian, the principal of Wheatland High School in Wheatland, Wyo. “Last year [in these advocacy meetings], the idea was to just get rid of the department. There was no talk about how the money would get to the states. There was that conversation this year.”
LaBreck and Wiltshire, from Massachusetts, said they felt their representatives shared their “sense of urgency” to support public education. In both meetings that Education Week sat in, the clear message from lawmakers to principals was to be vocal about their concerns.
“To come and talk about the impact that legislations have on school and kids is powerful,” LaBreck said. “It energizes me because the need is so great right now.”
