A governmentwide reduction in force during the federal shutdown will touch an already lean U.S. Department of Education, the Trump administration said Friday, with the department’s office of elementary and secondary education potentially facing some of the most significant cuts.
An Education Department spokesperson Friday confirmed the agency will be subject to the RIF but did not immediately answer how many positions would be part of the downsizing and in which department divisions. A spokesperson from the Office of Management and Budget—whose director, Russell Vought, announced the layoffs in a Friday post on X—called the government-wide reduction “substantial.”
The Education Department’s office of communication and outreach will see cuts to its state and local engagement team under the layoff, according to the union that represents department staff. Meanwhile, the office of elementary and secondary education, which oversees key programs such as Title I and enforcement of the Every Student Succeeds Act, will see cuts to all of its teams, the union said.
Others could still be affected, the union, a chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees, said.
“Once again, the Trump administration is acting as though they have impunity to cut staff from an already lean, efficient agency,” union president Rachel Gittleman said in a prepared statement. “Dismantling the government through mass firings, especially at the ED, is not the solution to our problems as a country.”
The layoffs were announced on the 10th day of the federal government shutdown, during which the Education Department had already furloughed roughly 87% of its staff after congressional lawmakers couldn’t come to an agreement to extend funding beyond the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
A furlough is different from a layoff in that it’s temporary. Generally, federal employees have to be given 60 days’ notice before a layoff can take effect.
The cuts will slash an Education Department that has grown substantially leaner since the start of the second Trump administration. The agency has shed nearly half its staff since the winter. Its footprint shrank from more than 4,000 staff to about 2,400 after the department announced layoffs in March.
The earlier layoffs touched just about every office within the department—though they cut more deeply in some places than others, such as the office for civil rights, which lost just under half its 562 positions and seven of its 12 regional offices. The office of elementary and secondary education, which employed 282 staff members in 2023, lost at least 49 positions in the March cuts.
(Meanwhile, the office’s new leader, Kirsten Baesler, was just confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday but can’t be sworn in until the shutdown ends.)
The earlier layoffs are being challenged in court by states and education leaders who say the department can’t carry out its congressionally mandated functions with fewer staff. Court orders delayed the layoffs, but higher courts have since allowed them to take effect.
The Education Department is among at least nine federal agencies subject to the shutdown RIF, according to Politico.
The American Federation of Government Employees sued OMB last month for telling agencies to prepare RIF plans ahead of the shutdown. Normally, agencies prepare only to furlough staff during a shutdown and bring them back when the government reopens.
“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” the union’s president, Everett Kelley, said in a prepared statement on Friday. “It’s time for Congress to do their jobs and negotiate an end to this shutdown immediately.”
