The reopening of the federal government promises to return hundreds of laid-off U.S. Department of Education staff to work—but employees fear that’s no guarantee they’ll return to business as usual.
The sprawling bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday and signed by President Donald Trump concludes the longest government shutdown in history and funds the federal government through Jan. 30. It also contains a provision reversing the early October layoffs of thousands of federal workers across numerous agencies, and preventing further federal layoffs until the bill’s expiration.
At the Education Department, that means 465 staff members given reduction-in-force notices in early October are due to be reinstated to their positions. (A court order had temporarily blocked the department and other agencies from firing those employees.)
But Education Department staff—who have been a repeated target of the Trump administration’s efforts to wind down the agency and shrink the federal workforce overall—are skeptical that they’ll be able to return to work as usual. The department has been resistant to reinstating employees when ordered to do so over the past year, and has instead kept staff on paid administrative leave—at times paying out millions of dollars each week to employees who aren’t working.
“The continuing resolution language doesn’t do enough to protect public servants. The Trump administration has shown us repeatedly that they want to illegally dismantle our congressionally created federal agency,” said Rachel Gittleman, the president of the union that represents Education Department staff. “We have no confidence that the U.S. Education Department will follow the terms of the continuing resolution or allow the employees named in October firings to return—or even keep their jobs past January.”
Department officials did not respond to a request for comment. With the shutdown concluded, the department posted on X, “Government shutdown is over, and we’re baaackkkkk! But let’s be honest: did you really miss us at all?”
The laid-off workers come from six of the department’s 17 primary offices and include virtually the entire staff who work on key formula grant programs, including Title I for low-income students and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grant programs.
For Ed. Dept. staffers, 43 days of surprises and uncertainty
The bill will fund the federal government through Jan. 30, and promises back pay for workers who have been furloughed since Oct. 1.
Nearly 87% of the Education Department’s already reduced staff were among those furloughed workers, and they faced continued uncertainty and surprises early in the shutdown.
Staff discovered soon after the shutdown began that the agency had changed their out-of-office email messages to blame “Democrat Senators” for the shutdown. Their union sued over the partisan language, and a judge on Friday ultimately sided with the employees.
Then, on the shutdown’s 10th day, the Trump administration began issuing reduction-in-force notices to thousands of employees across multiple federal agencies. The 465 Education Department layoffs would have come on top of the nearly 2,000 employee departures earlier this year, through a combination of buyout offers and layoffs. A court filing described the state of uncertainty for many agency employees—they were prohibited from checking their email during the shutdown, so some were unsure whether they had received layoff notices.
Within days, a federal judge put the layoffs on hold, then extended the hold indefinitely.
Despite the pause on layoffs, there’s been broad uncertainty over whether a further-reduced department will be able to carry out key functions. Virtually entire offices in charge of administering competitive and formula grants that go to schools and overseeing special education compliance and school accountability were slated to be wiped out.
Meanwhile, two weeks into the shutdown, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who has repeatedly vowed to make good on Trump’s promise to close the Education Department, argued that schools were “operating as normal,” demonstrating that “the federal Department of Education is unnecessary, and we should return education to the states.”
She added that no funding had been affected by the reduction in force.
But during the shutdown, districts that receive monthly Impact Aid payments from the federal government to compensate for large amounts of non-taxable federal land within their boundaries started to go without their payments, and some wondered whether the Education Department would be able to issue them once it reopened because Impact Aid staffers were among those laid off.
Head Start programs also started to go without their annual allocations from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, forcing some to shut down.
The shutdown halted some internal department moves, as well. The Senate confirmed new leadership for multiple offices on Oct. 7, including North Dakota state Superintendent Kirsten Baesler to lead the office of elementary and secondary education and Kimberley Richey to lead the office for civil rights. But they couldn’t be sworn in until the shutdown ended. (The Education Department on Thursday morning publicly welcomed the newly confirmed officials to the agency.)
But even as the Education Department publicly declared no problems, it brought back staff who had received layoff notices to work without pay as “excepted employees” to help push money out of the door as deadlines approached, according to some staff. It was unclear if these called-back employees would eventually be the subject to the reduction in force.
The circumstances have combined to create a continuously volatile workplace for staffers.
“The hardworking public servants at the U.S. Department of Education are ready to get back to work, but they also deserve a workplace where they are not under constant threat of being fired,” Gittleman said.
