The longest federal government shutdown in American history came to an end earlier this week—but education will be feeling its effects for months and years to come.
K-12 schools, which derive most of their funding from state and local revenue sources, were largely able to carry on as usual during the shutdown. But the congressional standoff did disrupt some education funding, and could lead to further disruption because of work that didn’t happen during the lapse in funding.
At the federal level, the reopening of the government after 43 days means a tentative return to some degree of normalcy for hundreds of Education Department employees who received layoff notices early in the shutdown. The budget agreement that ended the shutdown rescinded those October layoff notices, and halted any further layoffs across the federal government until at least Jan. 30.
The shutdown will likely not mark the end of chaos and disruption to typical business in the federal government, though. The Trump administration this week continued to signal its goal of closing the Education Department altogether. Federal education funding for the 2026-27 school year remains up in the air as lawmakers continue to negotiate a longer-term budget. And the threat of another shutdown looms large as the stopgap federal budget is due to expire in less than three months.
Meanwhile, schools are continuing to grapple with the fallout from a nearly $7 billion July funding freeze and several rounds of grant cancellations that have left many district leaders wary of trusting the federal government at all.
Here’s a guide to how the shutdown affected education, and what to expect in its aftermath.
Formula funding arrives late
Two key education programs that send out funding on a monthly basis ground to a halt during the shutdown.
Dozens of Head Start providers of early childhood education for students from low-income families had to close their doors during the shutdown after their latest rounds of annual funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services failed to show up on Oct. 1 or Nov. 1.
Meanwhile, hundreds of school districts are now awaiting late payments from the Education Department’s Impact Aid program, which aims to fill the local revenue gap left by non-taxable, federally owned land within district boundaries.
Without those dollars, many school districts on or near military bases, tribal lands, and national forests had to take out loans, postpone construction projects, and freeze planned investments.
All but one agency staff member who worked on Impact Aid received a layoff notice from the Trump administration in early October. Those staffers appear to be back on the job now that the shutdown is over, but it remains to be seen whether the agency will move to dismiss them again in a couple months.
Education Department staffers also typically spend the fall taking preliminary steps to prepare formula grant funding that will flow to thousands of districts next summer and fall. In addition, department staff have outstanding requests from Republican-led states looking for flexibility on regulations for spending federal education funds.
Staff will likely now have to redouble their efforts to get those funds and approvals out on time—a particularly tall task with diminished teams and the looming threat of additional reductions in force.
Grant timelines shift in unpredictable ways
Just two days before the shutdown began, the Education Department was soliciting applications for $270 million from two grant programs that support mental health services in schools—just months after canceling nearly two-thirds of the ongoing grants the federal government awarded through previous iterations of those programs.
Some of those districts applied for the latest round of grants in order to restore their canceled funding, and those applications were due Oct. 29, while the government was shut down. The federal government now has less than two months to dole out that money before it expires and returns to the U.S. Treasury on Dec. 31.
Complicating matters further, a judge last month effectively barred the department from giving out some of that money in light of its cancellation of previous grants earlier this year without following required procedures. The judge told the agency it couldn’t move ahead with the termination of about four dozen grants.
Other grant processes are even further behind. President Donald Trump in April signed an executive order announcing a grant competition for promoting artificial intelligence in K-12 education—but the application process for those grants has yet to emerge.
The department also has yet to publish an annual document that details how it carried out spending fiscal year 2025 funds appropriated by Congress. Without that document, it’s difficult to tell how the agency plans to carry out funding changes it announced earlier this year, like redirecting funding for minority-serving institutions to historically Black colleges and universities or boosting charter school grants by $60 million.
Previous administrations published the spending plan document within one month of Congress passing a budget bill. The most recent spending package that included education funding passed in March.
Relevant personnel belatedly assume their roles
The U.S. Senate on Oct. 7—about a week into the shutdown—confirmed four officials for top-ranking political positions within the department. But those directors are only now assuming their new roles.
Kirsten Baesler, confirmed as the department’s assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education, spent the months since her February nomination continuing to serve in her role as North Dakota’s education chief, where she’ll remain until Nov. 24.
It remains to be seen how those new officials will influence the department’s decisions around reductions in force, school accountability, civil rights enforcement, and more.
In Congress, meanwhile, backlash mounted during the shutdown as House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to seat Adelita Grijalva following her decisive election victory in a September special election to represent Arizona’s 7th Congressional District. Johnson cited the shutdown to justify the delay, though he had the authority to swear her in.
Grijalva, a Democrat, previously served as a school board member in her hometown school district of Tucson, Ariz., for more than two decades. As of Nov. 13, she now represents the congressional district that includes a portion of that school system.
Having an ally in that seat is a big relief to the Tucson schools as district leaders seek clarity on a wide range of emerging federal policy changes, said Ricky Hernandez, the Tucson district’s chief financial officer.
Grijalva’s seat was empty for eight months after her father, who held it before her, died in March while still in office.
Investigations into funding changes will continue
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal watchdog funded by Congress, had been investigating more than 40 instances of the Trump administration potentially violating the Nixon-era federal law that prohibits the executive branch from impounding—or not spending—funds appropriated by Congress.
Trump administration officials argue that law is unconstitutional and are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually agree.
The GAO had already published decisions before Oct. 1 finding that the administration broke the law by withholding funding from programs supporting school infrastructure upgrades, library and museum services, Head Start, and disaster preparation.
The agency hasn’t confirmed whether any of its remaining investigations pertain to education funding. But the administration made changes to several education programs in ways that were similar to those flagged in the earlier decisions—including canceling teacher-training grants; indefinitely delaying grant awards for electric school buses; and withholding, albeit temporarily, billions of dollars from seven formula programs that were due to states in July.
All of the GAO’s investigative efforts were in jeopardy during the shutdown. The Trump administration and House Republicans were also pushing to dramatically reduce GAO funding for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1.
But the budget deal Congress approved this week maintains level funding for the accountability office.
The U.S. Comptroller General, who leads the GAO, is the only official with the authority to sue over impoundment violations. Gene Dodaro, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who currently occupies that role, has said he’d consider filing such a lawsuit.
But he’s running out of time—his 15-year term ends Dec. 29. Trump will get to appoint his replacement, subject to Senate confirmation.
A GAO spokesperson said Friday the office is “adjusting the timelines and priorities of our current workload” due to the shutdown and that is hasn’t decided whether to file any lawsuits.
