Updated: This story has been updated after the Trump administration announced it withheld $6.8 billion in federal education funds, including Title III dollars.
When the U.S. Department of Education laid off thousands of employees earlier this year amid the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate the agency, it threw hundreds of schools into limbo over the future of a key federal grant program tied to supporting English learners.
The National Professional Development (NPD) grant program, run by the Education Department’s office for English language acquisition, or OELA, provides universities and nonprofit organizations with funding to partner with school districts for in-service teacher training, micro-credentialing, and alternative pathways to teacher licensure specifically focused on serving English learners.
There are currently 107 active NPD grants helping schools meet a pronounced need as the English-learner population continues to grow nationally, and teachers report feeling unprepared in helping these students as they acquire English-language proficiency. Most English learners are U.S.-born citizens.
“The NPD grant is a means of ensuring that we have effective teachers in position to help students become multilingual learners,” said Douglas Reed, a current grantee and soon to be vice provost of education at Georgetown University, whose project supports schools in the District of Columbia.
The Education Department staff cuts in March, however, left OELA down to a single employee tasked with overseeing all 107 grants in addition to all other OELA responsibilities. As a result, NPD grantees told Education Week they’ve been left in a “black box” about whether their funding would continue this fall.
For fiscal 2024, Congress allocated more than $59 million to NPD grants. The funding comes out of the larger federal funding pot dedicated to supporting English learners, known as Title III. The White House budget proposal, published in May, calls for eliminating the Title III funding program for the 2026-27 school year, and some state education leaders are bracing for possible cuts to the program and other professional development programs for the 2025-26 school year.
The Education Department did not respond to requests for comment regarding the future of the NPD program.
The afternoon of June 30 the Trump administration announced it withheld $6.8 billion in federal education funds, including Title III dollars, with these funds (already approved by Congress) are now under review.
On July 1, NPD grantees said they received a statement from Beatriz Ceja-Williams, the most recent OELA director and seemingly the only OELA employee remaining, saying that the NPD program is part of this review. She directed questions to the Office of Management and Budget.
“The Department is currently conducting a comprehensive review of all programs to ensure every dollar is spent in the best interest of the federal government and aligns with the administration’s priorities,” her statement read.
Grantees spoke with Education Week about how they have banded together—including creating an email listserv—to gather any information on the fate of their grants and what’s at stake should these programs abruptly end.
Researchers create a listserv to gather information, share resources
When it became clear in March that only one person would be left at OELA following the overall agency layoffs, a few experienced NPD grantees came together to create an email listserv where fellow grantees could pose questions and share resources—especially for new grantees navigating federal reporting processes for the first time.
“There’s still no information coming from officials, but at least we have a capacity to share and pool the information that we do have,” Reed said of the service the listserv provides.
One way the listserv has helped grantees was by becoming a repository of information on how to fill out and submit the annual performance report, which is typically due in early June and assesses grantees’ progress toward program goals and how funds were spent.
In the past, OELA program officers assigned to grantees would answer any questions related to the report in May to make sure grantees would submit the report correctly. They would sometimes follow up by late June in case anything needed clarification. But this year, those officers were gone.
Chris Montecillo Leider, a first-time NPD grantee and assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, instead turned to texting fellow grantees and the listserv for guidance.
Her community of fellow grantees helped answer questions such as “What are they looking for? What do I need to include? How much is too much?”
Experienced grantees told her that in the past, different program officers had different expectations of what they were looking for in the annual performance report.
“Not even having one [program officer] was kind of like a black box. Is the person that’s going to read this someone who wants a ton of information and all the nitty gritty details or someone who just wants to know in general?” Montecillo Leider said.
While grantees who spoke with Education Week said they received automated confirmations stating they successfully filed their annual performance report, chatter on the listserv revealed no one has since heard if any follow-ups are required.
Education Department creates confusion through lack of communication
The listserv has provided grantees with a sense of community at a time when many are worried about the fate of their work with schools, said Trish Morita-Mullaney, an NPD grantee and associate professor at Purdue University in Indiana.
“People have said, if you need help, let’s just pop on Zoom and help each other,” Morita-Mullaney said.
But that community is not enough. A dedicated program officer is still needed to provide expertise to make sure grantees are meeting all their goals, Morita-Mullaney added.
NDP grantees in year four of their five-year grants, including Morita-Mullaney, said the last formal communication they received from the Education Department was a notice right after submitting the annual performance report. The message said their program officer was now Ceja-Williams.
“Now, we all have a program officer, but it’s one person, so she is having to do triage and decide, what do I respond to,” Morita-Mullaney said.
Even that email about Ceja-Williams to fourth-year grantees left members of the listserv confused.
Consensus among the listserv was that the email, which alluded to Ceja-Williams needing to review next year’s funding, only went out to those in year four of their grant program, said Belinda Gimbert, an NPD grantee and an associate professor at The Ohio State University.
“You could imagine the confusion that threw amongst everybody for two reasons,” Gimbert said. “One was, ‘Why didn’t I get an email?’ And then the second issue was some people took that, read it, and went, ‘Oh, I’ve got my funds for year five.’ But when you read it carefully ... it only referred to possible future funds, it didn’t mean that you had next year’s funding.”
Grantees overall are currently wondering if they will get their funds this fall to continue their work.
The grant follows a reimbursement model with universities and nonprofits paying for staffing and resources upfront. Typically, grantees get a notification in late August that their funding has been authorized, and the funds will then be dispersed in September.
With no consistent or clear communication from OELA or the Education Department, and the possibility of the Trump administration impounding Title III dollars, grantees feel stuck.
“The way organizations function is that you have to be able to show that you have the funds to be able to support the employment of individuals that work on a grant,” Gimbert said. “And if you can’t show that the funds are available, then that process must start unfolding very soon, because you have to notify people that they’re going to be let go.”
English-learner education at risk should grants end
NPD grants cover more than just research into best practices for teaching English learners.
Gimbert’s own program supports teacher licensure in ESL and bilingual education, family engagement like parent tutoring and adult ESL classes, and training for K-8 teachers in how to work with English learners in small-group settings.
These partnerships between universities, nonprofits, and K-12 schools rely on trust—and breaking that trust can have long-term consequences, she said.
“[School districts] know that in partnering with universities and organizations, they can lean on others in the community to provide skills, knowledge, and expertise to help schools to be able to support their English-language learners. If the funds aren’t forthcoming, then they have to go and figure out another plan,” Gimbert said.
Some grantees have had to tell teachers that they may not be able to finish work they started this year. Others are simply stalling any hiring decisions for the time being, especially if they don’t have any funding to carry over into the next year.
Reed’s NPD grant provides training for 100 in-service teachers in the District of Columbia public school district and charter schools on how to most effectively work with English learners and newcomer immigrant students. His program also offers scholarships for preservice teachers to get credentialed in working with English learners.
While Reed and his team have a cushion of funding they plan on carrying over to help cover hiring commitments next year, that’s not the scenario for most grantees currently checking the listserv for any updates.
“We can’t run these programs ourselves. They need to be federally administered and they need to be federally funded because that is required by law, and that law has not been repealed,” Reed said.
