Schools stand to lose significant cybersecurity support as the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, slash and reorder the U.S. government in the name of reducing waste.
Federal departments and agencies play a crucial role in sharing threat information and best practices with districts as well as alerting districts that they have been hacked and helping them respond quickly. Schools are popular targets for cybercriminals—many operating outside of the United States—but districts often do not have the manpower and expertise to effectively ward off cyberattacks on their own.
K-12 cybersecurity experts who recently spoke with Education Week said that staff reductions, funding cuts, and policy changes by the Trump administration will severely hamper information-sharing networks that schools rely on to stay one step ahead of cyber criminals.
Here are four key takeaways on how those cuts and policy changes could affect schools’ cybersecurity:
1. The Education Department has suspended a major cybersecurity support initiative
The Education Department has effectively suspended its K-12 Cybersecurity Government Coordinating Council—at least for the time being. The move comes at the direction of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The council brought together representatives from federal agencies, state education departments, school districts, and education technology companies to formulate guidance for schools and coordinate responses to cyber threats and attacks. The council played a key role in responding to large-scale cyberattacks that affected schools across multiple states, such as the recent PowerSchool data breach.
The council’s suspension is in response to an executive order signed in February dissolving an initiative that allowed groups like it to meet exempt from some public meeting laws. That allowed participants to share sensitive information without it becoming public.
Without those protections, the council can’t function as it was originally intended to. (The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment on how this policy change would affect its cybersecurity coordinating council.)
2. A cybersecurity resource hub for state and local governments has lost funding
The Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a major provider of free cybersecurity support to school districts, lost about $10 million of its federal funding, accounting for around one-third of its usual annual budget, according to Terry Loftus, the MS-ISAC chair and the assistant superintendent and chief information officer for the San Diego County Office of Education.
The center is fully federally funded and operated by the nonprofit Center for Internet Security in partnership with the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA. The funding cuts could discontinue some of the free services and products it provides, such as cyber threat analyses and cybersecurity trainings, Loftus said.
For now, the Center for Internet Security plans to use its own budget to keep those services running, but the nonprofit is exploring ways to fund the MS-ISAC in the future, including possibly charging membership fees, Loftus said.
3. FCC cybersecurity funding for schools remains, but experts are not optimistic about its future
The Federal Communications Commission launched a cybersecurity pilot program in 2024 to provide up to $200 million in competitive grants over three years to help schools and libraries purchase cybersecurity equipment. It received 2,700 applications, representing $3.7 billion in requests—well above the $200 million cap—which K-12 cybersecurity experts say shows the vast need for more funding.
While experts hope that the pilot becomes a more permanent funding stream, they are not optimistic the current administration will expand the program. The FCC said in a statement to Education Week that the pilot is still ongoing but didn’t respond to a question about the program’s future.
It’s unclear how much of a priority K-12 cybersecurity will be to FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who voted against the pilot program because he didn’t think it was within the agency’s authority. Carr was appointed to be a FCC commissioner in 2018 by President Donald Trump and became FCC chair in 2025. However, he has said that it’s important for schools to have the resources they need to secure their networks.
4. There might be more staffing cuts to agencies that provide cybersecurity support
K-12 cybersecurity experts who recently spoke with Education Week raised concerns that staffing reductions at the U.S. Department of Education and the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, among others, could affect schools’ ability to respond to, and recover from, cyberattacks. For example, the Education Department eliminated its Office of Educational Technology in March, which provided cybersecurity resources to schools.
As of right now, it’s unclear if or how staffing cuts at the federal level will affect the stream of information and resources flowing to schools. But a spokesperson for CISA, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a recent statement to Education Week that cuts to staffing and funding will not affect services or support for school districts.
“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reforms across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer,” a CISA spokesperson said in a statement to Education Week. Personnel cuts across DHS “will result in roughly $50 million in savings for American taxpayers and incalculable [value] toward accountability and cutting red tape.”
The spokesperson added that the Department of Homeland Security, of which CISA is a part, is continuing to identify other wasteful positions and offices that do not fulfill its mission.
