On June 30th the Trump administration informed state education departments that 6.8 billion dollars in federal K-12 education monies was being withheld. The White House impounded 230 million dollars in Congressionally approved funds that would have gone to Pennsylvania education programs. This action could wreak havoc on school districts that have already created their budgets for the next school year with some needing to borrow money to support the now unfunded programs. It is expected that some states will go to court over this issue.
These promised funds, typically available to districts on July 1st, dealt with several areas including migrant education, teacher education and recruitment, student support and enrichment grants and before and after school programs. Bill Wood, one of Avon Grove’s directors recently discussed this situation on Facebook and gave more detail as to how he saw the impact of these frozen funds. He wrote Title I-C “Provides support for students of migrant families. These are families with jobs in industries like agriculture that require that they move seasonally to follow where the work is.” Wood also pointed out that the frozen Title III-A funds provide “a range of services for English Language Learners (ELL). Despite the loss of these funds, districts will still be legally required under federal civil rights laws to provide equal access to instruction for students who are learning English.”
This is the second time this summer that the national government has surprised the state by pulling funds that had already been promised. In early June, Governor Josh Shapiro launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration for canceled food bank and farm assistance programs. The Chester County Food Bank (CCFB), commenting on this funding cut, said that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has cancelled a $250,000 food order to the Chester County Food Bank. This cut affected the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) for the quarter beginning April 1, 2025 and if this trend continues, the Food Bank could lose up to $1 million in USDA food. For an organization that distributes five million pounds of food to over 40,000 Chester County residents per year, this loss in TEFAP food would have a profound impact on the Chester County Food Bank. Governor Shapiro filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg asking to have $250,000 returned. According to the Pennsylvania Capital Star, an online newspaper, “Since the cancellation, a federal program that’s provided nearly $30 million in funding for participating Pennsylvania farms to provide fresh, locally grown products to food banks since 2022, Gov. Josh Shapiro has been front and center at various locations throughout the commonwealth detailing his support for it.”
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