Brownsville ISD officials react to U.S. Department of Education cuts
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On Tuesday, the U.S. Education Department announced plans to cut nearly half of its entire workforce after President Donald Trump proposed eliminating the agency.
A group of state attorneys general filed a lawsuit to stop the job cuts. The lawsuit said the terminations are dismantling the education department.
With the potential elimination of the department of education, Brownsville ISD officials said they are concerned about what this could mean for the over 36,000 students they serve.
“A lot of our special education funding comes from federal funds, so that is a huge impact of a population of students that we have, 6,000 here in our district,” Brownsville ISD School board President Daniella Lopez Valdez said.
Acceding to Valdez, 18% — or $99 million dollars — of the school district’s budget comes from federal funding.
That money goes to special education, after school and migrant programs, as well as professional development for teachers
Valdez said if those federal dollars don't come in, they'll have to rely on state and local funding
“Usually what happens is our federal funds get filtered to the state and then the state distributes it from there,” Valdez said. “So we are very aware of the current battle going on in fully funding public education."
Valdez said the district gets 65% of their money from state funding, and it's already tight.
Since 2019, there has been no increase to the money the district depends on to fund most of their operations.
Brownsville Educators Stand Together, the local teacher's union, said eliminating the department of education would impact low income families, kids with disabilities and teachers.
If President Trump signs the executive order to eliminate the department of education, it would likely still require action from congress.
While Brownsville ISD doesn't know what's going to happen, Valdez said they will continue to advocate for more funding at the state level by participating in the legislative session
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