Mayor: Worcester schools threatened by 'heartbreaking' Trump bid to kill Education Department

Yahoo

21-03-2025

WORCESTER ― Taking the floor at the end of a School Committee meeting Thursday, Mayor Joseph Petty addressed recent budget cuts and uncertainty coming from Washington and the Trump administration.
"We know one thing for certain," Petty said, "we have some hurdles in education at the federal level."
Petty spoke just hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. Trump promised during his campaign to close the department, and that has long been a goal of some conservative politicians.
More: President Trump signs order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education
It remains unclear how Trump's executive order will end up functioning. The Department of Education, which handles numerous tasks from providing funding to local districts to handling student loan programs, was created during the Carter administration and legally cannot be dissolved except by an act of Congress.
However, the administration has already taken actions that would hamper the effectiveness of the department, with a combination of layoffs and buyouts reducing the staff of the department from approximately 4,000 employees to 2,000 since Trump took office.
The White House has said that the department has failed to improve educational outcomes; it has touted the idea of ceding authority to states, while transferring some essential functions to other federal agencies.
Petty said that Worcester Public Schools receive about $50 million from the federal government each year that goes into the district's annual budget. That funding is used for a wide range of different purposes across the district, including subsidizing school lunches and funding the Head Start program, which provides preschool education to hundreds of students each year.
"It's a serious amount of money, not just in Worcester, but anywhere," Petty said. "What is being said at the federal level is heartbreaking, it is upsetting. You spend your time in the community trying to make people feel safe in the community. I spent my time today speaking with congressmen – listening to people and how scared, and how much fear there is."
Petty said that about $180,000 has already been cut from Worcester's federal funding, as part of a reduction in an aid program that subsidized school lunches for low-income families.
"We are going to have to deal with this going forward as a community," Petty said. "This is not the time to stand down. The sad thing is that people are afraid of saying something because they are going to become a target. I think I'm beyond that now – we are a target for what we do and what we say, for all these issues, whether they be immigration, economic development funding, education department funding."
"(Chief Financial Officer for Worcester Public Schools) Brian Allen needs to spend every day trying to find out where the next cut is going to come from," Petty said. "We are not being proactive, we are reactive, and I think we need to become more proactive as a community."
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Petty requested a report from the School Department on the potential impacts a loss of federal funding would have on the district. Petty noted that he had a similar report done on the municipal side, which found little risk, but added that the school side is more vulnerable.
"We know everyone in the schools – the teachers and the administrators – are doing a great job," Petty said. "We need to let our students know that they are going to be safe."
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Mayor Petty: 'Heartbreaking' federal moves imperil Worcester schools