04-03-2025
East Aurora teachers union members protest proposed Trump administration education cuts
The East Aurora Council AFT Local 604 teachers union held a national 'Day of Action' on Tuesday to protest Trump administration education policies and offer a show of support for the district and its students, according to a news release from the union.
On Monday, teachers and staff protested at their building faculty meetings, and a handful showed up at East Aurora's board meeting that evening. The following morning, union members met outside before school and then staged a 'walk-in' at Hermes Elementary School in Aurora.
In February, the Education Department under President Donald Trump's administration said schools and universities had two weeks to get rid of diversity initiatives or risk losing federal funding. Trump has also called for the elimination of the Education Department.
And while colleges and universities have largely taken the focus as schools scramble to determine whether they are in compliance, East Aurora staff are also expressing their concerns about how federal education policies may impact instruction at public schools.
In a news release Monday, Becky Roireau, the union's president and a former fifth-grade teacher at Hermes Elementary, referred to this moment as a 'fork in the road,' citing concern over the Department of Education's 'special emphasis on advancing private, for-profit charter schools' and the Trump administration's crackdown on DEI policies at educational institutions that receive federal funding.
The East Aurora Council AFT Local 604 represents over 1,300 teachers, support staff and office staff in the district, and is affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the news release said.
For the district's part, East Aurora School District board members said they are also concerned about threats to federal funding.
'The school board is carefully watching news out of Washington about funding,' board president Annette Johnson said in a statement provided to The Beacon-News. 'We are concerned since our district has been heavily reliant on federal and state funding.'
The board will be working with public officials and the teachers union on what to do moving forward, according to Johnson.
'I think it's a little bit of a fear of staff is, are we being in compliance, not being in compliance?,' Roireau told The Beacon-News on Monday. 'But also people are concerned about what they've been able to teach, you know, the things that are mandated by the state of Illinois … are in complete opposition to what the federal government is saying.'
Gov. JB Pritzker has spoken out against possible federal education cuts, saying that schools across the state depend on federal funding for programs like special education. But uncertainty still remains as to what federal cuts would mean for Illinois schools.
'When people don't know what's happening, it makes them more fearful than it actually happening,' Roireau said. 'It's that apprehension of what could come.'
