Sheria Smith spoke to fellow AFGE members in Dallas on Oct. 10. (Photo by Katie Serrano)
The US government officially shut down at midnight on Oct. 1 after Congress failed to reach a funding agreement. Federal workers said it’s already impacting education funding.
Union members and elected officials gathered in Dallas on Friday to demand an end to the government shutdown, which is impacting 250,000 federal workers in Texas.
Although the shutdown is now heading into its second week, the Trump administration has been meddling in the US Education Department, which includes an Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in Dallas, for far longer.
“If you talk to my fellow members in the Department of Education and you mention a government shutdown many of us will be confused, because we’ve been shut down effectively since the beginning of this administration,” said Sheria Smith, an attorney for the Dallas OCR and member of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, a union that represents Education Department employees.
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to shrink the DOE. As a result, the Trump administration announced massive layoffs—roughly 1,300 out of the 4,133 workers at the Education Department—on March 12, including closing the Dallas OCR.
Funding from the federal agency supports over 5.6 million students across 9,000 K-12 schools in Texas. That support includes $1.8 billion for schools that serve more than 3.6 million students from low-income families, and $1.3 billion for 700,000 students who receive help like speech services, according to the American Federation of Teachers, which is a labor union for educators.
The Dallas OCR handled civil rights complaints, ensured equal educational opportunities, and addressed issues such as disability rights for students.
Despite a federal judge in May ordering the reinstatement of all laid off Education Department employees, Smith said workers at the Dallas OCR are still on administrative leave.
“ The American people suffer when the federal government is unable to perform the services that they rely on,” Smith said. “Specifically in my agency, the Office for Civil Rights, students and parents in North Texas who believed that schools had violated their civil rights, students who have special needs and were not receiving their accommodations have not been able to have recourse because this administration has illegally tried to shut down the Department of Education.”
The shutdown could have additional negative impacts as it drags on, including delays in funding and services, and more layoffs.
The Trump administration already announced sweeping layoffs on Friday at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). The reduction-in-force at OSERS affects staff members who are responsible for roughly $15 billion in special education funding and who make sure states provide special education services to the nation’s 7.5 million children with disabilities, according to NPR.
Houston lawmaker voices concerns over shutdown
Federal money represents about 14% of funding for public K-12 schools in the US, according to the recent US Census Bureau data. But local officials throughout Texas are still raising concerns that the shutdown could impact schools and families that rely on programs such as Head Start—a free, federally funded early childhood education program for low-income families—if the shutdown continues.
“We’ve been a product of Head Start, and I am really concerned about it,” state Rep. Charlene Ward Johnson (D-Houston) said about the Harrison County Department of Education. “We’ll have enough to get through the school year, but we don’t know how long after that. It’s a detriment to our bottom line that could lead to layoffs, that could lead to after school programs being impacted. A lot of community agencies will be impacted as well because they rely on federal funding to help students who need extra resources.”
Ward also emphasized that school meals, Title I, which is a federal program that provides supplemental funding to schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families after-school services, and community partnerships could be on the chopping block if the shutdown lasts several weeks or months.
Out-of-office emails at Education Department blame Democrats for shutdown
The AFGE filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration for inserting language into Education Department employee’s out-of-office email messages that blame Democrats for the government shutdown.
“I was very distraught on Oct. 1 when someone told me to do a test run and email my government email, and I received an out of office email blaming the fact that I’m not able to respond to the message on Democrat senators,” Smith said. “That’s surprising, because I haven’t been able to respond to any emails because this administration has illegally tried to shut down the US Department of Education without Congressional approval since Jan. 21.”
Smith said the messaging takes away the independence of federal employees. She also alleged that the email message violates the Hatch Act, which is a federal law that limits the political activities of most federal employees, ensuring federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan manner
“Certainly federal employees work for American people regardless of who they voted for, or whether they voted or not,” Smith said.
The lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration violated the free speech rights of employees by forcing them to “recite partisan words that they would not have spoken otherwise.”
The White House began blaming Democrats as soon as the government shut down on Oct. 1. Messages have been posted on several agency websites, including the official White House webpage, blaming congressional Democrats and “the Radical Left” for the shutdown.
“The Trump-Vance administration is losing the blame game for the shutdown, so they’re using every tactic to try to fool the American people, including taking advantage of furloughed civil servants,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement.
Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but need Democratic support in the Senate to approve any government funding deal.
“When we live in a country where the leaders are putting government workers in the fire and forcing them to pledge loyalty—not to a higher purpose, not to their fellow citizens, but to power—that is a problem and a threat to our democracy,” Smith said. “That’s what has caused this government shutdown.”
Houston Political Correspondent ShaVonne Herndon contributed to this story.
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