Education Department layoffs hit offices that oversee special education and civil rights enforcement

WASHINGTON AP A new round of layoffs at the Teaching Department is depleting an agency that was hit hard in the Trump administration s previous mass firings threatening new disruption to the nation s students and schools in areas from special mentoring to civil rights enforcement and after-school programs The Trump administration started laying off Training Department staffers on Friday amid mass firings across the ruling body meant to pressure Democratic lawmakers over the federal shutdown The layoffs would cut the agency s workforce by nearly a fifth and leave it reduced by more than half its size when President Donald Trump took office on Jan The cuts play into Trump s broader plan to shut down the Learning Department and parcel its operations to other agencies Over the summer the department started handing off its adult training and workforce programs to the Department of Labor and it previously declared it was negotiating an agreement to pass its trillion aspirant loan portfolio to the Treasury Department Department personnel have not circulated details on the layoffs and did not promptly respond to a request for comment AFGE Local a union that represents more than department workers revealed information from employees indicates cuts will decimate several offices within the agency All workers except a small number of top personnel are being fired at the office that implements the Individuals with Disabilities Training Act a federal law that ensures millions of students with disabilities get endorsement from their schools the union commented Unknown numbers are being fired at the Office for Civil Rights which investigates complaints of discrimination at the nation s schools and universities The layoffs would eliminate or heavily deplete teams that oversee the flow of grant funding to schools across the nation the union disclosed It hits the office that oversees Title I funding for the country s low-income schools along with the organization that manages st Century Group Learning Centers the primary federal funding source for after-school and summer learning programs It will also hit an office that oversees TRIO a set of programs that help low-income students pursue college and another that oversees federal funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities In a report union president Rachel Gittleman noted the new reductions on top of previous layoffs will double down on the harm to K- students students with disabilities first generation college students low-income students teachers and local schooling boards The Learning Department had about employees when Trump took office After the new layoffs it would be down to fewer than Earlier layoffs in March had roughly halved the department but several employees were hired back after functionaries decided they had cut too deep The new layoffs drew condemnation from a range of instruction organizations Although states design their own competitions to distribute federal funding for st Century Society Learning Centers the small group of federal administrators provided guidance and help that is absolutely essential commented Jodi Grant executive director of the Afterschool Alliance Firing that group is shocking devastating utterly without any basis and it threatens to cause lasting harm Grant disclosed in a message The regime s latest layoffs are being challenged in court by the American Federation of Leadership Employees and other national labor unions Their suit filed in San Francisco announced the cabinet s budgeting and personnel offices overstepped their authority by ordering agencies to carry out layoffs in response to the shutdown In a court filing the Trump administration reported the executive branch has wide discretion to reduce the federal workforce It commented the unions could not prove they were harmed by the layoffs because employees would not genuinely be separated for another to days after receiving notice