(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Education’s mass layoffs on Tuesday affected some 1,315 employees — including civil servants around the country who are now left wondering who will advocate for those they served.
The cuts — which account for a nearly 50% reduction at the department — impacted every part of the Department of Education, according to senior education department officials.
But a source familiar tells ABC News that most of the reduction in force affected the Offices for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid. The civil servants who worked for OCR and FSA are tasked with investigating discrimination within America’s schools and helping the nation’s students achieve higher education.
OCR and FSA staff in almost all regional offices were eliminated, according to the source, who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity. Therefore, the cuts to nearly half the federal agency will “absolutely affect” the department’s operations, according to the source familiar with the reductions who works at the department.
“I don’t know how [disabled students] will be serviced,” said another Department of Education employee who didn’t want their name used for this story.
The employee’s office is a law enforcement agency charged with enforcing anti-discrimination laws for students based on race, gender and disability, among other characteristics.
By law, the office reviews complaints regarding the nation’s most vulnerable students, including Section 504, which helps ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to educational opportunities. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has ensured that programs that are critical to students with disabilities will not be cut.
Shuttering this employee’s office — and other regional offices — shrinks the number of civil servants around the country who ensure disability services are provided to these students.
The regional Department of Education employee, who received the reduction in force email on Tuesday, told ABC News their civil rights office was abolished.
“All those disabled kids, which is the bulk of our docket, will not be helped,” the employee said.
However, McMahon said the agency will still administer those statutory programs that students from disadvantaged backgrounds rely on. In an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on Tuesday night, McMahon suggested the “good” employees who administer the statutorily mandated functions will not be harmed in the process.
“What we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat,” McMahon said.
“It’s a humanitarian thing to a lot of the folks that are there, they’re out of a job, but we wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people, to make sure that the outward-facing programs, the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress, all of that are being met and none of that is going to fall through the cracks,” she said.
Impacted staff will be placed on administrative leave starting March 21, a statement from the Education Department on Tuesday said. They will receive full pay and benefits through June 9, senior officials added.
The statement also said that the DOE will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”
But the news of the cuts on Tuesday was demoralizing to the Department of Education employee who is out of a job after more than two decades at the agency.
“It’s upsetting,” said the employee. “It doesn’t make sense — it’s upside-down world.”
On Wednesday, Trump said he felt “very badly” about the massive cuts at the DOE, but quickly claimed, without evidence, that many of its employees weren’t going to work or doing a good job.
“Now, Department of Education, maybe more so than any other place, has a lot of people that can be cut,” he said.
He praised McMahon, saying that she is doing a “very good job.”
“We have a dream, the dream is we’re going to move the Department of Education, we’re going to move education into the states,” he said.
The Trump administration has urged McMahon to return power to the states, but education is already a local-level issue. The Education Department’s responsibility is to administer money, conduct critical research projects and oversee discrimination complaints.
“We all know that local education agencies and state education agencies — they control about 95% of what happens in public education,” the Department of Education employee said. “The federal government doesn’t control curriculum, doesn’t control hiring, firing of teachers, doesn’t control standardized testing, etc. We don’t control anything other than trying to help people, give folks loans so they can maybe help their family and educate themselves and go to college and then make sure that kids that are disabled get the services that the laws say that they’re supposed to.”
The civil servant said that they — along with the rest of their office — are now shell shocked.
“There’s no rules in a hostile takeover,” the employee said. “They’re treating the government like it’s a business, and it’s not and that’s what’s unfortunate.”
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