Trump Grant Freeze Puts Tens of Millions of Local K-12 Funding in Jeopardy

The Trump administration announced last week that they had frozen $6.2 billion in federal grants for schools across the country. The freeze is just the latest salvo in President Donald Trump’s attacks on the education status quo. It could also deprive San Diego County schools of tens of millions of congressionally allocated funds.  

Determining the exact impact the freeze will have on schools is difficult. Officials from the U.S. Department of Education usually provide the California Department of Education estimated grant amounts by March or April. This year, as the department was walloped by cuts and raided by DOGE operatives, there was radio silence. 

That silence left researchers and local education agencies, for whom the grants are an important part of budgets, to come up with their own figures. For example, officials at the educational think tank the Learning Policy Institute estimated California may be entitled to an $811 million slice of the frozen funding. 

San Diego Unified officials have their own estimate of the impact: $13 million. That total includes $3.8 million in grants for professional development, $3.3 million for before-and after-school care programs, $3.1 million for academic enrichment and $2.6 million for English language learners, district spokesperson James Canning wrote in an email. 

The timing of the freeze is also significant because it came on the day the funds were supposed to have been disbursed. That means districts across the country created their budgets assuming they would have these funds. Not having those funds could cause serious cracks in district budgets. 

As far as San Diego Unified goes, Canning wrote that if the funds remain frozen, it could make addressing the district’s coming budget gap in the 2026-27 school year more difficult. 

Exactly what comes next is also difficult to determine. The funds are allocated by Congress, which means congressional action would be needed to rescind them permanently. But those sorts of technicalities haven’t seemed to stop the Trump administration from trying. 

California educational leaders came out hard against the move. State Superintendent Tony Thurmond described the freeze as an illegal impoundment of federal funds and said he expects the state to file suit. Impoundment is when a president withholds money allocated by Congress.  

“The president is completely disregarding the democratic process by impounding dollars already budgeted, rather than trying to make his case for cuts,” Thurmond wrote in a statement. “The administration is punishing children for the sole reason that states refuse to cater to Trump’s political ideology.” 

But what exactly do these federal grants fund? And what are the stakes? I called some local educators to find out.  

Professional Development 

San Diego Unified’s Board President is trying to remain calm. Were these funding freezes to become permanent cuts, they would be significant, Cody Petterson said. But he’s confident in the ability of elected leaders to push back against them and the staff at his district to adjust to them.  

As it stands, he thinks there may be some temporary reduction in programming, but that it will kick back into high gear quickly if and when the funding is unfrozen. But when it comes to professional development – the funding area where San Diego Unified is hardest hit by the freeze – even if this is nothing but a temporary disruption, it could have long term consequences.  

Take two of the areas where that funding is spent: training for educators teaching non-English speakers the language and a program that helps new teachers earn rare credentials like the ones required to teach special education.  

“If this goes through whether its educational opportunities for English language learners or whether its availability of teachers with specialized credentials, you will see the scars of these things for many years to come,” Petterson said. 

Migrant Education 

When people here the phrase “migrant education,” Elisa Ayala often sees a familiar misconception set in. Ayala is the director of the program at San Diego County Office of Education. 

“But our program refers to migratory farmworkers. It has nothing to do with immigrants or refugees,” Ayala said.  

The initiative works to fill the gaps created by the migratory lifestyle, which can often find families moving from place to place to follow the harvest cycle of avocados, strawberries or lemons. That may mean providing tutoring, in-school support, or even wraparound services like free dental care.  

Ayala’s team delivers services for many districts in the region –  about 3,000 young people in San Diego and Orange County ages 3 to 21 in total. To qualify, their parents must work in the agriculture, fishing or lumber sectors. Many of those young people are concentrated in agriculture heavy North County areas like Fallbrook.  

Migrant education also isn’t some new program. It was created by President Lyndon B. Johson nearly 60 years ago as part of his suite of “War on Poverty,” policies. It’s been a relatively uncontroversial part of the budget ever since.  

The funding freeze puts that work in jeopardy. 

Ayala said she’s not positive exactly how much money the program was slated to get this year, after all the U.S. Department of Education never let states know. But based on internal estimates from the County Office, the total was likely somewhere between $5.6 and $5.8 million.  

For Ayala, the freeze feels like it’s based on a misconception of what the program is here to do. But even if the motive is unclear, the impact isn’t, she said. 

“I think that children deserve the best of what we can give them and these cuts directly hurt them. As a society, we should be here to support children and help them grow and to become good citizens,” Ayala said. “It’s very sad.” 

Before-and After-School Care 

In few districts in San Diego County is the need for before-and after-school care more obvious than Mountain Empire. The district, which is spread over 660 miles of mountainous terrain in the county’s southeasternmost corner, is one of the most rural in the region.  

Many parents make a long, daily drive “down the mountain,” to get to work, Superintendent Pat Keeley said. He attended Mountain Empire High and knows from experience. His father worked 40 minutes away in Mission Valley and walking the winding roads home wasn’t an option. So, Keeley would often wait in the parking lot of the Pine Valley Store until 6 or 7 p.m. waiting for him to come home.  

That’s far from a unique dilemma for Mountain Empire families, which makes the child care the district provides – which begins at 6 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m. all the more important. But it’s hard to come by in the area. According to a 2024 study by the YMCA of San Diego County, portions of Mountain Empire are child care deserts. Almost all of what exists in other areas are operated by the district.  

“For working families, this is an incredibly important program. There’s a large portion of our community that really needs that service,” Keeley said. 

Exactly what fiscal impact the funding freeze will have is still unclear. The district does have state funding for before-and after-school care, but the frozen funds could be a serious blow to Mountain Empire’s ability to provide the care local parents rely on – especially since districts like Keeley’s included the grants when crafting this year’s budget. 

Since the freeze was announced so late, there was no way to plan. That means it could result in cuts. That would be bad news for Mountain Empire families, Keeley said. 

“Decisions like this are made by people that really have never even been part of the public education system, so they don’t know how most people exist,” Keeley said. “If we have to make cuts, it’s going to negatively impact peoples’ entire living situation.” 

Still, Keeley struck a note of optimism. 

“I work with some pretty creative and resilient people, and we’ll put our creative minds together to help problem solve.” 

English Language Learners 

About 17 percent of students in San Diego County schools are English language learners. That amounts to about 70,000 students. Like all students in American schools, those English language learners are guaranteed to a free public education. But exactly what that means may look different for English learners.  

These funds have typically been used to help English learners, both in and out of the classroom, become proficient in the language. That may mean it’s used for school staff like teachers or interpreters, training or even after-school programming. 

The barriers to success for English learners are high. After all, you can’t succeed in school if you can’t speak the language. So, the stakes are also high. The freezing of these funds could be devastating, said Martha Hernandez, the executive director of Californians Together, a nonprofit that advocates for English learners.  

“Districts are kind of paralyzed. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know if they’re going to have to lay off personnel or if the funds will be unfrozen,” Hernandez said. “It’s a limbo and some are going to have to say, we’re going to have to make cuts.” 

That burden will likely disproportionately fall on smaller districts that are less able to absorb the impact of the frozen funds. Even if they’re restored, those cuts may be hard to reverse and could likely reverberate outwards. 

“Students are not going to receive the services of programs that they need to become proficient readers and writers and to be successful in this country,” Hernandez said. “These funds are not supplemental. They are critical. They are a lifeline.” 

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