Alabama schools to lose $68 million in federal grants under Trump freeze

President Donald Trump’s attempt to freeze nearly $7 billion in congressional-approved grants for personnel and afterschool programs means Alabama schools will lose $68 million. 

“These are programs already approved and funded by Congress,” Alabama State Superintendent Eric Mackey said in a statement. “They include programs integral to successful and supportive schools across Alabama, and districts have planned for the 2025-26 school year with an expectation that these formula-based funds would be flowing as normal. Since Congress had appropriated the money in the recent continuing resolution, we had no reason to believe otherwise.”

The U.S. Department of Education informed states on Monday that it would withhold the $6.8 billion in grants, one day before they were due to be sent out. The notice did not provide any timeline or reason for the move, saying “decisions have not yet been made concerning submissions and awards for this upcoming academic year.”

Richard Franklin, president of the Birmingham chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, said in an interview Thursday that the withholding of congressionally-approved funds should have never happened in the first place.

“They’re using our kids as political pawns to prove a point politically, when we should all be providing our kids with an education,” he said. “That’s the one thing we should be doing, the one thing we’ve always done in this country.”

Michael Sibley, the director of communications at ALSDE, did not have an available list of programs affected or a copy of the email sent to superintendents. The affected programs, according to the Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee, include:

• Title I-C, on migrant education
• Title II-A, on improving the effectiveness of teachers and school leaders
• Title III-A, on English language acquisition
• Title IV-A, on STEM education, college and career counseling and other activities
• Title IV-B, on before- and after-school programs and summer school programs
• Grants geared toward adult education and literacy programs

Franklin said with school starting in just over a month, it was one of the worst times to change funding. Because of the short notice, if local school districts cannot afford to pay the impacted teachers’ salaries, they would likely be let go.

“It’s just so dangerous what they’re doing, and we’re so close to school,” Franklin said. “They don’t have a lot of guidelines to what they’re doing, just to say ‘we’re investigating.’”

He said that rural and inner city school systems would be the most impacted by the lack of funds, like Montgomery Public Schools and Gadsden City Schools. A message seeking comment with both systems’ superintendents was left Thursday.

“We are hopeful that the review period will be expedited, and funds will be released quickly,”  Mackey wrote. “However, we look forward to working expeditiously with our colleagues in Washington as we are only weeks away from the beginning of a new school year and wish to avoid any disruption in services for our students and their families.”