Parents sound alarm over education department cuts: ‘This is a disaster’

Elmont and Franklin Square parents are growing more concerned over the looming dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education. They worry that President Trump’s March 20 executive order to close the department indicates that equal access to education will collapse on Long Island.

A previous order, on March 11, reduced the department’s workforce by nearly 50 percent.

A Department of Education news release said that it would continue to enforce programs and initiatives in its jurisdiction, but acknowledged that all divisions of the department were impacted by the staff cuts, and would require “significant reorganization.”

Katherine Dalton, of Elmont, who teaches English Language Arts and English as a New Language at Atlas High School in Long Island City, said that the reduction in funding and staff would lead to systemic inequality across Long Island.

“I think a cut to education this large is a disaster,” Dalton said. “I’m bracing for a tough year.”

Federal funding, she pointed out, supports programs that serve high-needs groups such as special-education students.

Linda McMahon, the new secretary of education, released a statement on March 20, writing, “Taxpayers will no longer be burdened with tens of billions of dollars of waste on progressive social experiments and obsolete programs.”

Programs such as the Office of Special Education, the Every Student Succeeds Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Act and Title I are all funded by the education department. That’s why, parents said, they feel unease over Trump’s orders to remove staff, and resources, for students most vulnerable to systemic inequality.

McMahon wrote that the decision to return power over education to states and communities would empower them to better serve students, families and educators. But local parents say they are feeling anything but empowered.

Danielle Sukman, who co-chairs the Special Education Parent Teacher Association in Franklin Square, said she was worried about maintaining access to her son’s special-education program. He is in fifth grade in the Washington Street School Transitional Learning Center, which she said is integral to his everyday life. According to the district website, the special-education program teaches students essential life skills including daily living, intellectual functioning, adaptive behavior, social development, and motor and sensory development.

“Special education finds itself on the chopping block a lot,” Sukman said. “I can’t imagine how parents in lesser-funded districts are feeling right now.”

And funding is only one of her worries. Her main concern, Sukman said, is the elimination of federally supported student protections. The Department of Education governs protections for children with disabilities, she explained, as well as their Individualized Educational Plans. These two components of federal support, she said, are now at risk.

Sukman said there are already lots of backlogs in important services for special-education students on both the state and federal levels. In her experience, she said, access to special-education programs requires months of paperwork, which is processed by the department’s staff.

According to an August 2023 report by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, the education department failed to deliver mandated special-education services to over 13,000 students, and another 10,000 preschool students missed out on their required services entirely.

Some parents said they recognized the need for the department’s resources, but felt the “red tape” that barred students from accessing some programs warranted concern, as well. Emmanuelle Jeanlouis, an Elmont parent, said she believed that dismantling the department was a better alternative than its current wasteful spending.

“I’m OK with them removing the funding,” Jeanlouis said. “It has not been used in the manner that it should have been used.”

As a paraprofessional, teacher and guidance counselor in the State Education Department from 2010 to 2023, Jeanlouis saw firsthand, she said, how poorly funding was allocated from the state to special-education programs. Disabled students with Individualized Education Programs were not getting the help they needed, so eliminating the funding in order to control wasteful spending makes sense.

“What’s the point of them giving you money if you’re not even using it correctly?” Jeanlouis said, adding that local communities should have more control over resources, and could potentially generate funds without federal and state oversight.

Several local elected officials, including Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages, said the community could not plug the budget hole caused by large cuts in federal funding through taxes and supplemental funding from the state.

Sukman agreed with Jeanlouis that federal funds are being misused, but she said she strongly disagreed with the way the Trump administration was handling it. Instead, she said, there needs to be a concrete plan to address the issue, and eliminating the department altogether isn’t the answer.

“This is not the way to do it,” Sukman said. “You’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

Have an opinion on the recent budget and staff cuts to the U.S. Department of Education? Send a letter to rdelorenzo@liherald.com.