The U.S. Department of Education terminated “Full-Service Community Schools” grants that dozens of Illinois schools utilized over the past few years. Those cuts will go into effect July 1, after a judge denied a preliminary injunction.
Thirty-two Illinois schools will lose the grant funding, including Flinn Middle School and Whitehead Elementary in Rockford, as well as Wegner Elementary and Leman Middle School in the West Chicago Elementary School District 33.
The schools were in the second year of a planned five-year initiative. Susan Stanton says they were awarded $94 million, but the cancellation means they won't get to spend the around-$70 million they had left.
Stanton is the executive director of the education coalition ACTNow, which administered the grants. She says it funded community partnerships for a range of services from food pantries, tutoring, even laundry and dental care.
“Within our first year of collecting data on our programs," she said, "we improved chronic absenteeism, school climate, and family engagement faster than any other schools in the state of Illinois, and faster even than peer schools in similar situations."
She says some schools will try to do more with less and keep programs going, but many schools will be forced to terminate staff.
"We've seen a lot of schools have to lock up their clothing closets and their food pantries," said Stanton, "because they don't have donations coming in anymore, or they don't have staff to run it. Schools have had to eliminate enrichment clubs and summer experiences."
ACT Now says the grant non-continuation is unlawful because the only reason the department gave for cutting the grant was that it didn’t align with the administration’s priorities and mentioned a statement from their original application about diversity and equity.
"We had never received any negative feedback from the U.S. Department of Education," said Stanton.
In West Chicago, the "community schools" grant funded extended learning time, health care, tutoring, meals, and more. The community saw heavy immigration enforcement last year during Operation Midway Blitz, and Stanton says the funding fueled an initiative to make Hispanic families feel safer.
"Teachers, volunteers, and sometimes paid participants were walking to local apartment buildings and then walking the kids into school to make sure they got there safely," she said. "They were fed and made sure they had what they needed. Supplies for their family could then be sent home that way too."
In Rockford, the district says they used funding to expand learning time, offer more afterschool and extra-curricular programs, and increase family and community involvement.
Stanton says ACT Now's legal team is still exploring options, but that students will lose services, regardless of how litigation shakes out.
"They're going to have to move forward," she said. "They just might have to do it without a reading tutor or without a mentor; without a counselor that they need, or without medical care that they need. They won't get their third-grade year back, even if we ever got this grant back, and that's really the heartbreaking part of this.”
The Full-Service Community Schools grant program is one of many the federal education department has targeted for termination during the second Trump administration.
