Feds unfreeze all school funds

Published 8:30 am Thursday, July 31, 2025

It’s been delayed, but the money is coming back. Every school district both here and across the country will receive their full measure of approved federal grant funding, the U.S. Department of Education announced on Friday, July 25. Saying the White House “review” of the money had finished, the department informed states the remainder of the $6.8 billion that had been frozen would start getting released on Monday, July 28.

It was back on July 1 that all federal grant funding for schools was frozen, leaving districts scrambling to figure out how to pay for some teacher positions, afterschool programs and remedial classes. All of that is normally covered by federal grant funding. Take that money away, as we saw this month, and it creates problems, especially in rural areas like Central Virginia. And especially when it’s done a month before students return to classes.

So the way this is going to work is that the U.S. Department of Education will release the money to the states, beginning this week. Then the states, in this case the Virginia Department of Education, will process the funding as usual and get that money to the schools. A total of $5.4 billion will be included in this portion, after $1.4 billion was released back on July 21 to help keep afterschool programs going. Here in Prince Edward County, those afterschool dollars paid for a portion of a teacher’s salary and funded a character education program.

WHY A FREEZE OF FUNDING?

So why freeze the money at all? The review was triggered by what had been found in multiple states, the White House Office of Management and Budget claimed in a statement to media.

“Many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda,” the statement said.

The statement claimed in Washington state, scholarships that had been intended for U.S. citizens were being used by illegal immigrants. However, even if true, that doesn’t apply to public school funding. Those alleged scholarships were for college admission. The Office statement also pointed to grant funding being used to promote “queer resistance in the arts,” but again, that deals with college, not any of these seven programs whose funds are earmarked for specific public education programs. A third claim in the statement is that some of the funds given to New York schools were used to promote organizations that support illegal immigrants. It was never explained how.

Over this entire month, no one from the department has given any indication how the public school funding, which again is tagged to specific programs, could be misused or any evidence that such misuse has happened.

IT COMES WITH A CATCH

That $1.4 billion last week came with a catch attached. According to the July 25 letter, the same is true for the rest of the money. By accepting the funding, federal officials wrote, districts are also agreeing to follow certain requirements. As mentioned, some of those spelled out in the letter seem pretty clear. It states that “recipients of the funds must not use the funds in ways that violate the U.S. Constitution or any of listed federal laws.”

Those laws include Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which protect against race and sex based discrimination in employment and program use. Title IX of the Education Amendments, which protects against sex-based discrimination; Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects against disability-based discrimination; the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act, which projects against discrimination against Boy Scout groups based on their policies and Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires higher education institutions to disclose foreign gifts. As you can tell, several of those do not apply to public school districts in this country.

It also appears to be an exact duplicate, copy and pasted from the previous July 18 letter from the U.S. Department of Education. Last week, U.S. Department of Education officials said there were “guardrails” put in place, to make sure the money wouldn’t be misused.

SO WHAT’S IT USED FOR?

So what is the grant money used for? According to Lunenburg County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Sharon Stanislas, this freeze has taken up to $200,000 out of the district budget.

Looking across the region, there’s several programs impacted by this. Across Congressional District 5, represented in Congress by John McGuire, there’s a total of $8.723 million at risk. That’s $4.679 million from the Title II, Part A grant; $475,000 from the Title III, Part grant; $2.263 million from Title IV, Part A and $1.306 million from Title IV, Part B.

District 5 stretches from Charlottesville all the way to Southside, including all of the counties in this region, from Buckingham, Cumberland and Prince Edward to Lunenburg and Charlotte.

The other two grants are what some educators believe triggered the review, due to the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, although it’s unclear why they couldn’t have been pulled out on their own. Both deal with immigrant or migrant education and English as a second language.

HOW MUCH IS GOING OUT?

So how much money is going out to each program? Title I funds account for $375 million, Title II for $2.2 billion, Title III for $890 million and Title IV for $1.3 billion. There’s also $715 million for adult education programs going out. That’s $629 million for adult education and $86 million for adult literacy and civics education.

All of the funding should be over to school districts by this time next week.