Press Release
The Healey-Driscoll Administration is condemning the Trump Administration’s illegal move to terminate $106 million in K-12 education grant funding for Massachusetts. On Friday, 3/26 at 5:03 pm, the U.S. Department of Education notified all states about its decision to end the federal Education Stabilization Fund liquidation period effective three minutes prior, at 5:00 pm. Nationally, it is estimated that this decision terminates over $2 billion across 41 states. In February 2025, the Trump Administration had just reaffirmed that Massachusetts had until March 2026 to spend the funds.
The funding was intended to support a multitude of statewide efforts to address pandemic-related learning loss, with a focus on literacy, math and science areas where learning was particularly disrupted during the pandemic. Recent test scores show that, while Massachusetts students continue to lead the nation, they have still not fully recovered from the learning lost during the pandemic. This funding helped address those gaps by supporting mental health services, high-dosage math tutoring, purchasing of high-quality instructional material with a focus on science, and enhanced screenings to identify students’ risk of poor reading outcomes, including risk of dyslexia.
This funding was supporting building upgrades across 20 school districts to improve air quality through HVAC installations and build outdoor learning spaces for students. Some projects were enhancing security in schools, including the purchasing of cameras, door alarm, and emergency response technology. As the federal government had committed to these funds, the projects are all currently underway but had been delayed due to continued supply chain issues and labor shortages.
The funding was also supporting professional development for educators, such as DESE’s Learning Acceleration Network and five Regional Licensure Centers that help emergency teacher license holders get provisional or initial licensure to stay employed in Massachusetts public schools.
Locally
According to the press release, New Bedford will lose $15,603,433 in funding; Fairhaven will lose $250,802. Acushnet was not listed as an impacted school district.
Fairhaven Superintendent, Tara Kohler, said the money for Fairhaven is being used to fund an HVAC study for East Fairhaven School and Hastings Middle School. The buildings get very hot, she said.
As of now, they have only been told about the COVD money, said Ms. Kohler, but they have also been told to prepare for more cuts, possibly 25%. The state sends the district about $2 million a year.
Those funds cover Title I, Title II, which are for a variety of things, including Special Education, curriculum development, professional development, and help for lower income students.
“This has never been at risk before,” she said. “It has only been at risk of not increasing.”
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