photo by: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and fellow Democrats, from left, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., criticize President Donald Trump for his plan to shut down the Education Department, during a news conference at the Capitol, in Washington, Thursday, March 6, 2025.

Earlier this month at the Capitol, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pointed to a deep blue map that might make education leaders across the U.S. a little seasick.

The map, originally from the news site Axios, shows how much of the K-12 education funding in each state in 2022 came from the federal government. States that receive more of their school funding from the federal government are shaded in darker blue — like Missouri, where the share was 15%, or South Dakota, with 21.8%.

As the Trump administration has set its sights on downsizing the federal Department of Education and other federal agencies, there are fears that this money could be in jeopardy — and that school district budgets across this blue map might soon be underwater. And while Lawrence and Kansas aren’t as heavily supported by federal money as many other places in the U.S., district leaders are already feeling some ripples.

Lawrence Public Schools has had its funding frozen for at least one project related to student nutrition and has had another nutrition program canceled. And the district relies on federal funding for much more than meals — it uses it for a variety of programs to help disadvantaged students, and it’s expected that more than $18 million of the district’s funding will come from the federal government this school year.

Some education leaders have stressed that the federal government’s role in schools is targeted toward funding for specific programs, like special education services and certain types of aid for low-income students, and that the bulk of education funding still comes from state and local tax dollars.

But even so, Cynde Frick, the Lawrence school district’s executive director of finance, thinks schools are in uncharted waters.

“[T]his is a time of uncertainty,” Frick told the Journal-World via email.

$18 million of programs and aid

Think back to 2022, when the Lawrence school district was staring down a more than $3 million budget shortfall, largely due to declining enrollment.

That shortfall alone was enough to get district leaders thinking about closing some school buildings and cutting programs like middle school sports, band and orchestra.

$3 million is just a fraction of the amount the district receives from the federal government each year.

This school year, according to the Kansas State Department of Education’s budget-at-a-glance document, the school district is expected to receive $108,491,141 from the state, $64,225,941 from local revenues — primarily property taxes — and $18,390,859 from the federal government.

The breakdown includes $100,000 for adult education; more than $3 million for food service programs; $4.6 million for special education; and a roughly $10 million chunk just labeled “Federal Funds.”

Officials told the Journal-World that some federally funded programs here have already been interrupted — but not by cuts at the Department of Education. Rather, the biggest disruptions in the district so far have come from the Department of Agriculture.

The Trump administration froze funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program, which the district was planning to use to create a bakery at Community Connections at Pinckney to supply schools with fresh baked goods. The district had been awarded $99,000 to spend on equipment for the bakery, but those funds are currently on hold, Nutrition and Wellness Director Julie Henry said via email.

The USDA also canceled the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, which provided $86,872.68 to the Lawrence school district to purchase local beef from three nearby ranchers between May 2023 and December 2024.

Downsizing at the Education Department

Schools may have a lot more developments to keep track of after the past week’s job cuts at the Department of Education.

President Donald Trump previously told his new education chief, Linda McMahon, to “put herself out of a job.” And although eliminating the department would likely would require an act of Congress, there have already been steep reductions in staff.

When Trump took office, the DOE employed 4,133 people. But, between last week’s round of layoffs and the nearly 600 resignations and retirements in the department in the last seven weeks, the department’s workforce now sits at 2,183 employees, according to a news release from the DOE.

It’s not yet clear how these layoffs will impact the work of the department moving forward, especially since many Department of Education programs have a larger impact on higher education than on K-12 schools. There have been figures coming out of certain offices in the department: NPR reported that the Office for Civil Rights has lost at least 240 employees, and the Office of Federal Student Aid, which is responsible for managing student financial assistance programs, had 320 staff cut.

In early February, the administration made significant cuts to the department’s research division, the Institute of Education Sciences, eliminating roughly $900 million worth of research contracts.

And The Associated Press reported that the administration had planned to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training, but a federal judge in Boston blocked that on Tuesday.

States, programs and gaps

While the actual and proposed cuts to education programs may seem alarming, it’s possible Kansas may have an easier time than many other states. That’s because of the data on that Axios map, where Kansas is a light-colored island in the deep blue Midwestern sea.

In Kansas in 2022, 9.9% of school funding came from the federal government, the chart shows. The only other states where less than 10% of school funding came from federal sources were clustered in the Northeast: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

All of Kansas’ neighbors, meanwhile, were above 10%, although Colorado was just barely above at 10.5%. And in some places, the percentage was twice as high. Six states — Alaska, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana and South Dakota — received 20% or more of their school funding from the federal government.

The raw dollar amount that Kansas receives is still in the hundreds of millions of dollars — according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, Kansas received over $777 million in federal funding for education services in fiscal year 2022, the latest year for which data is available in the state.

But education officials say it’s important to keep in mind that the federal dollars mostly flow through a variety of special programs, some of which predate the creation of the Department of Education in 1979.

In a news release in January titled “The Government’s Role in K-12 Education,” the Kansas Association of School Boards listed major federal programs and policies, such as special education services, civil rights enforcement and programs for disadvantaged groups. One major program is Title I, which provides about $125 million annually to Kansas school districts to help disadvantaged students reach academic goals, and there are other programs that provide funding for migrant students, rural schools, homeless students, students whose first language is not English and more.

“Most of the major federal education functions were created before the department was created and were part of other agencies,” the release read. “As a result, elimination of the department would not necessarily eliminate programs or funding if those responsibilities were shifted to other agencies.”

Frick emphasized that point, as well, and she said the Lawrence district was currently awaiting news from the Kansas State Department of Education regarding how the federal changes will look at the state and local levels. But she said one thing is clear: When funding for a program ends, either the program folds or someone else has to pick up the slack.

“When we lose federal funding, we either have to discontinue the program or find other ways to pay for it,” Frick said.