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By: Becky Z. Dernbach and Shubhanjana Das, Sahan Journal
Will Minnesota schools get all the funding Congress promised them this year?
That’s a question plaguing school districts, charter schools and private schools across the state, after Donald Trump’s Department of Education froze $6.8 billion in federal education funds allocated by Congress — including $74 million slated for Minnesota — saying it wanted to make sure “taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the president’s priorities.”
After pushback, the Department of Education released funding for after-school and summer school programs, a total of $1.3 billion. But $61 million for Minnesota schools is still missing.
Funds to lower class sizes, prevent sexual abuse and suicide, help students develop English proficiency, and support adult learners to develop literacy skills are all on the line.
“The delay is creating unnecessary uncertainty that harms students,” said Anna Kurth, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Education. “With a new school year on the horizon, public schools, charter schools, community-based organizations and participating private schools are being forced to make decisions about staffing, programming and services without knowing whether the funds Congress appropriated will be made available.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison joined a lawsuit with 23 other states and Washington, D.C., demanding the federal government release the money. That lawsuit is pending before a federal judge in Rhode Island and has a hearing scheduled for August.
In the meantime, schools have to make decisions about how to plug the holes.
“Districts have already created their budgets for next year,” said Monica Byron, president of Education Minnesota. “So with this withholding of funds, they’re having to go back to their school boards, go back to the educators and their local unions to figure out what to do. This may impact class size. We know this might impact jobs, and we already have a teacher shortage.”
The back-and-forth over the last few weeks has been dizzying, as the federal government withheld funds, faced lawsuits and released some, but not all, of the funds.
Here’s a breakdown of how federal funding fuels Minnesota schools — and what the funding freeze might mean.
What role does the federal government play in funding Minnesota schools?
Most K-12 school funding comes from state and local sources. But federal dollars are important to keep schools running, too. In the fiscal year ending in September 2024, the federal government allocated $585 million to Minnesota elementary and secondary schools.
The state education budget for the 2025-2026 school year is $12.6 billion. So federal funds are about 5 percent of overall state K-12 education spending.
What do federal education dollars fund?
The two largest categories of federal funds are earmarked for special education and Title I schools. Title I schools receive extra resources because they have higher proportions of students from low-income families. Together, Title I and special education funds make up about three-quarters of all federal funding to Minnesota schools. Those monies are flowing as scheduled.
Other federal education programs fund other priorities — and many of those are the programs affected by the funding freeze.
I heard Trump gave the money back?
On July 18, after bipartisan pushback, the Trump administration agreed to release money for after-school and summer school programs. In Minnesota, that amount totaled $13 million. That means the federal government is still withholding about $61 million from Minnesota schools.
Is it legal for Trump to withhold money that Congress already approved?
According to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, no it is not. He and the top lawyers of 23 other states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on July 14 to recoup the funds.
“Donald Trump’s Department of Education is pulling the rug out from under Minnesota students by cutting school funding without warning and right before the start of the school year, and they are violating the law by doing so,” Ellison said in a press release. “I will not allow Donald Trump and his cronies to illegally slash education grants, shortchange our students, and starve our public schools, all to fund Trump’s tax breaks for billionaires, so I’m taking them to court.”
How is the funding freeze affecting Minnesota schools?
Public, private, and charter schools throughout Minnesota receive these funds — and they’re having to make decisions about what to do if the money doesn’t come through.
Educator recruitment funding goes to big urban districts like Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools; suburban districts like Anoka-Hennepin, Robbinsdale and Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan; rural districts like Brainerd and Austin; and charter schools like Cannon River STEM School in Faribault, Stride Academy in St. Cloud and Kalon Prep Academy in Alexandria.
Federal funds to help students develop English proficiency flow to districts in St. Cloud, Faribault, Shakopee, South Washington County and Bloomington, among others. Private schools received these funds too, including Cotter Schools in Winona, Maplewood Academy in Hutchinson and St. John’s Preparatory in St. Cloud.
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Burnsville, Hopkins and Monticello school districts all receive federal funds for adult education programs.
So how is that funding freeze affecting programs now?
Tom Sager, chief executive of financial services for St. Paul Public Schools, said that the federal funding freeze affected $7.2 million, about 1 percent of the district’s total budget.
“It means a lot,” he said.
One of the programs affected would be St. Paul Public Schools’ adult basic education program, which helps adults earn GEDs and develop English proficiency. That program receives about $1 million in frozen federal funds.
St. Paul Public Schools said it would not make any immediate changes to programming, drawing instead on its reserve funds for the time being.
What if they still haven’t received the funds next year?
“Then we’ll have to make some adjustments within our budgeting as well as our overall programming that these funds pay for,” Sager said.
Byron, the Education Minnesota leader, said that her home district of Richfield Public Schools used federal grant funding to provide classes for adults learning English during the school day while their children were in school.
“Having a cut like this would then impact families or a community being able to access adult literacy courses,” she said.
After the funding freeze was announced, Minneapolis Public Schools said that it could cost the district $4.5 million.
“We remain hopeful that the U.S. Department of Education will release the funds so we can continue serving our students and operating as planned for this fiscal year,” the district said in a statement.