Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has joined more than 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s freezing of nearly $7 billion in education funding.
Arizona’s share of that is more than $100 million, and comes as students are set to return to the classroom as early as this week in some districts.
Beth Lewis, director of Save our Schools Arizona and a former educator, joined The Show to discuss the impact this funding freeze could have on Arizona schools.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Beth, what are you hearing from folks in public education about the fact that this federal money has been frozen?
BETH LEWIS: Yeah, I mean, it's as you can imagine, school districts across Arizona have been thrown into total chaos. Arizona schools go back earlier than the rest of the country.
My kids go back tomorrow in Chandler, and so a lot of school leaders are figuring out what programs to put on hold in the wake of all of this, right? This is $120 million for students who are English language learners for before and after school care. I mean, we're talking tons of kids across our state that are gonna be impacted and.
Some districts are big enough to sort of absorb these blows while people in DC figure it out, and some school districts are not. And so I think that the impacts are going to be really felt immediately and also, you know, it'll have a devastating impact on our districts and our kids.
BRODIE: For those districts that are not big enough to be able to sort of withstand this kind of reduction in funding, even if, if it's temporary, what are they going to be doing? What like what gets cut?
LEWIS: So, you know, before and after school care is a huge piece of what our local schools do for families, working families, it's something that, you know, we, we know that families rely on heavily, I'm really worried that schools, you know, especially in rural areas, smaller schools are, you know, families are going to show up the first day of school expecting that before and after school care, and it may not be available until these lawsuits are settled or until there's enough pressure on Congress to pressure President Trump to release these funds.
And again, these are congressionally approved funds. This is not held up in some budget negotiation, right? These were approved last year and were supposed to be released on July 1.
BRODIE: Well, so you mentioned before and after school care. What kinds of other programs might this affect even for some of those larger districts that can absorb some of the cuts? I mean, the money has to come from somewhere.
LEWIS: Yeah, I, well, another huge piece of this is instruction for students that are learning English, and obviously that, you know, is a huge portion of our students across Arizona.
We know that Tucson is at risk of losing nearly $8 million. Mesa school district is at risk of losing over $4 million. Those are two of our largest school districts in the state, so obviously that number is higher.
But that becomes, you know, an unfunded mandate, right? Schools are legally obligated to serve English learners and to make sure that they're getting all of the services that they need to be successful in school, and yet if there's no funding for that instruction, it's gonna have to come from elsewhere.
And we know Arizona schools are chronically underfunded. We know that the state doesn't give enough and so there's already enough sweeping from all of these different buckets, just trying to basically put band-aids on these gaping wounds that our Legislature’s left us with, and now we've got the feds coming in and injecting chaos into this.
And, you know, it's really disappointing to see our nation's leaders acting like this with, with such utter disregard for children and for families, and it, you know, at this point, it really feels like the cruelty is the point.
BRODIE: So you mentioned the timing and how, you know, your kids are going back to school tomorrow. A lot of districts are starting either later this month or the very beginning of August.
What does that do at the beginning of the school year and at the pretty early on in the state's fiscal year, like, what does that do for budgets going forward to have to maybe scramble a little bit so early on?
LEWIS: Again, I think it's, it's chaos and, and it feels like chaos is also the point. You know, our school districts are scrambling, they're pulling together last minute board meetings, right? And I think there's, there's less opportunity for the public to get involved because it's the middle of the summer, and just scrambling internally to say, :OK, what can we do without right now?”
And, and these are desperately needed programs, right? It's not like there's any like fat to trim in Arizona's public schools. So, you know, I think that Arizona families are probably going to feel this, and it could come off in weird ways, right?
Like it might be, well, we don't have a football coach this quarter, and parents might be really upset, but you might not be able to pay a football coach's stipend if it's choosing between that and before- and after-school care, right? Or you might have an afterschool drama program that your 5th graders really, really love, and we don't get to do that until December because that money is spoken for.
And so, again, when you're on these shoestring budgets, when you're already operating in a starving space, you know, these cuts are going to be felt really keenly by families.
BRODIE: So you mentioned lawsuits. Attorney General Kris Mayes joined a number of other states yesterday in a lawsuit challenging these cuts. The wheels of justice, though, you know, don't move super quickly necessarily.
So I'm wondering, you know, even if these attorneys general are successful, presumably it will take some amount of time to get that kind of decision, and then there are appeals and everything. So, is that the answer for schools to go the legal route?
LEWIS: I think it has to be the answer. I'm so grateful for Attorney General Mayes for joining the lawsuit. I, you know, I ultimately think it will be successful because quite frankly, it is utterly unlawful for a president to unilaterally withhold congressionally approved funding for kids. There, there really isn't any way of escaping that, and I think that again, this, there's cruelty, there's chaos at the heart of this, but it's also a test balloon.
We know that the Trump administration has already signaled that it's trying to dismantle public education. So, you know, is this a test balloon for stripping away Title One funds? Is this a test balloon for stripping away IDEA funds for students with special needs? Absolutely.
I think all scholars who are following this carefully understand exactly what this is. It's not just some funding for some small programs. This is massive funding for massive programs that are really important for kids, and it's just the beginning of what is, you know, hopefully going to be stopped in its tracks by the court.
But we know, you know, the Trump administration is obviously acting in a lot of ways to destroy public schools. They, just this week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could go forward with a plan to strip half of the positions at the Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education, and those are all the folks that are in charge of making sure that the laws are met and that students' civil rights are met.
And, you know, if you now you had funding for students with, who were learning the English language, and then you strip that funding and there's nobody in charge in D.C. making sure that those laws are followed, you've got complete chaos and you've got kids that are not gonna get what they need.
