California joins lawsuit seeking the release of $6.8 billion in school funds

A coalition of states, including California, has filed a lawsuit asking for the release of $6.8 billion in school funding frozen by the federal government for programs that support English learners, teacher training, after-school programs and migrant education.

The funds, including $939 million for California schools, have already been allocated by Congress and budgeted by school districts for the upcoming school year.

Among the programs at risk are Supporting Effective Instruction grants to improve the quality of the nation’s educators; 21st Century Community Learning Centers, which fund high school extended-learning programs; English language acquisition; migrant education; and Student Support and Academic Enrichment, which funds music, technology and other programs schools cannot afford on their own.

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An email notifying schools of the freeze said the grants were not “in accordance with the President’s priorities.” President Donald Trump intends to withhold the funding approved in the 2024-25 federal budget while the grants are reviewed, according to media reports.

Attorney General Rob Bonta co-leads the coalition with the attorneys general of Colorado, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They are joined in filing the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Bonta called the freeze “unconstitutional, unlawful and arbitrary.”

The funding freeze has caused chaos for school districts planning for the upcoming school year and has already impacted summer school and after-school programs, which provide child care to working parents of school-age children, according to a news release from the California Attorney General’s Office.

“Taken together with his other attacks on education, President Trump seems comfortable risking the academic success of a generation to further his own misguided political agenda,” Bonta said in a statement. “But as with so many of his other actions, this funding freeze is blatantly illegal, and we’re confident the court will agree.”