The Trump administration on Friday announced the release of the remaining $18 million in federal education funding for the Vermont’s Agency of Education and the state’s local school districts.
Vermont Education Secretary Zoie Saunders, in a press release issued on Friday, said the agency will begin their regular process for distributing the funds to school districts on Monday.
The U.S. Department of Education announcement comes less than a month after the agency first announced it was withholding more than $6 billion in funding for six federal grant programs nationwide. The federal government withheld roughly $26 million from Vermont school districts that help fund after-school and summer programs, and English language instruction.
A portion of those dollars also helps fund Vermont’s adult learning centers, institutions which offer residents a path to earn a high school diploma or GED certificate, as well as English language classes and workforce development programs.
In the statement, Saunders called the release of the dollars “a positive development for our most vulnerable students.”
“Vermont school districts will now be equipped to begin the school year knowing they have the resources to staff critical positions and provide the meaningful and tangible opportunities that these dollars represent,” Saunders said. “Vermont schools deserve to have confidence that they will be supported with resources that have been promised.”
The release of the funds ends weeks of uncertainty for the state’s school districts. School board officials set their fiscal year 2026 budgets assuming the federal funding would be in place. Then on June 30 — just hours before the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, when the funds have historically been made available to states — the Trump administration announced they were withholding the money pending a review.
The transfer of the money to the state also brings to an end a brief hiring freeze implemented in the state’s Agency of Education earlier this month. With the federal funding restored, the agency “now has the flexibility to begin hiring for vacant roles,” said agency spokesperson Toren Ballard.
“Let’s be clear: Today the administration solved a problem of its own making by finally releasing funding for our public schools that it illegally and unconstitutionally withheld,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, said in a release on Friday after the Department of Education’s announcement.
Two weeks after the funding freeze was announced, Attorney General Charity Clark joined 24 other states in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for “unlawfully freezing” those federal funds.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced it was releasing some of the funding allocated for Vermont — roughly $6.5 million — specifically for afterschool programs.
But districts and adult learning centers were kept in limbo, with more than $18 million in funding still withheld. The Winooski School District, for example, relies on those federal funds as a high-poverty district.
Sarah Haven, the director of finance and operations for the Winooski School District, said the district was thankful the funding was being restored and was “once again supporting local budgets.”
“We’re relieved to move forward without disruption and hope that future decisions will protect the stability our educators, students, and families rely on,” Haven said. “We look forward to a wonderful school year.”
