The Trump administration last week announced it was releasing a portion of federal funding for local school districts’ afterschool programs that had been withheld earlier this month.
Roughly $6.5 million was made available to local school districts Monday, according to Toren Ballard, a spokesperson for the Vermont’s Agency of Education.
These funds, Ballard said, will provide “integral summer and afterschool programming, and enables students across Vermont to receive engaging, structured support to ensure that they return to school in the fall ready to learn.”
The resumed flow of money offers some relief for both state education officials and local school districts who rely on the funding for staffing and programming.
School districts were left in limbo this month after more than $26 million from six federal grant programs were withheld, including Title IIA and Title IIIA grants, which fund, respectfully, professional development for teachers and staff, and support services for English language learners.
The U.S. Department of Education informed state education officials June 30 it would be conducting a review of several federal grant programs but provided no timeline for when that review would be completed.
School districts around the state had budgets for the 2026 fiscal year, which began July 1, with those federal dollars already built in.
The state’s Agency of Education last week entered into a temporary hiring freeze to protect federally-funded positions at the agency. The agency uses a portion of the blocked federal funds to administer federal programs.
While the release of funds offers some relief for afterschool programs, concerns still remain for other federally funded programs. More than $18 million of congressionally-approved federal education funding for Vermont remains locked up, pending review by the Trump administration.
“Federal education dollars support our most vulnerable students and withholding these funds, even temporarily, disrupts districts’ ability to staff critical positions and provide a wide range of programming,” Ballard said in a statement Monday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaking at a press conference Monday, said he has had “lengthy” discussions with Education Secretary Linda McMahon since the freeze began. He called the release of funding for afterschool programs a “partial success that will help a lot of struggling school districts.”
“But the truth is that most of the money in those appropriation bills are still being held illegally by the administration,” Sanders said.
Vermont was one of 24 states that last week sued the Trump administration to restore the funding, arguing the freeze was unconstitutional.
The funding pause generated bipartisan backlash in Congress, with senators on both sides of the aisle expressing concern over the impact.
Sanders said the federal government released the $1.3 billion in federal funding for afterschool programs nationwide in part because of that pressure. More than $6 billion was initially frozen by the Trump administration.
In Vermont, those dollars help fund nearly 100 afterschool and summer programs in Vermont that serve 11,000 students, Sanders said.
“Congress clearly and unambiguously passed this education funding and the president signed it into law. The Trump administration has no right to withhold or impound it,” Sanders said in a release issued on Friday.
Alice Finno contributed reporting.
