Quick Take
After President Donald Trump released his proposed federal budget, school officials across the country, and in Santa Cruz County, began estimating what services and programs they could potentially lose funding for. The federal budget won't be finalized for months but the proposal presents a grim outlook.
President Donald Trump’s federal budget proposal, if implemented, could lead to millions in cuts for federally funded education programs in Santa Cruz County, such as migrant education and English learner services that have helped some of the county’s most vulnerable students stay on track to graduate.
Santa Cruz County Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah said the county’s schools could lose about $1.5 million for English learner services, the entirety of the county’s roughly $3 million in funding for migrant education, $400,000 for adult education programming and $700,000 for teachers in training, among other cuts. The federal budget proposal was released earlier this month.
Adult education offers career training and high school diploma, while migrant education and English learner programs provide courses and tutoring for students to improve their English proficiency and ensure they meet graduation requirements.
Sabbah and other local leaders said they’re also concerned about the cuts to the Office of Civil Rights and its shift to enforcing the president’s executive orders, many of which aim to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Additionally, education officials say Trump’s proposal to change how special education funding is distributed puts that funding in jeopardy.
“We are significantly underfunded in special education,” said Sabbah. “Anything that could put that in jeopardy is something we’re concerned about, because we need to make sure that we’re offering these effective programs for our students with disabilities.”
Trump’s federal budget proposal unveiled earlier this month calls for $163 billion in cuts that range from eliminating programs in health and housing to those involving environment and science agencies. The proposal faces opposition from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and months of debate before Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline. Democratic lawmakers have loudly opposed the proposal as have several high-ranking Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell.
Gov. Gavin Newsom released his revised budget Wednesday, including plans to fund TK-12 schools at the same level as last year, though observers noted that no additional funding was proposed to fill the gap left by Trump’s proposed budget cuts.
Sabbah said he’s met with representatives from the offices of state Sen. John Laird and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas to express his concerns about the proposed federal budget cuts. He said during those meetings they discussed partnering to mitigate the impacts, but they understand it would be unlikely that state funds could fill any large gaps left by federal cuts.
“If these cuts materialize, I would find it very difficult for us, locally or the state, to be able to make it up somehow,” said Sabbah. “It’s going to affect students, it’s going to affect our schools. It’s going to be very difficult for us to be able to adjust.”
Potentially the largest proposed cut to Santa Cruz County programming is the elimination of a federally funded migrant education program. The White House said the programs “have not been proven effective, are extremely costly … [are] stripping resources from American students.”
Sabbah said that description is “of course” not accurate and that migrant education does the opposite by working hard to stabilize students’ learning.
“The defunding of these programs is going to be detrimental and harm our community,” he said.
Migrant education provides a broad range of support, including tutoring and classes in afterschool programs, on Saturdays and during summer school. The program’s director, Luis Medina, said all elementary schools get onsite assistance from the program’s staff, who also assist high school students with ensuring they’re on track to graduate.
Medina was at a loss for words when trying to describe how he felt about the program, part of Pajaro Valley Unified School District, being eliminated. Medina is about to retire after serving as director for the past decade, and after being a migrant education student himself.
“It’s just difficult to comprehend that something like that might happen,” he said. “That somebody in power would just decide there’s no more funding for this group of the population.”
Originally from Mexicali, Mexico, Medina came to the Watsonville area at age 12 and didn’t speak a word of English when he began attending PVUSD schools. He said he’s “very grateful” the program helped him get through high school and into college, and gave him his first job after he graduated as a counselor. He worked there for about 13 years as a counselor and administrator before he spent some time working at Rolling Hills Middle School.
Coming back to work as the director 10 years ago was “probably the best thing that could happen to me.”
Medina said students involved in the program who attend the district’s high schools have a graduation rate of more than 98% – which he says demonstrates the program’s success.
The PVUSD program has a staff of about 21 people including teachers and office staff and serves about 1,400 youth between the ages of 3 and 21, who all live in the district. He said the students are often moving seasonally with their families from Mexico to the Watsonville area or to other states depending on the work, and many are English learners.
The program hasn’t made any changes to its services since learning about the budget proposal to eliminate its funding, he said. Medina met with a group of migrant education parents Tuesday night who he said were shocked when he told them the program could be shut down if Trump’s proposed budget cuts are implemented. He struggles to imagine how the students and staff could be affected.
“We’ve been having this migrant program for so many years,” he said. “The uncertainty is mind-blowing. Being able to know what’s going to happen, it’s difficult.”
Live Oak School District Superintendent Pat Sanchez said the news of the federal budget proposal creates more uncertainty for the district, which has managed budget deficits for the past two years with painful layoffs and cuts. He said the district is barely on pace to start the next year without a deficit. His biggest concern is the unknown.
“How this was rolled out doesn’t allow any time to react, it doesn’t allow any time to make a plan,” he said. “We’ve already finished budgeting for next year, anything that we would learn going forward from today, between now and July, it’s going to be really difficult to reduce out of the system we’ve already budgeted for.”
Sanchez said his district could lose several hundred thousand dollars in direct and indirect federal funding, if the proposal is implemented in full. The direct losses he’s aware of would be $60,000 for English learners services and $60,000 for teachers in training.
As for indirect losses, Sanchez pointed to reduced oversight from the Office of Civil Rights, which could increase the district’s risk of exposure to compliance errors and raise the potential that it could face expensive litigation: “It could be just more risk that we have to plan for.”
San Lorenzo Valley High School Spanish teacher Chelsie Osenga told Lookout she’s worried about the federal budget proposal and how it could impact her students.
“I’m concerned for our students,” she said. “I’m concerned that my own students will lose the services that they need.”
Osenga, who started working at SLV High in 2012, has been treasurer for her teachers union, San Lorenzo Valley Teachers Association, for five years and will become its new president at the end of the month. Her union is part of the California Teachers Association, a statewide union that has more than 310,000 members.
Osenga said as part of a statewide protest organized by the CTA, she and at least five SLV teachers are going to San Francisco’s Embarcadero Plaza on Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to education and attempts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
If Trump’s proposal is implemented, Osenga said that about $1.9 million in federal funding would be cut for programs in SLVUSD, citing CTA officials’ estimates.
“I’m joining teachers from across the state to fight for the student services they need,” she said.
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