School districts around the country are figuring out how to pay some bills after the Department of Education announced it won’t pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in promised COVID-19 relief funds.
Congress approved the funding with a deadline of January 2025 to spend it, and the Biden administration allowed states to apply for an extension to January 2026. School leaders said they needed the extra time because of things like supply chain issues, delivery delays and construction project holdups.
But the Trump administration announced Friday it would no longer honor the extensions, meaning the states may now be out the money.
A study by Harvard and Stanford last month found the average U.S. student is half a grade level behind where they were pre-pandemic in reading and math.
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Congress passed three rounds of school COVID relief funds for things like summer school, hiring more teachers, tutoring, cleaning up mold and asbestos, getting rid of lead in water, upgrading school clinics, and offering mental health services.
“These funds have been spent or committed with every expectation of reimbursement,” Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Carey Wright said.
Maryland school leaders said they were shocked when they got a letter Friday night from Secretary of Education Linda McMahon saying the federal government won’t pay some of that money.
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“COVID is over,” the Education Department said to News4 in a statement. “States and school districts can no longer claim they are spending their emergency pandemic funds on COVID relief when there are numerous documented examples of misuse.”
“It is past time for the money to be returned to the people’s bank account,” the statement said.
“The USDE’s decision is catastrophic,” Wright said. “The federal government must keep its word to students, educators and families.”
Maryland leaders say they’ve stopped further spending of the COVID relief funds for now while they try to figure out next steps.
The Department of Education said schools and states still can apply for an extension on the funding for individual projects if they can prove it’ll help tackle COVID learning loss.
Maryland education leaders say they could be out up to $418 million. They’re considering filing a legal challenge to the funding cuts.
The D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education says it’s reviewing all executive actions and orders, to better understand the potential impacts on federal grants.
News4 has not heard back from the Virginia Department of Education.
