ORLANDO, Fla. – On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order massively downsizing the U.S. Department of Education.
Judi Hayes has a 14-year-old son named Will. He has Down Syndrome and attends a regular school in his downtown Orlando neighborhood thanks to civil rights laws that ensure his right to education — policies executed by the DOE.
“I am worried because the Department of Education has provided the mechanism by which kids like Will, kids with disabilities, all kinds of disabilities, whether it’s Down syndrome or autism or dyslexia or whatever, they have always provided the mechanism by which these kids can get their free and appropriate education,” Hayes told News 6.
Like many families of children with disabilities, they are anxious about who would enforce civil rights protections if the Department of Education’s role changes, as it currently oversees these protections.
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Brian Stephens of Caissa K12, who works with schools nationwide to secure funding, mirrored these concerns.
A Central Florida native and proud product of the public school system, Stephens told News 6, “If the Department of Education goes away, no one is actively enforcing civil rights laws. That stresses me out greatly. I would want to make sure there is a super great plan on who is going to enforce these rules before you just dissolve a department that does have a lot of value.”
However, White House officials said that “critical functions” of the department will remain, including the enforcement of civil rights laws in education and special education funding.
“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today... When it comes to student loans and Pell Grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “But we don’t need to be spending more than $3 trillion over the course of a few decades on a department that is clearly failing in its initial intention to educate our students.”
The move comes as the Trump administration and the DOGE have slashed the federal workforce to cut down on costs.
For a long time now, concerns have mounted over the U.S. national debt, which reached a staggering $36 trillion last year. Critics argue that the current rate of federal spending will continue to push that figure even higher.
During his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to lower these costs, leading to the creation of the DOGE. As of Wednesday, the agency has claimed to save over $115 billion.
The White House has yet to clarify which DOE functions might be reassigned or eliminated. Completely dismantling the Department of Education would likely require an act of Congress.
But proponents of the department’s downsizing say that the DOE’s functions could be taken over at the state level, as states are already largely responsible for shaping public education.
“They say that they are leaving it to the states, but I just worry that they don’t have the federal protection that these kids need to be in mainstream classes,” Hayes said.
