‘People will lose jobs’: Colorado education leaders brace for impacts of $70 million freeze on rural school districts

With just weeks left to finalize their back‑to‑school plans, Colorado’s K‑12 districts are scrambling to save educational programs and retain staff after millions of dollars were frozen from schools’ expected funding mere hours before the dollars were set to disperse.

The Trump administration on June 30 announced it would withhold nearly $6.8 in federal funding from K-12 schools that had been expected to go out July 1, which translates to over $70 million less in grant funding for Colorado schools — or $80 million with the inclusion of adult education programs, according to updated figures from the Colorado Department of Education.

“This is kind of unprecedented in terms of the timing and level of uncertainty around these funds,” Wayne Peel, chief financial officer for the Colorado Department of Education, said during a Wednesday roundtable with Gov. Jared Polis. “We are deeply concerned about the impact on approximately 881,000 students and their families, and the ability of the districts to plan for those needs.”

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The funds — which are currently under administrative review — were approved by Congress earlier this year and signed into law by President Donald Trump in March, meaning several school districts across the state were relying on the money for this upcoming school year and had already allotted it toward things like staff salaries, curriculum materials, and after-school programs. 

Now, school districts are having conversations around cutting services, reducing hours and even letting go of staff.

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“Without a doubt, people will lose jobs with very little notice,” said Colorado Department of Education Board Member Kathy Gebhardt, a Boulder Democrat. “School districts were already struggling to provide the best that they could, and then to find this out and to find (the) magnitude of these cuts with such little time, they will do the best that they can but there’s going to be an impact.”

Board Member Sherri Wright, a Republican from Cortez representing 27 counties across the Western Slope, said the Colorado Department of Education has put a temporary freeze on all hirings and raises in the department while the funds’ futures are still uncertain.

Impacts on rural school districts

The U.S. Department of Education’s reasoning for withholding the money is to ensure that the way it’s being spent aligns with the Trump administration’s priorities, though many education leaders fear the sudden changes to their expected funding could impact not just students who are already vulnerable but their families, as well.

The withheld money would have gone toward parts of Title I, II, III, and IV federal funding, which extends into educator development funds, programming for summer, and before- and after-school programs, programming for English-learner services, and support for migrant education in Colorado.

“My local district, they’re quite concerned because it’s going to affect a lot of them. Like everybody, we have migrants that need help,” Wright said.

For Colorado, the funding being withheld accounts for approximately 13% of all K-12 funding from the U.S. Department of Education, according to a report by the Learning Policy Institute. For Lake County School District, for example, the roughly $400,000 in withheld funding makes up for approximately two-thirds of their budget.

On the other hand, Steamboat Springs Board of Education President Katy Lee said funding from the withheld grants make up less than 1% of the Steamboat Springs School District’s total budget. In the short-term, none of the district’s programs would be impacted since many of the programming costs are covered by non-grant district funds, she said.

“Currently, the financial impacts for us are minimal; however, the messaging from the U.S. Department of Education creates uncertainty when it should be providing stability,” Lee said.

Based on impact estimates from the Colorado Department of Education, Western Slope school districts that will lose the most finding based on allocations from the 2024-25 school year include:

• Mesa County Valley: $2,079,645
• Lake County: $474,900
• East Grand: $337,901
• Eagle County: $336,044
• Roaring Fork: $320,444
• Garfield: $296,280 

Those on the lower end of impacts include:

• Steamboat Springs: $73,819
• Aspen: $35,132
• South Routt: $19,433

Some districts have already begun alerting teachers that their salaries, or even jobs, might be impacted if the money is not released. With preparation for the new school year beginning between the end of July and beginning of August for many districts, some are on a strict timeline of less than two weeks to finalize plans.

“I have let potentially-affected staff know, and I’d say we’re on a 10-day clock,” Lake County School District Superintendent Kate Bartlett said during the roundtable.

Colorado districts, especially those in rural communities, already face a strain on their services due to year-round educator shortages and lower-than-average per-pupil funding. According to the Colorado Education Association, Colorado ranks 49th in the country for educator salaries.

“The districts that serve high-poverty families are going to be challenged the most, in part because their services are already being stretched by the lack of funding that they had even in the best of times,” said Gebhardt, who represents several school districts in mountain communities including Grand, Routt, Summit, and Eagle.

For many families across the Western Slope, reduced funding toward before- and after-school programs could present major challenges, especially for parents commuting long distances for work.

Roughly three-quarters of people employed in Glenwood Springs commute into the city for work — a story not too dissimilar to other Colorado mountain towns. With many workers having an average commute time of 45 minutes, it’s not unusual for parents to be away for 10 or more hours at a time.

“Many families do not have the ability to work and pick their kids up when school’s over or take them at the same time that school starts,” Gebhardt said. “With the cost of living being what it is, many families are not living in the same communities in which their children go to school. … and so that means that their children really benefit from these kinds of outside school programs.”

These out-of-school programs also provide meals for students throughout the day, including take-home dinners.

“If these funds don’t materialize, we’ve got a couple of choices,” Bartlett said. “We can either reduce staff and run a lean version of our current offering, or we can reduce hours, days, and overall services to students and families. We’re in the process of making that decision.”

The Boys & Girls Clubs, a major provider of after-school programs serving approximately 70,000 kids across Colorado, is one of the many nonprofit organizations that receive significant funding from the withheld grants. Stuart Jenkins, the executive director of the Colorado Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs, said the days are numbered before the organization begins alerting parents that the services they’ve relied on for years may no longer be available — including the services currently provided in Moffat and Routt counties by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northwest Colorado.

“We want to serve as many kids as possible. But if these funds don’t come through, we’ll have to reduce the number of hours, reduce the number of kids that we serve, as the weeks and months drag on,” Jenkins said.

‘This ride is not over’

For now, the Trump administration has directed that any questions or appeals be sent to the Office of Management and Budget rather than the U.S. Department of Education, which Gebhardt said is telling of how they plan to manage the funds.

“That tells me something right there, that they’re not really looking at the impact of education, and that they’re not really concerned about the impact that this will have on education because (they’re just looking at the numbers) without really understanding the impact that these will have on students and on families,” she said, adding that the move feels like an attempt by the federal government to erode trust in public education.

U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and the Democratic Colorado Delegation wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon earlier this week demanding clarity on when Colorado schools would receive their funding, as “the delay and uncertainty around the distribution of this funding have made it incredibly difficult for school districts to plan and hire staff for the next school year.” 

Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova also shared a letter on behalf of the state department.

Although a special legislative session could be on the horizon, Polis said the special session would likely have to be focused on cuts in areas like health care rather than on education. In other words, the funds currently being withheld from the state reflect actual cuts that educators will need to account for at the district level. District leaders say they feel limited in how they can respond to this loss of funding.

“The federal government is taking this money away, and they are primarily responsible. At the same time, we have TABOR, which ties our hands in ways that other states don’t have to address these needs,” Gebhardt said. “I think it’s time that we have to have these harder conversations.”

While Polis said there have been “aggressive efforts” to fight for education funding in the state, currently no legal action has been taken by the Colorado state government to recover the withheld funds. He said the state is looking at options to protect funding through the courts.

“What we have learned is that you can’t count on anything until the money’s actually in the bank, and even then, you may not be able to count on it,” Gebhardt said. “So I think this ride is not over, unfortunately.”