\n<\/p>\n
Federal payments to rural schools that lapsed more than a year ago are on track to resume\u2014but they\u2019d only be guaranteed through 2026, and they may come too late for some schools to reverse cuts they made during the delay.<\/p>\n
The U.S. House on Dec. 9 approved the Secure Rural Schools Act of 2025 and sent it to President Donald Trump, who\u2019s expected to sign it soon. <\/p>\n
The latest iteration of the program allocates roughly $250 million in annual formula funds\u2014as well as two years of back pay\u2014for counties to pay for road improvements and help school districts that lose revenue from being on federally owned national forest land.<\/p>\n
The 650-student Trinity Alps district in northern California will now be able to replenish reserves, pay back debts, and cancel any layoffs that might have been necessary early next year, said Jaime Green, the district\u2019s superintendent, who\u2019s spent years advocating on Capitol Hill for rural education.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took too long,\u201d said Green, who retired this week after eight years in the role and 30 working for public schools. <\/p>\n
But for the moment, he\u2019s not sweating the delay: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how long it takes if the kids are getting what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many rural districts managed to scrape by without these dollars up until now, Green said. But some may still suffer lasting damage from the delay to a small but crucial funding stream. Some have already closed buildings, laid off staff, and delayed construction, citing the gap in federal support among other factors. Enrollment declines and other financial pressures nationwide continue to squeeze state and local budgets.<\/p>\n
And the federal funding for schools near forest lands could lapse again in a year if Congress again moves too slowly.<\/p>\n
The precarity of the program came as a surprise to Braeli Payne, a senior at Pima High School in Arizona, who joined her school district\u2019s superintendent on Capitol Hill in October to advocate for extending Secure Rural Schools legislation. The continued absence of the funds would have threatened her district\u2019s dual-credit offering at a local community college, where Braeli is already well on her way to an associate\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has definitely helped me not be so naive about things around me, and to understand where things come from,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cNot everything is given for free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Federal law dating to the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt began requiring timber companies on federal lands to share a portion of their profits with local governments to support road repairs and school operations. But increasingly tight environmental restrictions in recent decades have caused those payments to dry up in many places as timber operations have shrunk and related revenues have fallen. <\/p>\n
Lawmakers passed the Secure Rural Schools Act in 2000 to offer an alternative revenue source. But the law only guarantees funds for two years at a time, and Congress has twice failed to extend it in time to keep payments\u2014which come from the U.S. Forest Service\u2014flowing. The last time Congress didn\u2019t pass a timely extension was December of last year.<\/p>\n
The Senate in June voted to approve the reauthorization. But the House dropped it at the last minute from legislative packages several times, including as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Congress approved in July.<\/p>\n
District leaders and advocates scrambled all year to keep the funding on lawmakers\u2019 radars. <\/p>\n
Finally, the legislation passed the House this week in a 399-5 vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came together as rural communities, we voiced our concerns and opinions, and I felt like we were heard,\u201d said Braeli from Arizona.<\/p>\n
In the absence of the Secure Rural Schools option, counties had to revert to collecting their share of timber companies\u2019 local profits. But in some cases, that meant taking a huge loss. <\/p>\n
In Oregon, for instance, timber revenue in six counties amounted to less than 10 percent of what they would have received from Secure Rural Schools, according to an Education Week analysis of federal data published by Oregon Public Broadcasting. Fifteen more counties saw at least a 50 percent drop.<\/p>\n
In Washington state\u2019s Skamania County, national forests make up 80 percent of the land, and non-taxable state and local government property makes up the vast majority of the remainder, leaving schools with little property tax revenue to tap. The lapse in Secure Rural Schools funding cost the county $830,000.<\/p>\n
This fall, the Stevenson-Carson district there cited the Secure Rural Schools funding as it shuttered its only middle school. Close to 50 6th graders moved to the local elementary school and more than 100 7th and 8th graders shifted to the nearby high school. Ten staff members lost their jobs.<\/p>\n
While they\u2019re buoyed by the renewal of Secure Rural Schools funding, rural school leaders are still wary about broader prospects for federal funding.<\/p>\n
Trump has proposed eliminating the Education Department\u2019s Rural Education Achievement Program grants and consolidating a portion of their $220 million annual funding into a K-12 block grant for states to spend as they please. Republican House lawmakers more recently have advanced an appropriations package that preserves REAP but slashes 25 percent from the $18 billion Title I program for low-income students on which districts in all geographies depend.<\/p>\n
The protracted federal shutdown this fall delayed critical Impact Aid payments to hundreds of school districts that intersect with federal property, many in rural communities.<\/p>\n
And federal capacity to manage congressionally mandated programs is also in doubt. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, where Secure Rural Schools is housed, has considerably reduced staffing this year through layoffs and proposed reorganizations.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Education Department staffers who work on programs for rural schools were among those who received layoff notices in October. Congress in November restored those jobs at least through late January. But the administration has since announced it\u2019s shifting those programs to the Department of Labor\u2014a move 20 states have already challenged in court.<\/p>\n
Rural school districts are also facing increasing pressure from lawmakers in some states to consolidate, merge, or even close altogether. Research shows school closures aren\u2019t guaranteed to save money\u2014and they can be devastating to communities where schools are among their largest employers and most prominent community hubs. There can also be academic consequences for students when their schools close.<\/p>\n
And Secure Rural Schools\u2019 long-term fate isn\u2019t assured. Some lawmakers want to extend it for a longer period next time around. Others say the federal government should instead do more to encourage timber harvesting and, as a result, timber revenues that can flow to schools.<\/p>\n
Either way, if Secure Rural Schools funding lapses again, the rural counties that depend on it won\u2019t have access to the limited, alternative revenue they\u2019ve traditionally been able to collect when that happens: Congress earlier this year passed legislation that redirects most of timber company revenue from operations in national forests to the federal government, instead of county coffers.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Green is relieved that his district didn\u2019t make panicked cuts, he said: \u201cOnce you lay people off in education, they often don\u2019t come back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Federal payments to rural schools that lapsed more than a year ago are on track to resume\u2014but they\u2019d only be guaranteed through 2026, and they may come too late for some schools to reverse cuts they made during the delay. The U.S. House on Dec. 9 approved the Secure Rural Schools Act of 2025 and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[79,4579,1051,20624,2942,588,1032],"class_list":{"0":"post-37232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-arent","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-fund","11":"tag-revived","12":"tag-rural","13":"tag-schools","14":"tag-struggles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}