\n<\/p>\n
Education Week Staff Writer Caitlynn Peetz Stephens served as moderator of the Jan. 8 panel discussion described below among the four finalists for AASA\u2019s National Superintendent of the Year award. <\/p>\n
School district leaders are making contingency plans for federal funds that could be stripped by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration in its quest to \u201creturn education to the states\u201d and cut down on equity and race initiatives, according to the four finalists for the 2026 National Superintendent of the Year.<\/p>\n
The contingency plans include advocating for state lawmakers to help offset any potential or anticipated funding cuts and ensuring they can prove the effect those dollars have on students, the superintendents said during a Jan. 8 panel discussion hosted by AASA, The School Superintendents Association, which runs the National Superintendent of the Year program. The discussion took place at AASA\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n
The winner of the National Superintendent of the Year will be announced Feb. 12 in Nashville at AASA\u2019s National Conference on Education.<\/p>\n
Demetrus Liggins, superintendent of Fayette County, Ky., schools, said he was just notified this month that a federal grant his district previously received would be eliminated \u201cdue to DEI.\u201d It\u2019s just one example of money his district will have to find ways to replenish in other ways, Liggins said, because the programs affected are ones his students have come to rely on.<\/p>\n
Liggins plans to increase his advocacy at the state level to \u201censure that we\u2019re receiving quality state funding that will ensure we are having the services that our students still need.\u201d The key, Liggins said, is inviting lawmakers into schools to see that the dollars are not just a line in a budget and that they benefit kids in the classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t have that conversation [about the loss of federal funding] without having a very clear understanding that the majority of our funding comes from our states, and we need to ensure that they are fully aware of what is needed to educate the children each day,\u201d Liggins said.<\/p>\n
Baltimore Superintendent Sonja Santelises agreed on the value of proving the importance and impact of federally funded programs.<\/p>\n
In her district, a large portion of children live in poverty, and federally funded programs allow them to access resources they might otherwise not get\u2014like tutoring and after-school programs, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a message of, \u2018We need money because we have large numbers of poor children,\u2019\u201d Santelises said. \u201cIt is being able to show the return on the investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Lamar Consolidated Independent school district in Texas, \u201cany hiccup in [federal funding] is going to hurt us,\u201d said Superintendent Roosevelt Nivens.<\/p>\n
Nivens said he is lucky that his district is not yet seeing budget deficits, but neighboring districts are grappling with shortfalls of millions of dollars, he said. Those same deficits \u201cwill hit us eventually,\u201d Nivens said, and Lamar leaders are \u201cstarting to talk about how we might assign fund balances when that happens so that the deficit doesn\u2019t impact Tier 1 instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, it\u2019s superintendents\u2019 responsibility to forge new funding paths\u2014whether from state lawmakers or community organizations\u2014and protect students from losing access to services that will set them up for long-term success, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, when students walk into my district, their last name becomes Nivens, and that means whatever they need is what we\u2019re going to give them,\u201d Nivens said. \u201cRegardless of what the federal government does, regardless [of] what our state government does, my kids are going to be taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gorham school district in Maine likely won\u2019t be hit as hard by federal funding cuts as some other districts because it has a smaller population of students in poverty, said Superintendent Heather Perry. But she anticipates a reduction in Title II dollars, which fund professional development. Her district is in the early stages of crafting contingency plans for PD funding and \u201cactively planning for what happens when we see those impacts,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we talk about all the things our teachers need to learn and understand\u2014all the transformational changes that are going to come into our school systems\u2014professional development is going to be the key to be able to attack and move those things forward in a good way,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd if that money goes away, then that\u2019s going to be problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Education Week Staff Writer Caitlynn Peetz Stephens served as moderator of the Jan. 8 panel discussion described below among the four finalists for AASA\u2019s National Superintendent of the Year award. School district leaders are making contingency plans for federal funds that could be stripped by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration in its quest to \u201creturn education<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[12151,319,116,15580,81,3785],"class_list":{"0":"post-41905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-bracing","9":"tag-federal","10":"tag-funding","11":"tag-superintendents","12":"tag-trump","13":"tag-uncertainty"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41905","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=41905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}