Dozens of Wake school workers are paid by funds Trump froze. What happens to them?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Wake schools face $8.1M shortfall from frozen federal funds affecting 180 staff.
- Superintendent seeks to reassign fully grant-funded staff to avoid layoffs.
- Federal lawsuit challenges $6.8B freeze impacting programs for vulnerable students.
The Wake County school system is hoping to avoid laying off dozens of school employees who are paid from the federal funding frozen by the Trump administration.
The U.S. Department of Education is withholding $6.8 billion from schools across the country, including $8.1 million from Wake County. Superintendent Robert Taylor said they hope to avoid laying off the 60 school employees who are fully funded from the $8.1 million and the 120 employees who are partially funded.
Taylor said he believes they can avoid layoffs. But he told the school board that tough choices will need to be made.
“We’ve looked at all the places where we believe we can make funding shifts,” Taylor said. “The last piece I’ll say is that when we make a decision to support what these grants did, it means we have to stop doing something. And that is the pain piece.”
Billions of dollars frozen nationally
On June 30, the U.S. Education Department notified states it was freezing $6.8 billion in funding for programs such as teacher training, after-school programs, summer programs and services for migrant students and English learners.
One of the reasons the Trump administration has cited for withholding $6.8 billion is that some of it was spent on students who are living in the country without legal authorization.
The administration said it hadn’t made any final decisions about whether to withhold or release individual grants. But school leaders fear they might not get the $6.8 billion because Trump’s 2026 budget proposal called for Congress to zero out all of the programs under review.
On Monday, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined a multi-state federal lawsuit against the Trump administration for withholding the $6.8 billion. Locally, the freeze is costing $165 million for North Carolina
Wake trying to avoid layoffs
The delay and possible loss of the funding has caused panic for schools across the country. Last week, the Wake County school system announced a partial hiring freeze and spending restrictions.
Taylor said the frozen money impacts areas such as teacher training, principal training, English as a Second Language instruction and literacy coaches. Taylor said they need to determine what is legally required and what’s important but not required.
Taylor said they’ve got time to figure out what to do with the 124 literacy coaches because the grant money only covers two weeks of their salaries. The rest of their salaries are paid elsewhere.
But Taylor said they need to make a decision soon on the 60 people who are fully funded from the grant money, including 14 ESL teachers. He said they want to get them into vacant ESL positions as soon as possible.
“If we have to make a decision about where we place people, then we have to make that decision really by next week,” Taylor said.
This story was originally published July 15, 2025 at 6:40 PM.
