Washington’s response to Trump education funding threats

No one is certain yet how federal decisions under the Trump administration will affect both budgets and policies of Washington’s public schools.

But educators, parents and government officials in this Washington are tracking closely whether President Donald Trump makes good on his threats to cut funding to states that do not prove they have abandoned K-12 diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Fear, anger and defiance have been the response here so far. The fear runs deep. The defiance comes from the top: the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction or OSPI.

Although most of the districts I reached out to for this story weren’t interested in discussing their plans for navigating these issues, education consultant Erin Jones told me that at a recent meeting with King County superintendents, officials were worried.

“They are concerned about budget cuts. But they are most concerned about the uncertainty. That’s the point of this administration: uncertainty. That leaves them in such a bad place,” Jones recalled. “These leaders want to do right by their children and their staff.”

Rising tensions

The U.S. Education Department sent a letter to state education agencies in February, accusing schools of promoting diversity in a way that unfairly harmed white and Asian American students.

In support of this statement, they cited a 2023 Supreme Court decision that banned using race as an element in college admissions. That case didn’t mention K-12 schools, but that didn’t stop the Trump administration from using it as a reason why Washington and other states shouldn’t be providing extra academic support for students of color.

In early April, the U.S. Education Department doubled down, with another letter. This one demanded proof that states were following their DEI orders.

Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal’s response reaffirmed this state’s strong commitment to embracing its diversity and making sure every student gets the help they need.

“Recognition of our diversity is a cornerstone of public education. It makes us stronger, more civil, and it empowers groups of students who have historically been marginalized or denied equal opportunities,” Reykdal said in a statement. He confirmed that these efforts are paying off in higher graduation and college participation rates for everyone. Plus, Reykdal added, every student benefits from the diversity in our schools.

“Washington will not suppress its core values or cede our right to determine our own education system to the federal government,” he said.  In just a few words, he underscored a key facet of American education: states, not the federal government, take the lead in determining what their children will learn in public schools.

Reykdal’s office continues to draw attention from the Trump administration.

Later in April, the Department of Education said it would investigate OSPI over “requiring school boards to adopt policies that allow males to participate in female sports and occupy female-only intimate facilities.” This followed the federal agency scrutinizing OSPI over how it handled a years-long controversy surrounding the gender-inclusion policy at the La Center School District in Clark County.

Jones, the education consultant, said she hasn’t met a leader yet who is not committed to continuing diversity, equity and inclusion work. Some are renaming it, opting instead for terms like “community building.”

Another consequence of Trump era rhetoric and policies that Jones has been hearing about is decreased attendance by Latino students. “No matter what the principal has said that we’re going to protect you from ICE, why should they trust you?” she asked.

“I think we’re afraid for good reason,” Jones added.

Trish Millines Dziko, executive director of the Technology Access Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit offering supplemental STEM education in public schools and after-school programs, has also heard that Latino attendance has dropped. And the parents of children who are showing up for school don’t want them participating in field trips.

So far, this is just anecdotal evidence. Detailed attendance data probably won’t be available to the public until next year. Dziko believes the full impact of the Trump administration on education won’t be understood for months or even years.

“There’s a lot of anxiety,” said Dziko, who has overheard immigrant children as well as LGBTQ students and staff talking to each other. “They’re all very close to each other and they worry about each other. …I don’t know if it’s stopping education from happening. But you can hear the conversations between some of the kids.”

After reaching out to about half the districts in the Puget Sound region, plus some in eastern Washington, only one was willing to put someone on the phone to talk to me. Dziko and others I talked to felt this lack of response was born out of fear.

Teachable moment

The state’s largest school district is choosing to carry on and keep working to lift up every child from every background despite threats from the Trump administration. Seattle Public School’s Black education program manager, Anita Koyier-Mwamba, pointed to Head Start office closures and the president’s DEI orders as examples of factors fueling uncertainty.

Still, she believes the difficulties should not stop educators from using this time as a teachable moment.

“It is really important to me that we recognize that history has left us a wonderful catalog of opportunities to explore.”

And then she took a delightful path into American history and the young men like Thomas Jefferson who were so passionate about democracy but didn’t do everything right 250 years ago, although they were trying to solve the problems of their time.

Why does she want us to think about the 19- and 20-year-olds sitting around debating the birth of a nation? Because it’s a good reminder that young people can think for themselves and should have an opportunity to do so.

“It is unjust not to give our young people the opportunity to … solve the problems of their time,” Koyier-Mwamba said.

And that comes down to a discussion about justice that must account for the nation’s past.

This is American history, not diversity indoctrination: The enslavement of people kidnapped and brought here to work the land. The way we have treated the indigenous people before and after the United States became a country. How the Constitution treated enslaved people when the founders couldn’t agree to take a better path. The Civil War and what happened to enslaved people afterward. Fifty years between giving white women and Black women the right to vote.

“Focusing on our shared humanity is an avenue to reconsider how we respond in these times of challenge,” Koyier-Mwamba said. Part of that is choosing to be optimistic, deciding to see the light in the darkness through American heroes like abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

Similarly, Dziko sees an opportunity to rethink how we do things as a state and a nation. Making sure every student gets the education they need to succeed is not an impossible goal. Dziko believes, and I agree, that state dollars for education could be distributed in a way that focuses more on equity.

“Our kids deserve better,” Dziko said, adding that education reform is directly related to state budget reform because it will take more money to create a more equitable system.

The 29-year-old Technology Access Foundation does not get federal grants, so Dziko is not concerned about backlash from the federal government.

Where the Trump administration pushes against DEI programs because they say they unfairly advantage Black and Brown people, Dziko and I see racism. “The whole thing has been reduced to, ‘If you are Black, then you did not deserve the position you’re in.’ That’s a very dangerous viewpoint,” she said.

Unfortunately, this viewpoint isn’t new. Dziko is worried about how far back we will go. Before the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that ruled racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional?

“I’m always the eternal optimist in my family, but I’m not this time around,” Dziko said.

“We’re going backwards,” she added.

Jones is also feeling pessimistic.

“They want to make America in their image, and their image is white straight men,” said Jones. “They’ve done a really good job of making everything DEI that they just don’t like,” she said. “I’ve really been grieving.”

Like Dziko, while she rejects the Republican vision for education, she is also not satisfied with the status quo. “Republicans say burn it all down, it all sucks. That is not a strategy. The Democrats don’t have a vision,” she said. “Let’s all talk about it. So we have something to activate us. Just saying I don’t want this is not enough. We need people with vision who are imagining a better way forward.”

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