At the Department of Education, protests – and warnings – over firings
By TOLU TALABI
WASHINGTON — Under the scorching sun and dressed in her corporate blouse and skirt, Sarah Newman sat on the stairs leading up to the Department of Education’s entrance.
“I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong by spending time at the place I otherwise would have been at on a Wednesday,’’ Newman said. A green work bag containing books and an office laptop stood beside her.
The department closed its headquarters building in Washington as well as regional offices on Wednesday, but Newman sat on the stairs from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. to protest her job loss.
Newman, who lives in northern Virginia and worked with the department for 13 years, was part of the staff that faced layoffs on Tuesday that impacted nearly half of the department’s workforce — a reduction from 4,133 to 2,183 workers, according to the agency’s website.
Newman worked with the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education under the department. Her work entailed administering grant programs to support students from pre-K to 12th grade and collecting and analyzing data on student performance, testing, and graduation rates to ensure the grant programs’ effectiveness.
Newman said “it feels unjust” losing her job, but while she worries about her future and braces herself for the start of her administrative leave on March 21, she is most fearful of the impacts the staff reduction will have on students.
“I worry about the persistent kind of inequality that we continue to see,” Newman said. “Kids aren’t getting the same experience as one another and I really worry that it will get significantly worse.”
The department’s Office of Civil Rights also faced layoffs on Tuesday, eliminating the entire investigative staff in seven of its 12 regional branches. The civil rights branch is responsible for ensuring equal access to education, prohibiting discrimination in programs or activities that receive federal funds, and investigating civil rights violations in schools across the nation.
The Department of Education’s other functions include managing federal loans for college, distributing Pell Grants, supporting programs for students with disabilities, providing funding to high-poverty schools, and supporting students and schools affected by natural disasters.
“The Department of Education will continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking,” according to a statement from the agency.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, nominated by President Donald Trump, said in a statement that the staff reduction “reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents and teachers.”
But Joe Murphy, who was let go on Tuesday after working at the department for 10 years, said the firing of workers will have a noticeable impact.
“I’m very afraid that with the elimination of all of the people within these offices in the department, the delivery of the resources to the grantees, those being the states, is going to be delayed or cut off completely,” he told Capital News Service. “If they (the Trump administration) can’t get the grants out at all, and if it’s their goal to save money and stop these grants, that’s against what is written into law by Congress.”
Murphy, from Dumfries, Virginia, worked as a management and data analyst and carried out duties similar to Newman’s. He said working with the department was rewarding. He reminisced about the time he worked on a project that gave grants to Native American students.
“It was unbelievably gratifying,” Murphy said. “Because we took a population that is frequently underserved in terms of resources, and it gave us a way of proving that they need more resources.”
Members of the public dropped by the department’s building Wednesday to express their dismay about the Trump administration’s actions.
People posted signs around the department’s granite garden bed that read “Department of Education is not a ‘Bureaucratic Bloat,’” referencing a statement McMahon made Tuesday on Fox News. Other posters read, “Employers want to hire an educated workforce,” “You did NOT keep ‘all the right people’ … You kept Elon!”
Lesley Fera, who previously worked as a substitute teacher, flew from Los Angeles to Washington to protest against the downsizing of various federal agencies under Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Fera said she wanted to show solidarity with workers from the department.
“I can’t see how this does not affect education and accessibility to education when people are relying on the public school system,” said Fera, who wore a red shirt that read: “Stop the billionaire coup.”
“My heart is with education and the programs that will be decimated because of this,” she said.
Karen Sandoe, a retired teacher who taught in southwest Virginia for 30 years and comes from a family of four generations of educators, sat beside a poster she made that said: “(Re) Tired teacher supporting Dept. of Ed.”
“When history reflects on this, and it will,” Sandoe said, “I want my grandchildren to know that their grandmother stood up for education and their future.”
Newman, still sitting on the stairs, sipped from a cup of coffee to get her through the day.
“This place has been my home away from home,” Newman said about the Education Department. “I feel like I’ve created this life for myself, and I’m proud of that. It feels under attack.”
Capital News Service is a student-powered news organization run by the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. With bureaus in Annapolis and Washington run by professional journalists with decades of experience, they deliver news in multiple formats via partner news organizations and a destination Website.