PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island stands to lose $29 million in education funding currently being withheld by the Trump administration, the state’s education commissioner said, setting up the potential for layoffs, delayed services for thousands of students learning English, cuts to after-school programs, and more.
“This is completely unjustified, unprecedented, and most likely is illegal,” said Representative Seth Magaziner, a Democrat. “This is funding that Congress passed on a bipartisan basis.”
He said at a news conference last week he expects a legal battle to ensue over the withheld funding.
The withheld funds include more than $5 million to Providence, the state’s largest school district, where 38 percent of students are multilingual learners, the term for students who are learning English.
Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green said the decision “caught everybody by surprise.” She noted that President Trump previously signed an executive order declaring English be the country’s official language.
“I just don’t understand the rationale,” Infante-Green said in an interview with the Globe. “Not that I agree, but recently the federal government made English the official language of the United States, so I don’t understand how they want us to support their initiative without funding it.”
The US Department of Education unexpectedly withheld more than $6 billion in funds to states slated to be disbursed on July 1, writing in a three-sentence email on June 30 that the grants were under “review,” to ensure “taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities and the Department’s statutory responsibilities.”
Massachusetts had more than $100 million withheld, and New Hampshire had almost $27 million.
The news sent superintendents and community organizations scrambling. Since the money was expected to be disbursed on July 1, it was already accounted for in school budgets for the upcoming year. No timeline has been announced for the completion of the review.
While federal education officials did not explain their reasoning in the notice to states, the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement to the Globe that the funds were withheld after finding some were “grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda,” including “illegal immigrant advocacy.”
A spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether the Trump administration believed any funding in Rhode Island had been misused.
The withheld funds include money for out-of-school learning, such as after-school and summer programs, services for students who are learning English, professional development for teachers, academic enrichment, and adult education.
Other federal funding, such as money for students with disabilities, was not affected.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said he visited the Boys and Girls Club, one of the organizations that receives the funds, in Fox Point, where children were learning about digital literacy.
“Whether your kid is one of these programs or not, these are our future neighbors, our future leaders, our future workforce,” Smiley said.
The Providence After School Alliance, known as PASA, receives $1 million from the federal program, roughly half of the organization’s budget, interim executive director Eric Gurna said.
About 1,000 students a year engage in after-school and summer learning at PASA, where they can get healthy meals and participate in music, sports, and other activities.
“In after-school, it’s a chance for them to continue their learning, but it’s also a chance for them to be active and healthy,” Gurna said.
If the funding doesn’t come through, “at the very least, there will have to be significant cuts,” said Gurna, who just started at PASA last month.
While foundations and private donors such as corporations also give money, those grants are often for special programming, Gurna said, which wouldn’t be possible without the staff who are paid with the federal funds.
“The public funding provides the infrastructure that the rest of it hangs on,” Gurna said. “There’s no way, even in the best of times, that the private sector is going to balance this out.”
Infante-Green said if the money isn’t released, there could be major budget cuts, including layoffs. She controls the Providence Public Schools under a state takeover of the district. Providence has more than 7,000 multilingual learners, and data shows that students who exit the program — meaning they have become proficient in English — perform better than their peers.
Infante-Green said education commissioners from across the country, in both blue and red states, met recently to discuss the situation.
If the money isn’t released, she said, decisions about job cuts would have to be made over the next month.
“Every single district is going to be impacted,” Infante-Green said.
Public education has faced a series of uncertainties since Trump took office, though courts have temporarily halted some of his plans, including mass layoffs at the US Department of Education. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are among the states that have pushed back against the president’s attempt to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives from schools.
Another multistate lawsuit over this new funding issue is likely.
“If I have to show up at the door of the Department of Education or OMB, wherever it is, I will do that,” Infante-Green said.
This story has been updated with statements from Seth Magaziner and Angélica Infante-Green.
Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.