BPS not planning to lay off staff impacted by federal funding freeze, superintendent says

With federal grant funding in limbo BPS personnel say they are not at this time planning to cut staff whose programs rely on those grants Right now the funding is indicating from the federal authorities a delay Superintendent Mary Skipper stated in a meeting with the Boston School Committee I want to emphasize a couple things One is that we do not believe that there ll be an impact to any BPS employees for the coming school year - or for any of the current BPS summer services The BPS news comes days after the Trump administration publicized it would withhold billion in congressionally approved schooling funding nationwide until further review As of July million due to Massachusetts districts had been withheld according to state administrators Skipper reported Wednesday the district was preparing a memo for the School Committee to further delineate and explain what the prospective impact is for us We hope that this is money that gets published because it can t underscore enough this is million for us Skipper disclosed It funds certain really critical necessities areas of the organization The Title grant dollars are the areas being withheld Skipper noted particularly Title II Part A These funds go to supporting effective instruction the superintendent explained on programs for pupil achievement principal improvement and more The freeze is also impacting Title III dollars for language instruction for English learners and immigrant students Title IV Part A for apprentice advocacy and academic enrichment and Title IIII Part B for the st Century Learning Centers grant Skipper reported The district is actively looking within our own budget for temporary funding to offset the prospective losses the superintendent noted Skipper stated that for now all we know is this is delay and the district hopes to avoid the permanent loss of the funds Related Articles Boston Teachers Union endorses Mayor Wu in reelection bid Boston exam school admissions put under the microscope again Family of -year-old boy run over by Boston school bus sues BPS transportation provider Boston welcomes a new group of high school valedictorians Boston Mayor Wu launches analysis of BPS transportation provider after bus kills child BPS leaders previously stated that as much as million in federal funding equivalent to of the district s budget and two-thirds of the external fund could be at substantial danger for the district as the Trump administration moved to dismantle the Department of Coaching Again this will not impact our summer but this is certainly something that we need to keep you informed about we need to keep our locality informed about Skipper reported And we re going to be doing a lot of the planning as we ve already begun for how we might be able to sponsorship and offset specific of these critical need services