“These support systems are what students really rely on,” one girl told the board. “As someone who struggles a lot with being overwhelmed and anxious, sometimes I just need someone to talk to.”

The layoffs will help reduce an $8.6 million budget deficit, due in part to the loss of 350 students. 

Sarah Neville, a board member in the Boston-area district, knows one reason enrollment is down. Under federal law, districts can’t ask whether students are U.S. citizens, but almost 90% of the 5,700-students are Latino and 47% are English learners. The state education agency estimates that the population of English learners in Massachusetts schools has since 2024. Officials from Chelsea and other metro-area districts say as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted raids in last fall.

“We’re low hanging fruit for ICE because so many of our folks are undocumented,” Neville said. “When they say, ‘We’re going to go target Boston,’ you find the vans actually hanging out in Chelsea.”

The district is among several across the country now confronting the financial impact of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. Whether students are absent from school, families have been detained, or they’ve left the district or the country on their own, the empty desks add up.

Districts no longer have federal COVID relief funds to fall back on, and many already saw steep enrollment declines during the pandemic. The Chelsea board is one of asking the legislature for one-time grants to help address the shortfall. With fixed costs like payroll and contracts with vendors, a sharp drop in enrollment “creates chaos,” Neville said.

In Texas, officials from , and several districts in the are among those who say the immigration crackdown has contributed to further enrollment loss and, with it, potential drops in state funding. 

Districts’ heightened concerns over finances come as conservatives increasingly argue that American taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill to educate undocumented students in the first place. 

During a heated , members of a House judiciary subcommittee argued that the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn , a landmark 1982 ruling in a Texas case that guaranteed children a right to a public education, regardless of citizenship status.

“The financial costs of Plyler are undoubtedly staggering, clearly representing a significant burden on localities,” said Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, who chaired the hearing. “But it isn’t just fiscal costs we should be worried about. Our nation’s classrooms routinely deal with illegal alien students, many of whom know little to no English and may struggle with other learning disabilities.”

Pointing to Census Bureau figures, a from the subcommittee estimated that educating non-citizen students in U.S. schools costs about $68 billion a year. But during the hearing, Democrats highlighted of providing students access to education, like $633 billion paid in state and local income taxes and contributions to the U.S. economy worth more than $2.7 trillion.

The witnesses included James Rogers, senior counselor with the conservative America First Legal Foundation, who called the Plyler opinion ”egregiously wrong from the start” and an example of judicial overreach. He predicted that the current conservative majority on the court would overturn it if given the opportunity. Republicans in like have proposed legislation to collect students’ immigration status. If one of those bills passes, opponents are expected to challenge it in court.

But Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said that excluding undocumented students from school or charging tuition would mean “only certain classes of children whose parents can afford to pay are entitled to the blessings of liberty and the hope of a better future.” 

Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, warned that at a time when chronic absenteeism remains above pre-pandemic levels, non-citizen children wouldn’t be the only ones out of school if the court overturned Plyler.

“It will extend beyond the families to peers and ultimately it will be impossible to enforce truancy laws,” he said. “Any child who doesn’t want to be in school will know to simply say ‘I’m undocumented.’ ”

The ‘bottom line’

For now, most Texas districts want to hang on to as many students as possible.

“When you’re a rural school district, every kid has a big impact on your bottom line,” said Kevin Brown, executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators. “When you lose five or 10 kids, you have to cut programming. You can’t cut teachers, so you have to start looking for other ways to do it.”

He expects to see a request during next year’s legislative session to allow for some “transition period” before funding drops, but “whether something passes is another question.”

In California, where state funding is based on districts’ average daily attendance, Gov. Gavin Newsom last October that would have added immigration enforcement as one of the emergencies that triggers a waiver of the funding rule. The change was unnecessary, he said.

In Minnesota, districts are still hoping for some relief. On their behalf, a national nonprofit to temporarily suspend a state law that requires districts to drop students from the rolls if they’ve been absent for 15 straight days. The legislation allows exemptions for emergencies.

, in which the Trump administration deployed roughly 4,000 ICE agents to the Minneapolis area, “no doubt qualifies as a calamity that would trigger application of the exemption,” leaders of the National Center for Youth Law wrote to state House and Senate leaders last month. 

Fridley Public Schools, outside Minneapolis, has lost 20 students because of the 15-day rule. 

“Some of our children have been in an apartment for 14 weeks and haven’t been able to leave,” Superintendent Brenda Lewis said on a recent webinar. 

Roughly 100 more have left since the surge, possibly taking advantage of the state’s open enrollment policy to relocate to other districts. The loss means a $1 million hit to the district’s $51 million budget. The district also missed out on $131,000 in meal reimbursements from the federal government because low-income students weren’t in school to eat breakfast and lunch, Lewis said. 

Fridley’s enrollment would have been down another 400 students if the district hadn’t quickly implemented a virtual learning program, Lewis said. But federal agents used the device distribution process to apprehend those they suspected to be undocumented, she said. 

“We had ICE agents arresting people because they knew they were coming for the Chromebooks,” said Lewis, whose district is part of against the Trump administration over its policy of allowing immigration enforcement near schools and other “sensitive” locations. “ICE agents will board your buses. They’ll board your vans. They’ll pull the vehicle over and start interviewing children about immigration status. By interviewing, I mean interrogating.”

‘In-your-face presence’

The Trump administration recently such actions in an effort to end a government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security. Julie Sugarman, who studies immigration policy affecting K-12 schools at the Migration Policy Institute, said a “less-aggressive” approach near school grounds would likely lead some missing students to return. 

“The in-your-face presence absolutely is causing people to stay home,” she said.

The Chicago Public Schools last fall saw steep declines in attendance that coincided with , according to by Kids First Chicago, an advocacy group, and the Coalition for Authentic Community Engagement, representing multiple nonprofits. On Sept. 29, the Monday after enforcement activity began, nearly 14,000 students at schools serving high percentages of Latino students were absent, the report showed. 

The district uses enrollment counts from the early part of the school year to make budget and staffing decisions. If students missed school on those days, or if the district eventually dropped students out for extended periods, those absences could affect funding, explained Hal Woods, chief of policy at Kids First Chicago.

District leaders can only estimate how many undocumented students are entering, or leaving, their schools, and that’s a problem, Mandy Drogin, a senior fellow at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said in testimony before the House subcommittee. She blamed that warned districts against asking for students’ or parents’ citizenship status for enrollment purposes. 

While many English learners are U.S. citizens, she called out districts under state takeover, like and nearby , which have English learner populations above 30%, according to the state. “Illegal students,” she said, are impacting schools as a whole. 

“Teachers are being forced to … do Google Translate on their phones,” she said. “All of these things obviously impact the total education system, and the taxpayers are left holding the bag.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, said immigration enforcement affects all students. He pointed to Willmar, Minnesota, about 150 miles west of the Twin Cities and the site of a Jennie-O turkey plant that employs many . It’s the town where ICE agents in a Mexican restaurant and then returned to detain the owners and a dishwasher. 

In December, as rumors of an ICE raid spread, hundreds of kids, including white students, stayed out of school, Superintendent Bill Adams . 

“I remember walking in the hallways going, ‘Holy God, where are all the kids?’” said a district employee who declined to speak for attribution due to the sensitivity of the topic. “It was eerie.”

In October, Adams said enrollment in the 4,400-student district was down by over 170 students, amounting to a loss of more than $4 million. To make up for some of that gap, the district is it used to teach independent living skills, like cooking and doing the laundry, to older students with disabilities. 

“It’s just hit our community really bad,” the employee said.  

Members unanimously approved the legislation, another sign that improving reading outcomes is a goal shared by both Republicans and Democrats. 

“This is how I learned how to read in the 1960s,” said Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia. “When implemented correctly, the science of reading has been proven to help children learn to read and to write more effectively.”

The bill defines the science of reading as instruction that teaches phonics and phonemic awareness, and also builds vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and writing skills. The legislation would prohibit grantees from allowing , the practice of prompting students to identify words based on pictures or other clues in a sentence. The bill now moves to the full House.

“We should not be using federal literacy funds to promote discredited approaches to literacy,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, a former Republican now running for reelection as an independent. 

The committee’s passage of the bill follows a before House appropriators in which both Democrats and Republicans the growth in reading outcomes in southern states like Mississippi and Alabama and asked experts how to spread that progress more broadly. The House proposal, however, is not the only effort underway to revamp the long-running Comprehensive Literacy Development Grant program. Some advocates say updated legislation should also require schools receiving grant funds to screen children for reading difficulties, inform parents whether their children are reading below grade level and assign reading coaches to low-performing schools.

“If we’re going to update it, let’s do it right,” said Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of the National Parents Union’s Center for Policy and Action. She expects that a Senate plan would also ensure that teacher preparation programs follow the science of reading. “Let’s actually check in on whether teacher preparation programs are doing right by kids and using the most recent research.”

The nonprofit will dig further into those issues next week at on Capitol Hill featuring leaders from Tennessee and the District of Columbia, both of which have implemented reading reforms, like pointing districts to and providing to teachers on how students learn to read. 

An ‘implementation war’

Experts welcome Congress’ interest in the issue. But broad agreement that students need phonics-based instruction doesn’t mean the debate over the best way to teach reading is settled.

There’s still a reading war, but not between the phonics and whole language camps, said Karen Vaites, a literacy advocate who highlights lessons on reading reform from states that have seen growth on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. 

Now, she said, there’s an “implementation war.”

“Everybody agrees on phonics, but how much phonics? How much instructional time should it get?” she asked. “Do you do teacher training first or do you do curriculum paired with teacher training?”

Another proposal under consideration would require the U.S. Department of Education to reserve 10% of the grant awards for states whose fourth grade reading scores on NAEP rank in the lowest 25% for two consecutive administrations of the test. Vaites questioned whether such states would make the best use of the funds. 

“I worry a lot about throwing dollars toward the people that by demonstration have the least leadership capacity,” she said.  

, part of a 2010 federal budget agreement, was the first iteration of the state literacy grant program. , tracking awards to 11 states in 2017, found that not all states directed funds toward the highest poverty schools or used the money to buy reading programs based on research. Overall, the study found no significant differences in reading performance between schools that received the funds and those that didn’t, but there were small positive effects in Louisiana and Ohio. 

Striving Readers preceded the Comprehensive Literacy State Development grants, . But the program hasn’t been revised in a decade. Smith, with the National Parents Union, said the program should reflect the latest knowledge about what’s working in classrooms. 

“We’ve learned a ton about the science of reading,” she said.

Kari Kurto, national director of policy and partnerships for the Reading League, a national nonprofit promoting the science of reading, said the grant program is important because it’s one of the only ways state education agencies “can truly influence” what happens in classrooms. She said she appreciates that the bill includes her suggestion that instruction should also support students’ oral language skills. 

“This legislation will go a long way toward solidifying our nation’s commitment to evidence-based literacy instruction,” she said. “As a Democrat, I am so thrilled to see this movement finally receiving the bipartisan support we always dreamed of.”

Concerns over local control

While every state has taken some action to improve reading instruction, recent examples in two states show that concerns remain over one-size-fits-all approaches.

California passed a reading reform bill last year, but not before lawmakers agreed to that kept the state from mandating teacher training and state-approved curricula. The California Teachers Association said an earlier version of the bill would have interfered with local control and worried the plan overemphasized phonics at the expense of other literacy skills.

In Massachusetts, and object to portions of “that attempt to legislate the specific curriculum that schools would be expected to purchase and implement.” The is also opposed.

Any federal legislation won’t delve into specific reading programs. prohibits it, but Vaites said there are still ways to strengthen the grant program.

“I think we’re all trying to figure out the mechanism that is going to hold state leaders accountable in a way that isn’t just sprinkling dollars around,” she said. 

After more than 24 hours of negotiations and a from Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries opposing the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” the House on Thursday passed President Donald Trump’s tax-and-spending package by a 218 to 214 vote. The president plans to sign the legislation on July 4.

The House made no changes to the bill after the Senate passed it Tuesday, despite opposition from Republicans who thought it strayed too far from the version they passed in late May. Rep Keith Self of Texas posted on X that their original tax credit scholarship proposal would have created a national voucher program, while the Senate version “leaves blue state students in failing schools with ‘optional’ school choice.” He still voted for the bill, but two Republicans voted against it — of Pennsylvania and .����

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who sponsored the school choice provision, said “enshrining the first ever federal school choice provision into our nation’s tax code is a major win. We will continue to advocate for and pass improvements moving forward.”

The Senate on Tuesday passed the nation’s first federal tax credit scholarship program as part of a massive tax and spending President Donald Trump wants to sign by July 4.

But the provision is significantly watered down from the one school choice advocates have been working toward since the first Trump administration. As it currently stands, states may opt in, meaning many Democratic-majority states probably won’t participate.

Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, a conservative think tank, called the Senate passage “an important step toward making sure every family and teacher in our country enjoys education freedom.” But the restrictions, he said, will “make it very, very hard to put funds into the hands of families who just want to get their children in a better school.”

House staff began deliberations over the bill immediately, with a vote expected Wednesday. But it’s unclear how members will greet the revamped choice plan.

The plan grants donors to scholarship organizations a tax credit for the same amount they contribute. Those nonprofits then award funds to families for private school tuition and other educational expenses. But unlike the more expansive plan the House passed in late May, the Senate gives states a say over which groups can participate and strikes language that would have prohibited any control over private schools. That could be a major sticking point for House members, said Joshua Cowen, an education professor at Michigan State University and a vocal voucher opponent.

“Maybe they’ll just hold their nose and pass it,” he said. But that would come at the cost of “the most wide-ranging federal regulations we’d ever see on private and religious K-12 schools.” 

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a longtime supporter of tax credits for school choice, didn’t mention the revisions when he addressed the chamber during the early morning hours Tuesday after members worked on Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” through the night. 

“This tax credit provision will unleash billions of dollars every single year for scholarships for kids to attend the K-through-12 school of their choice,” he said, calling school choice “the civil rights issue of the 21st century.” 

The new program is just a small part of a legislative package that continues Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and could add at least to the national debt by 2034. With a trifecta in Congress and the White House, Republicans passed the bill in a party-line vote. But Vice President  J.D. Vance still had to break a 50-50 tie in the Senate after opposition from Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine.

Child tax credits and Trump accounts

The legislation includes other child-related provisions, including the extension of an existing $2,000 . The House version boosts it to $2,500, while the Senate version increases the credit to $2,200. “Trump accounts,” a new feature, would provide for children that they could later use for education or a house.

Among the most controversial changes are cuts and work requirements for Medicaid and food assistance programs for low-income families. The $1 trillion proposed cut to Medicaid could especially who are more likely to depend on the program for health care. 

On the Senate floor Monday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the “reforms” make the program more efficient by targeting “people who are supposed to benefit from Medicaid.” But Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, ranking member of the finance committee, warned: “Kids with disabilities will lose health care.” 

Those provisions have generated far more debate among GOP members than the school choice provision. But Republicans made significant changes to that portion after a Senate official Thursday that it didn’t meet the standards for reconciliation and would require 60 votes to pass. In addition to allowing government oversight, Republicans dropped the total amount a donor can contribute from 10% of their annual income to $1,700.

“To raise $1.7 million for scholarships, [organizations]need to identify 1,000 donors, which is a lot harder to do,” Blew said. “That wasn’t done to help students or families.” 

Multiple questions remain over which families stand to benefit the most from the program. Some existing scholarship groups target funds to low-income students, but the federal program lacks such a requirement. 

The bill sets eligibility at 300% of median income, meaning that in higher-income areas, families earning nearly half a million dollars could use the scholarships. Preference for the scholarships would also go to students who received them the previous year or to their siblings, contributing to concerns that families who already have their children in private schools would be more likely to receive a voucher. 

“You can be a very wealthy family in a very wealthy area and still be eligible for [these] funds,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the left-leaning Brookings Institution. “Who knows exactly how this is going to play out.”

DeVos calls it a ‘win’

Supporters say the program will bring private school choice to students nationwide at a time of increasing demand. Tennessee’s newly expanded voucher program, for example, received in the first few hours it was open on May 15, creating technical glitches 

Opponents argue the program allows donors to avoid taxes and would fund tuition at schools that discriminate against students. 

The House version, Cowan said, “rams” vouchers into states like Michigan that have rejected them since . Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos, who promoted a similar federal plan as education secretary during Trump’s first term, to get a voucher initiative on the ballot in 2023. and said no to private school choice initiatives last November, and voters repealed a program lawmakers passed in that state in 2024. 

In other states — , and Utah — judges have ruled that voucher programs violate the law. 

On Tuesday, DeVos sounded a triumphant note, calling the Senate passage “a major win for students and families” .

Cowan said the vote would not give the former secretary “her long-sought after goal of forcing vouchers into the states using the tax code” and gives “substantial authority to state governors and perhaps [education] agencies to say ‘no.’ ”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon that limits student loans for college, but had nothing to say about the school choice aspect of the bill.

Critics frequently cite the scarcity of private schools in rural areas as the reason they oppose vouchers. from the Urban Institute shows that over 60% of students in urban areas live within two miles of a private school, compared with just a quarter of students in rural areas. 

Participation in the new program depends on how many families apply and the size of scholarships. Historically, take up rates have been relatively low with new voucher programs, said Colyn Ritter, a senior research associate at EdChoice, an advocacy organization. 

If scholarships are large enough to cover the full ride to some private schools, which , more families might seek a scholarship, Ritter said. But that amount wouldn’t be enough to afford more expensive schools in the Northeast. 

If scholarship awards are as low as $2,500, that might offer a cut on tuition for families who can make up the difference, but it wouldn’t be enough to make private school an option for a family in poverty, he said. 

Families could use the scholarships for homeschooling costs, like tutoring, curriculum and educational therapies. But Ritter called homeschoolers a “hard-to-predict” group. The population has grown more diverse racially and politically. Some, he said, could be “early adopters” of the new funds, but many homeschoolers are still leery of government-run programs.

“We just want to make sure that there are no strings attached and that we won’t end up in some government database that can track us and tell us what to do in the future,” said Faith Howe, president of Texans for Homeschool Freedom.

The Children’s Scholarship Fund in New York is one of the nonprofits that would likely participate in the program. The group has affiliates in 23 states, including several blue states, that are closely watching negotiations over the final wording, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Toomey.

Her organization has a small homeschool pilot program and might take advantage of the new legislation to expand it. Forty families currently receive $1,000 to spend on approved expenses through the ClassWallet platform, the same way many state education savings accounts operate. But the group’s core mission, Toomey said, is awarding roughly 7,000 scholarships each year to students from low-income families across New York City.

Recipients receive, on average, about $2,500 toward tuition, but Toomey said the new federal program would allow the organization to increase the award and serve more families. She acknowledged that a scholarship might not help the “poorest of the poor,” but has helped push many families “into a position where they can afford private school.”

While scrolling through Instagram, the mother noticed her child’s friends also called the teen Toby. So she began digging for further evidence of something she had started to suspect — that the ninth grader, with the school’s support, was transitioning from female to male.

“I’m like ‘Hey, you can’t deny it anymore’ ” said Lydia, who did not want to use her last name out of a desire to protect her child, now 17.

The school’s principal, following guidance that allows students to decide whether to inform parents of their gender identity, refused to meet with her. But she found clues elsewhere — an alternate ID card with the name Toby stuffed in a backpack, and emails between district staff discussing which name to use in the yearbook.

Over time, she discovered her child’s transition was an open secret at school — one kept by staff, administrators, a district equity officer, the superintendent, even the president of the local teachers union.

“They were strategizing against me,” Lydia said.

Her experience now lies at the center of a major push by the U.S. Department of Education to clamp down on policies that allow schools to conceal changes in students’ gender identity from parents.  

In a March press release announcing an investigation into , Education Secretary Linda McMahon said teachers and counselors should stay out of “consequential decisions” about children’s sexual identities. Officials are probing similar allegations in and .

In an unprecedented move, the department is threatening to pull millions of dollars in federal education funding from all three states. 

But it’s putting all schools on notice. In , federal officials warned states and districts that their support of student “gender plans” had become a “priority concern.” For educators, the message was as stunning as its rationale. The department is relying on a novel, and according to some critics, incorrect, interpretation of a 50-year-old student privacy law known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA.

The law is typically used to safeguard student records and allow parents to inspect them. But it doesn’t compel schools to inform parents how their children identify in the classroom. If schools link a record to a student, “the parent has a right of access to it if they request it,” said LeRoy Rooker, who oversaw compliance with FERPA at the Education Department for over 20 years. But “the school doesn’t have to be proactive and call and say ‘Hey, we did this.’ ”

Department leaders appear to be stretching the reach of the law in an attempt to bolster conservative arguments that schools are meddling in deeply personal decisions that should be left to parents. In response to the Washington investigation, state Superintendent Chris Reykdal said in a statement that his state is the “latest target in the administration’s dangerous war against individuals who are transgender” and that officials are twisting student privacy laws “to undermine the health, safety and well-being of students.” 

To Julie Hamill, a Los Angeles-area attorney who to investigate, Lydia’s story demonstrates that a law designed to keep parents informed is now working against them.

”The parents are in the dark,” said Hamill of the conservative California Justice Center. “Parents will not know student records are being withheld unless they’ve somehow discovered it on their own.”

In tackling the role of schools in student gender transitions, the department is dipping into one of the more emotionally fraught issues in the culture war, one that President Donald Trump campaigned on and weaponized once he was back in the White House. 

In one of his first , Trump said, without evidence, that schools are “steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation.” In March, who reversed their gendering processes. She criticized the “lengths schools would go to in order to hide this information from parents.”

To many experts, the administration’s scrutiny is out of proportion to the scope of the issue. In the overwhelming majority of cases, schools and students are just navigating preferred names and pronouns, and even those situations are infrequent. Multiple estimate that about 3% of teens are transgender. Far fewer are likely to approach school officials with a request for a name or pronoun change, said Brian Dittmeier, the director of public policy at GLSEN, which advocates for LGBTQ students.

Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors, said it is “rare” for school officials to discuss transitioning with students, and that her group’s members say the only gender plans they’ve completed were done at the request of parents. 

At the same time, most Americans agree that schools should get parents’ permission before changing a child’s pronouns in school records. Polls in and found that roughly three-quarters of adults support mandatory parental notification.

‘This is not real’

Lydia’s story exemplifies that loss of trust in the system.

The artist and former ballerina she thought of as her daughter began identifying as transgender upon entering Academy of the Canyons, a public high school in Santa Clarita, an upscale suburb of Los Angeles. Homeschooled since kindergarten, the teen wanted to pursue art and take advantage of options in their district. The school is located on a college campus where students can attend post-secondary classes while earning their high school diplomas.

“I thought it would be a good opportunity,” Lydia said.

In the fall of 2021, while cleaning the ninth grader’s bedroom, Lydia flipped through some art journals. But instead of schoolwork, she found disturbing sketches of bloody body parts and notes about wanting a chest binder, top surgery and a new name. 

“Shocked and scared” that her child might be suicidal, her thoughts turned immediately to a friend of her son’s who’d recently taken his own life, apparently without warning. 

“No suicide notes. No threats,” she recalled. “The ones that never use it as a weapon are the ones that follow through.”

She began searching for answers online. Initially, she only found sites about supporting a child’s transition  — advice she rejected.

Unlike many parents in her shoes, she’s neither conservative nor religious. In fact, she quipped, an outsider might have assumed she was  “the poster mom for transitioning my kid.”

She described her own parents — a Black father and a Jewish mother — as “hippie artists” who raised her to be a “free thinker” without religion. Lydia’s mother changed her name to Michael in the 1960s because it was easier to make it in the art world with a man’s name. A lifelong Democrat, Lydia voted against a ban on gay marriage when it was on the state ballot in 2008.

But when it came time to have kids of her own, she embraced more conservative values, wanting to “protect their childhood.”

Speaking as a liberal, Lydia said, “I really should have been like ‘Yeah, sure, explore your transgenderism.’” But instead, she did the opposite, taking a hard line against the shift. “I said ‘ I love you, but I’m not affirming you. This is not real.’ ” 

That view belies a that some children can identify differently as young as 3 or 4. Other research shows children can experience due to gender dysphoria — feeling that their sex was misassigned at birth — starting at age 7. 

In attempting to explain what was happening with her child, Lydia turned to a controversial theory of researcher Lisa Littman. In a , the former Brown University scientist described the rise in rapid onset gender dysphoria among  as a “contagion” driven by peer pressure and social media.

“I did what every parent did during the pandemic — let their kid be online way too much,” Lydia said. 

Littman’s research methods from her own university and the broader research community because she based her conclusions largely on reports from self-selecting parents recruited from online forums that were unsupportive, or at least skeptical, of gender transition. They included , which labels itself as “a community of people who question the medicalization of gender-atypical youth.” 

Littman later published an amended of the paper, responding to the controversy and clarifying that the behavior she observed did not amount to a formal diagnosis. Her work, however, continues to drive trans-inclusive policies in school and the views of the Trump administration — and Lydia.

“There is no such thing as a trans child,” Lydia said. 

‘A lot of weight’

It is a debate where the voices of kids directly affected are often absent. J.J. Koechell, a Wisconsin 20-year-old, transitioned in sixth grade after a suicide attempt. He now advocates for other LGBTQ students he says are “entitled to some privacy and consent.”

“They’re trying to figure things out and they don’t want to get it wrong. To disappoint parents is a lot of weight on a struggling youth.”

He watched the school district he attended, Kettle-Moraine, and “safe spaces.” In 2023, as the result of , leaders stopped allowing staff to refer to students by different names and pronouns without parents’ permission. Some staff members over the controversy, including a librarian Koechell trusted. Koechell dropped out and is now finishing high school online.

“My teachers were all I had at school. I didn’t have any friends,” he said. “Coming out was a matter of life and death for me. My identity wasn’t and still isn’t optional.” 

Protecting students like Koechell is the purpose of a new California law — , also known as the “SAFETY Act.” It prohibits schools from requiring staff to disclose a child’s gender identity to their parents. 

In announcing the Department of Education’s investigation of the state, Secretary McMahon said the law “appears to conflict with FERPA.” But GLSEN’s Dittmeier highlighted that the legislation still requires schools to comply with the federal privacy law — and honor parents’ requests for records. 

One department staffer is worried where the investigation could lead. 

“This is irregular, based on our history — to take up an allegation [with] no official complaint, but one that is motivated by an attorney group that is bending the department’s ear about something,” said an employee familiar with the case who asked to speak anonymously to protect his job. He said the administration’s goal is to pressure states and districts into rescinding policies that allow students to decide when to go public with their gender identity. “This will result in districts adopting forced outing and will result in harming children.”

‘Life-altering decisions’

In , the was raging long before the current controversy. 

, police removed state Superintendent Tony Thurmond from a meeting in the Chino Valley Unified School District after a tense exchange with board members over the district’s parental notification policy. He warned the board that their policy could “put our students at risk because they may not be in homes where they can be safe.” The state later against the district as well as others that passed similar measures. 

Continuing its battle with Thurmond, Chino Valley is now the state over the SAFETY Act, saying that minors are “too young to make life-altering decisions” without their parents. 

National data show that of trans and nonbinary students say their home is gender-affirming. found that transgender adolescents assigned female at birth were more likely than other teens to report being psychologically traumatized by parents or other adults in the home. 

“There have been kids whose parents have physically abused them and kicked them out of the house when this information is disclosed,” said Amelia Vance, president of the Public Interest Privacy Center and an expert on student privacy. 

Even before California passed the SAFETY Act, the state education agency and the urged schools to get students’ permission before informing parents about changes in their gender identity.  When officials at Hart Unified High School District refused to meet with Lydia, they cited a that protects trans students’ access to programs, sports and facilities that align with their gender identity. 

On the advice of an advocacy group, Lydia initially filed a public records request in search of a “secret social transition” plan she believed Academy of the Canyons maintained. She also asked for communications between her child and teachers using the “non-birth name.”

The district turned her down.

Contacted by �鶹��Ʒ, Hart Unified spokeswoman Debbie Dunn declined to answer questions about the investigation or Lydia’s experience, but said officials would “continue to follow the laws and procedures applicable to the district.”

In January 2023, Lydia spoke at a school board meeting about being shut out by the district. Her story caught the attention of Board Member Joe Messina, a conservative radio talk show host.

“She came up to the podium one night and she was crying,” he said. “She looked at the superintendent and said, ‘I’ve reached out to you. You’ve not called me back’. She looked to the trustee who handles her area and she said, ‘I’ve left you four messages. You’ve never called me back.’ ”

Messina and Lydia talked after the meeting, and he connected her with the Pacific Justice Institute, a right-leaning law firm.

He noted that the issue transcended their political differences. “Lydia’s a lifelong Democrat, and I’m an outspoken Republican,” Messina said. “For her and I to come together — the rest of the world would say, ‘What’s wrong with you people?’” 

Even with advocates on her side, Lydia continued to face obstacles. For months, the Academy of the Canyons declined to release an autobiographical English essay written by her child under the name Toby.

The district finally turned it over on advice from their lawyers. The essay revealed the child’s trepidation about coming out to Lydia. The piece recounted a moment before the pandemic, when the student, then 11, broached the subject of being queer. Lydia said her child was first exposed to LGBTQ issues while participating in a homeschool theater group. 

“The weather was overcast, and we were driving home from theater rehearsal,” the then-10th grader wrote. “Once again summoning all my courage, I mentioned to her that one of my friends had confided in me about their attraction to girls, and that I too might be queer. Unfortunately, my mom’s immediate response was dismissive and critical.”

As parent-child confrontations often go, Lydia remembers it differently. She said she treated the declaration as a teachable moment.

“We talked about what that word meant,” she said, “and why I felt she had time as she grew up to really know what sexual orientation she would be.”

In a memo, the district’s lawyers also named the elephant in the room — that officials had been withholding the essay out of a desire to shield the child’s shifting gender identity.

“In general, parents have the statutory right to review a student’s classwork/homework,” the memo stated. “This issue becomes clouded … if the classwork could reveal a student’s gender identity/expression.”

Despite refusing to accept that her child was transgender, Lydia said she tried to stay connected. In 2023, they attended over a dozen concerts together, seeing Hozier, Bastille and Penelope Scott — experiences that Lydia called “part of the healing process.” The two went on a long-promised trip to Europe, during which Lydia gave her child an ultimatum: stop identifying as a boy or go back to being homeschooled. That fall, the school agreed to honor Lydia’s wishes to cease social transitioning, but her child still resisted, asking teachers to continue using the name Toby.  

This time, the district let Lydia know. 

Lydia did not make her child available for an interview, saying “she isn’t ready to tell her side of the story.”

Nearly two years later, she says her child, who graduated from high school last week, “wants to put it all behind her.” While the teen identifies as a girl, the changes have been subtle. There are days when she dresses in what her mom called “oversized, ugly boy shirts” and others when she does her makeup and wears more feminine clothes. Recently, she switched back to her birth name on all of her social media accounts.

“I get a little choked up,” Lydia said, “but that’s pretty huge.” 

PROTECT Kids

The story might have ended there, but Lydia’s two-minute plea to the Hart school board, across social media, reached other parent rights advocates just as Trump renewed his campaign for the White House. When the president took office, Hamill, with the California Justice Center, seized the opportunity to file a complaint with an administration guided by , the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the president’s second term.

Requiring schools to notify parents if a student changes their gender identity, which already do, is one of the tenets of the plan. Heritage expert Lindsey Burke, who joined the department Friday, also wants Congress to give FERPA more teeth by allowing parents to sue under the law. Currently, parents can only file a grievance with their state or the Education Department’s privacy office — for years. 

Privacy laws “are a core part of [the administration’s] arguments for how parental rights need to be respected and strengthened,” said Vance, the privacy expert. But the potential for lawsuits under FERPA, she added “would be extremely messy and expensive for schools.” 

In April, the House education committee advanced a bill —  the — that would require elementary and middle schools to secure parental consent before students change their pronouns or preferred names or use different bathrooms or locker rooms. 

The committee debate demonstrated the deep divisions over gender identity and how schools should accommodate LGBTQ students. Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat who is gay, offered a personal story.

“When I came out to my parents, it was at a time, place and manner of my own choosing,” he said. “I would not have wanted anyone else to make that decision for me.”

To Hamill, gender transition is much more than “coming out” because it can lead to physical changes that later regret. Research shows that figure is , a fraction of those who undergo surgery. Even so, she said California’s policies add up to an elaborate “concealment scheme” that pits children against their parents. 

“If you suspect the parents are abusive and they’re going to harm the child, you have to report that to [child protective services],” she said. “But the government cannot by default assume that every parent is harmful and is going to reject and hurt their children.”

“We can’t exit this decade with students, in particular low-income students, performing worse than they were performing when they entered the decade,” said Kevin Huffman, CEO of Accelerate, a nonprofit funding academic recovery efforts. “My biggest fear is just that people will use the Department of Education as a battering ram for other issues and not use it as a force to take on academic outcomes for kids.”

The Republican nominee, declaring this the “golden age of America,” in battleground states, like Georgia and Florida, than he did in 2020. As expected, Republicans flipped the Senate and will hold at least a 52-seat majority, with a few races left to call. Control of the House remains undecided. 

Observers expect Trump to immediately nullify the Biden administration’s Title IX rule that extends protections against discrimination to LGBTQ students. 

Those who campaigned for Trump, and agree with his promises to end in schools, celebrated his comeback.

“American parents voted for their children’s future,” Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the conservative Moms for Liberty advocacy group, . Her name is already among those being tossed around as a possible . She told �鶹��Ʒ that she “would be honored to serve the next president of the United States of America.”

Most clues about Trump’s early priorities come from the conservative Heritage Foundation’s , or Project 2025. In addition to eliminating Title I funding for low-income students and Head Start for preschoolers from poor families, the plan would remove references to LGBTQ people throughout federal policy.

But even if Washington ends up with a GOP trifecta and federal appointees handpicked by Heritage, the president-elect might not be able to deliver on some of his more bold promises to dismantle the education department and of illegal immigrants.

“Some of this rhetoric will be tempered with reality once the administration changes,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. “This is a president that we are very accustomed to. I understand people are nervous; they’re very concerned. But when it comes down to it, there’s also the reality of governing.”

Eliminating the education department, for example, would require 60 votes in the Senate and would likely be unpopular in the House as well, even if Republicans are still in control, said David Cleary, a former Republican Senate education staffer now working for a left-leaning lobbying firm.

“The votes wouldn’t materialize,” he said.

Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, added that “draconian cuts” in spending would also be difficult to pass. That’s why Trump is expected to accomplish some of his conservative agenda through executive orders.

“Let’s assume that there is no grand reawakening to the problems that America faces and people stay in their partisan foxholes,” Cleary said. “Trump will have to take a page out of [President Joe Biden’s] playbook and do a lot by executive action and regulatory plans.”

That would include halting enforcement of Biden’s Title IX rule — which, because of litigation from Republican-led governors, currently applies to only 24 states. Officials would likely restart the process of restoring the 2020 regulation completed under former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, which narrowed the definition of sexual assault and expanded due process rights for the accused.

One LGBTQ advocacy organization called Trump’s victory “an immediate threat.”

“Today, many in our community feel a profound sense of loss and concern for the future,” Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of GLSEN, said in a statement, pointing to Heritage’s Project 2025 as the blueprint for how Trump would roll back policies that allow trans students to play on sports teams or use restrooms that match their gender identity. “With these changes, our young people could face increased discrimination, reduced access to safe spaces and diminished legal recognition.”

Trump, a and, at 78, the oldest candidate ever elected president, is also expected to push for private school choice, perhaps along the lines of the $5,000 that passed a House committee in September. But despite the GOP’s enthusiasm for vouchers and education savings accounts, which allow parents to use public funds for private school tuition and homeschooling expenses, some advocates would like to see greater support for the charter sector.

Petrilli, a self-described “never-Trumper,” said he’s worried about returning to “the political dynamics” of Trump’s first term, which didn’t benefit charter schools.

“Reform-oriented Democrats were sidelined or silenced,” he said. “Given that there are a lot of kids in blue states like California, New York, and Illinois who desperately need high-quality educational options, this would be a terrible development.”

But Rodrigues sees some bright spots in Republicans’ focus on parental rights and school choice. “Those things can be positive when not taken to the extreme,” she said.

She’s encouraged by the prospect of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana becoming chair of the Senate education committee, where he has already highlighted the importance of improving . 

While the National Parents Union has had close interaction with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and the White House, she said leaders have had ongoing “deep conversations” with those on both sides of the aisle.

“Progress will be made for children in any and all conditions, regardless of what happens in the House and the change up in the Senate,” she said. “I think the depth of our relationships are not confined to one particular party.”

The union’s political action committee began the 2024 cycle with $4 million in cash on hand, raised $12 million and has spent $13 million – leaving it with roughly $2 million to dole out before Election Day, according to the latest data from , the non-partisan organization that tracks money in politics.

The vast majority of its spending this election cycle – roughly $9 million – was donated to super PACs supporting Democrats and to local, state and federal candidates and parties. Among the top receivers: $3 million to the Senate Majority PAC, $1.6 to House Majority PAC, $445,000 to the Harris Victory Fund ($300,000 of which was originally donated to the Biden Victory Fund before the president stepped aside), and $420,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  

The AFT is traditionally one of the biggest supporters of Democrats, lending both the power of its PAC’s purse for advertising and mailings, and its strength in numbers for boots-on-the-ground get-out-the-vote operations.

Among the top 20 PACs based on contributions to Democratic candidates, total fundraising, total spent, and total spent in independent expenditures and communication costs, the AFT’s PACs place 8th. It’s donated $1.5 million to democratic congressional candidates, including to 196 House Democrats and 19 Senate Democrats.

“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz believe in the promise of America and will spend their time solving problems, not sowing fear, so every American can partake in that promise,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a . “But it’s not just what we can gain, it’s also what we will lose with Trump and Vance: our democracy, our freedoms, our public schools, our right to have a union, a vote and a voice. Extending the ladder of opportunity or destroying it.” 

“Union members get this,” she said. “And that’s why we will fight every hour of every day for the next fortnight to get out the vote to elect candidates who proudly stand for freedom, democracy and opportunity.”

Earlier this month, the AFT teamed up with the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – the nation’s largest public service unions – in a coordinated, multi-state voter outreach initiative across battleground states.

“This joint action represents a significant escalation of labor’s political engagement, with the unions pooling resources and mobilizing their combined membership of several million workers and includes people of all backgrounds working across the public service – as nurses, child care providers, sanitation workers, first responders, teachers, education support professionals and higher education workers, among others,” the of the effort reads.

Notably, labor unions play an outsized role in many of the election’s most crucial swing states: 21% of votes cast in Michigan in the 2020 presidential election were from union households, representing approximately one-fifth of the electorate, according to the union. The same is true for Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where union households accounted for 18% and 13% of votes cast, respectively.

“If my son was home, then I would be taking care of him,” said the Stanford University student, who’s now working on a doctorate in neuroscience. “These programs really support people as they’re improving their lives.”

She was among the parents and advocates who celebrated in January when the oft-gridlocked House overwhelmingly passed a that includes a new increase for the program — one that experts project would benefit roughly in the first year. But the plan has hit an unexpected wall in the Senate where some Republicans are hoping to kill it.

“The chamber we never thought we would be waiting on is the Senate,” said Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of policy and action for the National Parents Union, one of several organizations ramping up pressure on skeptical Republicans before they return from recess April 8. She’s opposed to lawmakers revising the bill in order to appease opponents. “It will delay aid for families at a time when peanut butter costs $8.”

If the measure doesn’t pass, it could be well over a year before Congress takes up a similar proposal. That’s when they’ll consider renewing the , which doubled the child tax credit to $2,000 and expires at the end of 2025. But advocates say families need “” now as inflation continues to strain household budgets. The proposed child tax credit, which would apply to the families are filing this spring, is not as expansive as one Congress passed in 2021. But experts say it would help bring down , which has jumped since the larger benefit ran out.

“I think this is the best chance we have of passing the tax package this year,” said Elyssa Schmier, a vice president for government relations with , an advocacy group. “We hear from families every day that are struggling to afford child care, medicine for their children, groceries and rent. Any way we can provide them support… in a timely manner, not only benefits moms, families and children, but the local economy as well.”

The 2021 pandemic credit, which allowed families to receive up to $3,600 per child, split into monthly payments, cut child poverty in half, showed. As a parent living “paycheck to paycheck,” Izabel said the monthly payments allowed her to rely less on food pantries. 

But Democrats failed to get Congress to make that level of support permanent.

Senate finance Chair Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, and Rep. Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican who leads the House Ways and Means Committee, struck the current bipartisan . The proposal would gradually increase the refundable limit of $1,600 per child to $2,000 by 2025 and allow parents to get the maximum benefit for each of their children. Right now, the more children in a family, the more parents have to earn to get the full credit. 

For example, a single mother of two earning $15,000 a year receives $1,875 under the existing 2017 rate, but under the Wyden-Smith proposal, would receive $3,600 on her 2023 taxes and $3,750 the following year. 

But Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the ranking Republican on the finance committee, strongly that would allow families to still earn the credit even if they work less. He thinks it turns the program into instead of one that rewards work. Wyden has offered to .

The bill needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and get to a floor vote. But experts say it’s unlikely Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would advance the legislation unless he’s confident it would pass. Republican is among those still in favor of the plan, which also includes tax incentives for businesses. But so far, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seems to be .

“There are easily 10 Republicans who like the bill, but [it’s] unclear if they will vote yes without leadership being on board,” said David Plasterer, a senior associate at Results, an anti-poverty nonprofit. “The hope is that businesses and constituents will be all over Senate Republicans.”

 ‘Economic impact’

Democrats wanted to see relief for families similar to the 2021 expansion. That’s why of Connecticut, who voted against the House bill, called it “a watered-down policy for the sake of making a deal.”

The monthly payment provision, Plasterer said, was especially important to families with school-age children, who used the funds for basic needs like food and rent, but also spent it on child care, afterschool programs and educational materials.

But there’s also an advantage to getting a bigger tax refund — especially when it comes to education, he said. The extra money can go towards buying a car, which can help alleviate some of the transportation challenges that exacerbate chronic absenteeism, particularly in , he said.

Originally from rural Indiana, where he worked with low-income fathers at a social service agency, he said the only time during the year when families had thousands of dollars available was when they received their tax refund.

“Those families are doing repairs to their car, or buying a used car,” he said. “If you don’t have a car, you can’t get to school.”

Polling conducted by the National Parents Union shows among parents from both parties for expanding the tax credit. With the pro-business benefits in the plan, like deductions for research and development, Smith said she doesn’t understand why some Republicans aren’t on board. 

“When you think about the economic impact of the total package,” she said, “it should be a no brainer.”

Delta was causing cases to spike, and the schools where many Head Start programs are housed typically had mask mandates in place. 

But in February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidance to reflect lower transmission rates. Mask rules for young children, the CDC said, should be the same as those for the general population.

Now Coyne, a Head Start director in the Boulder area, is confused. “Head Start feels like the lone place where masks are required,” she said. “For staff, it feels really out of context.”

Members of Congress, including several Democrats, agree.

Earlier this month, the Senate approved that would “disapprove” the rule, essentially wiping it off the books. was introduced last month in the House, but it’s unclear if action will be taken soon. The White House said President Joe Biden won’t sign it. Officials say the mandate — which even requires staff and children to wear masks outside — gives parents “additional confidence” that their children are safe and protects infants and toddlers in Early Head Start programs who can’t wear masks. It’s also necessary, they argue, because a vaccine for young children has yet to be approved.

“Parents of children under 5 are in a really difficult position right now. They don’t have the choice to vaccinate their children, so they are dependent on the adults who care for them to do everything they can to continue protecting them,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat and chair of the education committee, said before the May 3 vote. 

She opposed the resolution, saying it would permanently hamstring the administration’s ability to mandate masks and vaccines in Head Start in the event of a new,dangerous variant or a future pandemic. , in fact, have reinstated mask mandates or are strongly urging students to mask because cases are rising.

Once a vaccine is available for younger children she said it could make sense to revisit the rule, “but we are not there yet.”

Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve their vaccines for younger children. Reviews were scheduled for , but the governors of Colorado and Massachusetts have to act sooner. 

South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune, who sponsored the resolution, suggested that if Biden can on immigration along the southern border, he should do so for young children. 

“The scientific evidence for masking toddlers is shaky at best,” he said on the Senate floor, citing the World Health Organization against masking children under 6 and that masks inhibit language and social skills. Children also face of serious illness from COVID, studies show. 

Researchers, however, have found that masks on preschoolers interfere with their development. 

Meanwhile, half the states don’t have to follow the rule because in two cases blocked it. That leaves the rest of the country in limbo.

“It’s messy, it’s tricky, and that’s why we go back to Head Start roots — locally driven with high standards,” said Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, which represents both families and programs. The rule, he said, is making it hard to hire staff. “The administration knows this is something that needs to change.”

In December, the association asking for waivers from the rule or solutions that “balance safety with local circumstances.”

David White, CEO of WNCSource Community Services, a Head Start grantee serving four North Carolina counties in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, estimates that his centers have lost about 25 of their 220 staff members because of the vaccine mandate. With early-childhood programs already coping with staff shortages, he’s concerned about having enough teachers this fall.

If the vaccine mandate makes it harder to attract and retain staff, and if it “means having closed classrooms because parents don’t like the mask mandate,” he said, “at some point it becomes counterproductive.”

The vote came the day after the Senate passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which now goes to the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she won’t introduce the infrastructure package for a vote until she’s assured all 50 Democrats in the Senate are on board with the rest of the party’s agenda regarding social, immigration and climate policies. But to get there she’ll have to balance competing agendas within her own party.

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“The House will continue to work with the Senate to ensure that our priorities for the people are included in the final infrastructure and reconciliation packages, in a way that is resilient and will build back better,” Pelosi said in Tuesday.

Moderate Democrats, however, her to take action on the infrastructure bill now and not wait until later this fall when committee leaders in the Senate work out the details of the $3.5 trillion bill. Observers say it could be late fall before the plan passes the Senate.

“After years of waiting, we cannot afford unnecessary delays to finally deliver on a physical infrastructure package,” moderates said in a letter. “As we continue to recover from the pandemic, the American people are counting on us to drive real results for them in every single Congressional district.”

Senate Democrats are using a process called reconciliation that allows them to pass the spending package without any Republican votes.

Sen. Krysten Simena of Arizona, who took the lead on negotiating with Republicans over the infrastructure bill, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, another moderate Democrat, have suggested the $3.5 trillion figure is .

But Rick Hess, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he doesn’t think most Democrats will be “treating the fiscal implications of budgetary rules with much seriousness.”

Manchin crossed the aisle in a long vote session last night to approve to the budget resolution that opposes allowing federal funds to support the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools, such as hiring consultants for teacher training. Sponsored by Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton, the legislation would add to several state laws banning educators from teaching that racism is embedded in U.S. systems to advantage white people.

It’s the larger $3.5 trillion package that concerns most education advocates. In to Congress Monday, 17 leading organizations urged lawmakers to include at least $130 billion in the reconciliation bill for school facilities — a concern that was left out of the infrastructure bill.

“The longstanding neglect of school facilities disproportionately impacts low-income school districts and those districts with particularly aging facilities,” the letter said. “These districts often lack a local tax base that can be leveraged for new school construction, major capital improvements, or building renovations and modernizations.”

School nutrition advocates want to see permanent funding for free school meals beyond the 2021-22 school year. Over 400 organizations have signed saying such a policy “eliminates the cost barrier for families who do not qualify [for free or reduced-price meals], but who still struggle to make ends meet.”

It’s unclear, however, whether Democrats can stretch the $3.5 trillion to cover everything they’d like to deliver, including $200 billion for pre-K, $109 billion for two years of free community college and several teacher education and higher education initiatives. The president’s agenda would also extend an increase in the Child Tax Credit for four more years and include paid family leave.

The U.S. Senate passed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill on Tuesday, with 19 Republicans joining 50 Democrats in approving the measure. 

“I want to thank a group of senators, Democrats and Republicans for doing what they told me they would do,” President Joe Biden said. “They said they’re willing to work in a bipartisan manner, and I want to thank them for keeping their word.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the result of a long negotiating process with Republicans, addresses the “clear and present danger” of lead pipes carrying drinking water, reduces transportation costs and increases internet access, Biden said.

“During remote learning during the pandemic last year,” he said, “we saw too many families forced to literally sit in their vehicles in a fast food parking lot so their children can get on the internet they couldn’t afford and didn’t have access to at home.”

The bill — the first phase of Biden’s domestic agenda — now heads to the House, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t expected to introduce it until it’s clear that all Democrats will support the second, and larger, social spending package.

The U.S. Senate is expected to pass a bi-partisan $1.2 trillion on Tuesday that includes funding for electric school buses, eliminating lead pipes in schools and expanding the nation’s access to broadband.

Most of President Joe Biden’s agenda for education and families, however, is included in a separate $3.5 trillion Senate Democrats unveiled Monday, with plans to pass legislation over Republican opposition.

Progressive House members have been threatening for months that they won’t approve one without the other, setting up a potential drawn-out battle this fall if Democrats don’t get everything they want in the larger “American Family Plan.” Republican leaders, meanwhile, have urged Democrats to separate the two packages to ensure that to fix roads and bridges and expand public transportation, among others, make it to the president’s desk. Thus far, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the piecemeal approach, showing a determination to pass as much of the president’s agenda as possible within his first year in office.

“I don’t believe leadership would move one [bill] without being confident the other is locked down,” said Julia Martin, legislative director of Brustein and Manasevit, a Washington-based education law firm.

The strategy, she said, is an effort to ensure the larger social spending bill — which includes universal pre-K, free community college and an extension of the Child Tax Credit — would pass despite reservations from moderates over the cost and objections from more liberal members that it doesn’t go far enough.

With Democrats in control of both houses in Congress, they can pursue a process known as reconciliation, which doesn’t require any Republican votes.

“If you’re doing a one-party bill anyway, there’s a lot of pressure to pass long-standing and more liberal priorities,” Martin said.

Some Democrats, for example, want to see the larger Child Tax Credit, which families began receiving last month, . The one-year increase passed as part of the March relief bill, and Biden’s plan extends it through 2025. House and Senate Democrats are also pushing for , but Biden’s proposal doesn’t go that far. He’s calling for free school meals for all students in the , covering about 70 percent of students in the elementary grades.

The chance Democrats could lose more seats in Congress is another reason they’re pushing to pass both packages. With midterm elections next year, some experts expect Republicans to challenge the majority on issues such as .

Democrats “could very likely lose the House in ‘22, so this is the moment,” said Danny Carlson, associate executive director for policy and advocacy at the National Association for Elementary School Principals.

The $3.5 trillion package includes $726 billion for the Senate education committee, which will write bills for pre-K, expanding access to child care, building and renovating schools, and addressing teacher shortages. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, in a letter Monday, asked the committees to submit their bills by Sept. 15.

He also urged Democrats to “go on the offense” during the upcoming recess “to explain how our budget will lower costs and cut taxes for American families.”

But Republicans argue it will only increase the national debt. In , Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the package “far-left radicalism” and said on the floor Saturday that budget committee Chairman Bernie Sanders’s “socialist shopping list will make every disagreement we’ve had in landing the infrastructure compromise look like a rounding error.”

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released showing the infrastructure bill would increase the federal deficit by $256 billion over the next 10 years. That figure the bill, but is fueling objections to additional spending

McConnell specifically mentioned the administration’s child care proposal, calling it “government meddling … that would privilege certain families’ choices over others.’”

Biden’s plan seeks to lower the cost of child care, while still giving parents options, including centers and family child care providers. But some conservatives argue there’s still too much emphasis on group settings.

Katharine Stevens, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said while she understands that full-time child care is essential for working parents, “it’s not optimal for the majority of children — even harmful for some — during the most crucial period of development.”

The plan would increase pay for providers, which can allow centers to hire better-qualified teachers, but Stevens said ensuring all programs reach high quality is still “a very big if.”

When Congress returns in the fall, the Senate will also have to take up the fiscal year 2022 budget. The House has already passed seven appropriations bills, including nearly $103 billion for the Department of Education, a $29 billion increase over 2021.