The U.S. Department of Education has canceled an estimated $168 million of ongoing, multi-year funding for community schools, saying the grants “did not align with the Administration’s priorities.”
Now, East St. Louis students and their families stand to lose a wide range of support services, including food aid to after-school care.
Community schools, such as Avant and Officer Elementary in East St. Louis, partner with local organizations to provide programs and resources designed to meet the community’s specific needs. In 2024, Avant and Officer were awarded five-year federal Full-Service Community Schools Program Grants to meet this goal, each receiving $500,000 annually.
But the majority of that money is now in jeopardy. Earlier this month, the Department of Education announced it is canceling grants for 32 Illinois schools, including Avant and Officer, starting Dec. 31
“Our community schools are not an extra, they really are becoming a beating heart of those communities,” East St. Louis School District 189 spokesperson Sydney Stigge-Kaufman said. “It’s helped us build a trusting relationship with families and help meet them where they are.”
ACT Now, a Chicago-based nonprofit supporting quality after-school programs, disperses the federal grants to the affected Illinois schools. The organization estimates that discontinuing the grants will affect 19,000 children across the state and put about 600 jobs at risk, according to a news release.
The Department of Education’s decision is in line with President Donald Trump’s administrative priorities, said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann.
“The Trump Administration is no longer allowing taxpayer dollars to go out the door on autopilot – we are evaluating every federal grant to ensure they are in line with the Administration’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education,” Biedermann said in an emailed statement. “The Department non-continued grants that do not align with the Administration’s priorities. Many of these use overt race preferences or perpetuate divisive concepts and stereotypes, which no student should be exposed to. The non-continued grant funds are not being cut; they are being re-invested immediately into high quality programs that better serve special needs students.”
When asked, the department did not specify where it is re-directing the community school funds.
The announcement came just as District 189 was starting to see results from its efforts, said Stigge-Kaufman.
Parents have obtained higher-paying jobs through record expungement workshops; students have shown progress with the help of additional math and reading tutoring during the school day; and community closets make sure no one goes without a coat or clean clothes.
Those are just a few examples of how the district is using the funds, Stigge-Kaufman said.
Daytime tutoring has been especially crucial for the 65 new students Officer welcomed in October and November. These students are adjusting to a new curriculum and expectations—and, for many who were homeschooled, it is their first time in a structured school environment, Stigge-Kaufman said.
“The structures that we already had in place through community schools programming were going to be critical for those new students who just arrived,” Stigge-Kaufman said.
Additional academic support is offered through Avant and Officer’s after-school programs. With other funding sources exhausted, most after-school programs in East St. Louis schools have closed. The only two remaining are at Avant and Officer because of the community school grants.
After-school programs are a “safe haven,” the district’s director of pupil services, Lori Chalmers, and Stigge-Kaufman previously told the Belleville News-Democrat. They are more than a safe place for students at the end of the school day—they reduce screen time and support in-person socialization, allow families to continue working and more.
As part of its mission, the district partners with Go! International for enrichment in its after-school programs, Stigge-Kaufman said. So far, students have learned foreign languages and Jiu Jitsu.
Avant students and families can access their own food pantry through a St. Louis Area Food Bank partnership. Officer also distributes food staples to its families and had planned to start a pantry this year, complete with a refrigerator for meats—one of many expansion plans that may now be thwarted, Stigge-Kaufman said.
There is one data point Stigge-Kaufman said illustrates the effectiveness of the community school model in East St. Louis: Between this past spring and fall, Officer Elementary saw a 30 percent decrease in chronic absenteeism.
“All of these supports are increasing access and decreasing the barriers for students to come to school,” she said. “This is evidence that this is working.”
What happens to ESTL community schools now?
ACT Now has appealed the Department of Education’s decision, according to a news release. The organization was told the department hopes to share its decision by Dec. 31, said Emma Giamberdino, ACT Now’s deputy director of policy, communications and external affairs.
In the meantime, ACT Now is reaching out to elected officials to advocate for a reversal. East St. Louis District 189 is encouraging the metro-east community to join in, hoping to secure stopgap funding—or, ideally, a full continuation of grants.
“Our students, families and staff deserve the stability that this funding is able to provide,” Stigge-Kaufman said. “We’re not giving up.”
ACT Now is also calling on the state to step in during the pending federal appeal by providing contingency or emergency funds to community schools. This could keep the programs going through the end of the year, ACT Now said.
District 189 is exploring ways to cover the cost of continuing the programs without federal funding in the short term, but Stigge-Kaufman said it is unclear how long that will be sustainable.
“It’s much bigger than politics,” Giamberdino said. “We are talking about people losing their jobs, people not being able to receive food and lifeline services.”
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Madison Lammert is a reporter for the BND, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
