On March 20. 2025 President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Education Department. Signing this executive order will affect many people especially when it comes to money, but how will this affect MCHS?

What happens when the executive order is signed to dismantle the Education Department is that funds for the special education students are being cut from school. This will cause schools to not have funding for special services for students.

“School districts operate mostly off of funds that are generated locally, but we do receive support from the federal government,” says the Director of Special Education, Peter Schmidtknecht.

Since MCHS receives support from the federal government, this causes special education students to not be as supported.

“We may no longer receive certain things that we’re able to get money back for things like providing separate transportation or having certain services like speech and language or occupational therapy or physical therapy,” says Schmidtknecht.

Since they may no longer be able to receive money from certain things they provide here they may no longer be able to provide these for students who need them.

“We’ll have to look at whether or not we can offer those same supports at the same level, but as far as students and teachers, we’ll continue to do everything we can to support them,” says Schmidtknecht, “And part of the challenge for us is navigating a lot of unknown.”

The dismantling of the Department of Education doesn’t just affect students who have disabilities, it could also affect students who need loans or who are gonna be needing loans. Loans aren’t going to be going away for students, but students won’t be able to use FAFSA anymore and students will have to use the Small Business Administration, but this shouldn’t make students or parents worried.

“The administration has stated that student loans will still be available where they are housed,” says Curtis Menke.

Since Trump has signed the executive order to dismantle the Education Department many students are being affected by this. Students who are in special education and who receive special treatment might not be able to receive them anymore because it won’t be funded. The schools will have to fund them all by themselves and that might be difficult for many schools like MCHS who depend on that fund so they can do everything they can for the special education students. Students who are also needing loans won’t be affected personally, but they might be able to go through FAFSA anymore and it will be switched to the Small Business Administration.