"Public Statement from Mrs g: DOE Layoffs – expose, resist, protect.
Public Response Statement on Department of Education Layoffs
This past week, we watched a cruel unraveling unfold—a flatline between what we hoped for and what we hold as truth. The layoffs within the Department of Education aren’t just numbers—they are broken promises, the loss of our most sacred hopes. These cuts are not just fiscal moves; they are choices made, erasing years of growth. They are deliberate strikes against the very heart of our communities, leaving behind echoes of those who sacrificed to fight inequity.
As a Latina educator and Title 1 activist, my heart burns with grief, but my fire will not dim. These aren’t just budget cuts. No, they are wounds, wounds that strike deep into the souls of the children who need us most. Communities of color, the underrepresented—the ones who bear the weight of this fight, the ones whose futures are now threatened by this violence masked as policy. These children—our children—can’t afford to fall through the cracks in a system that was never designed to serve them.
After Tuesday’s layoffs, the Education Department's staff will sit at roughly half of its previous 4,100, a dramatic downsizing directed by Trump as he moves to reduce the footprint of the federal government. These aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet. These are the workers who’ve been on the front lines of educational equity, the same workers who’ve stood firm, unwavering at the gates, ensuring that all children have access to opportunity. Now, the weight of their sacrifices is discarded, as the fight for equity is gutted in the name of “reduced government.” Proper fund allocations could be dismantled, drying up financial pathways to the kids and staff who serve them...to the ones who need it most.
Brittany Coleman, a lawyer with the Office for Civil Rights in Dallas who was laid off this week, said it best— with fewer staff members, students with disabilities fighting for accommodations for test-taking, for the basic rights to equity and access, will have to wait longer for help from the department. And that help, it may come too late (NBC News). It may come after the damage is done, after those students have been left behind, once again.
The very foundation of the Department of Education is being torn apart, handed over to a machine, blind to the devastation it causes. This is not just a financial decision. This is a civil rights violation. This is an unraveling of everything we fought for—all the sweat, struggle, and resistance now hangs in great balance. This is not just a budgetary debate; this is a war on the future of education as liberation.
Children with special needs, low-income students, and those in underserved communities will be hit the hardest by these layoffs and budget reallocations/cuts. They will bear the weight of decisions made in rooms far removed from their lives. These are the children whose voices are the quietest, but their struggles will echo in our hearts for generations.
If I could look into the eyes of John Lewis, I’d say—Don’t worry, Congressman, we gonna stay in good trouble. If I could get on the phone with Dolores Huerta, I’d ask her to say it back to me… because si, se puede. And when I look into the eyes of my students, I see their struggles reflected in mine. I see their faces—full of hope, full of fear, and I know I can’t stop now.
These DOE employees, the ones who stood at the gates, ensuring that equity would be the law, not the exception—now, they too have felt the blows of inequity. Their livelihood, their families, their lives are under siege. They are human, too. They, too, have bills, and mouths to feed, and families to protect. How is this okay? How can we justify leaving them out in the cold, when they gave their hearts to the work?
This is not just about budgets—it’s about people. It’s about the families, the lives that are now the mercy of a governance that has a different agenda. These layoffs, these cuts—they hurt, they break, they wound. But we will not let them define us. We will not let this administration’s cruelty erase the fight for equity.
Every revolution begins on the heels of resistance-on of my signature lines. And though the road is long, and the night is dark, we will rise. We will keep pushing. We will keep fighting. We will stand in the gap, side by side, until every child, every teacher, every worker is heard and seen. Our voices will not be silenced, our struggle will not be in vain. Together, we will reclaim what is ours. Together, we will rise.
You have my word on this!
In Solidarity,
Mrs. G.
#SaveOurSchools #EducationIsACivilRight #RiseForEquity