White House backs down, releases $1 billion for California schools

SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — California Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond and the California Department of Education announced that the state received confirmation that it is getting the entirety of the nearly $1 billion in previously withheld federal education funds for the upcoming school year.

The Trump administration had been withholding funding allocations to 24 states across the nation including California. 

“California schools have been waiting for these resources to serve students, and now nearly $1 billion of illegally impounded federal education funds will finally reach our classrooms,” Thurmond said. “The Trump administration’s delay created unacceptable uncertainty for our schools and harmed many of our most vulnerable students. However, we are moving swiftly to ensure these funds support students, educators, and school communities without further interruption.” 

Thurmond says his office will move quickly to distribute the funds to districts across the state.

San Diego Unified had been waiting for about $13 million earmarked for after-school programs, adult education, English learners and other needs.

According to Thurmond, the released funds mean “California has been awarded the full allocation of federal education funding for the 2025-26 school year, funds critical for sustaining and expanding educational opportunities, especially for English learners, migrant students, adult learners, and those relying on community learning centers.”

The CDE says it will continue working with California’s congressional delegation to ensure that future federal funding is secured in the fiscal year 2026 budget.

Richard Barrera, vice president of the San Diego Unified School District had said the Trump administration was withholding the money as a way to coerce school districts into discriminating against certain segments of the population.

“Their priorities are about picking on immigrant students, picking on LBGTQ students, everybody they don’t like that they want to bully, they want to threaten states and school districts by saying if you don’t discriminate some of your students then we’re going to hold up money for all your students.”

California and 23 other states, including several red states such as Arizona and Kentucky that supported Trump in the last presidential campaign, had filed a lawsuit to get the White House to release $6 billion of already allocated school funding.