Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) reacts to President Trump's proposed cuts to the Department of Education.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm one of the members of Congress here in Palm Beach County, and we have lots of teachers and we have a parent, and we have two of our school board members are here, Edwin Perkinson and Virginia Sariato.
00:14We have one of our retired teachers here who you'll meet.
00:19Supervisor.
00:20Supervisor.
00:21You'll introduce yourself, you'll tell them what to do, Mark Jacoby, and a lot of, and we have a mom who you'll hear from too.
00:29Thank you everyone for being with us.
00:31Look, we're here today, here, we're in front of one of the best schools, well, all our schools are the best schools, right, in the county.
00:39And because last week, the President and President Trump signed an executive order dismantling the Department of Education, and this is a very, can be a very devastating blow to public schools all over the country, because it strips from our schools vital resources from the public schools and also financial assistance for the kids who are going to graduate from schools like this.
01:06So, here in Palm Beach County, 96% of our children, that's about 190,000 children attend our local public schools, and I think most of us here would agree that public schools are the backbone of our community because it gives an equal access to all our children, the opportunities they need to be successful later in their life.
01:30Gutting this department, gutting the Department of Education is going to cause an overflow in the classrooms, in other words, force teacher layoffs, it's going to increase class sizes, reduce support for students with disabilities, and also put college out of reach for many of our graduating seniors.
01:55It's amazing the numbers. We have about 60,000 students in our two public colleges here, and more than half of them are on financial assistance. So, it's going to come at these kids in lots of directions. And I'm going to bring up Mr. Ferguson, one of our school board members, to tell us some more.
02:17Good morning, everyone. First, I want to thank Congressman Lois Frankel for putting together this press conference today to discuss a very important issue, which is the potential deconstruction of the Department of Education.
02:29As she stated, I'm a school board member here in Palm Beach County since 2022. I represent an area of Palm Beach County that has a very diverse class of people.
02:39We have very rich people, people who are not so well off. So, I want to speak to two particular issues that I'm concerned about in regard to any modifications to the Department of Education.
02:49That is funding for Title I schools and also funding for ESE students. So, what is Title I? Title I is money that we have allocated to the thousands of school districts throughout this nation for children who come from families of low income, who don't have all the resources that they need to be their optimum selves.
03:08And so, I'm very concerned that if we don't tread lightly in any modifications to the Department of Education, we'll see substantial encumbrances created for the lives of these children that were not there before.
03:20And those can have very long reverberating effects moving into the future.
03:25And then secondly, ESE students. So, those are students in general who have special needs. They could be autistic. Elon Musk is autistic. They could be children who suffer with Down syndrome or many other physical issues that currently the DOE sends millions of dollars to not just the Palm Beach County School District, but to all the other thousands of school districts here in the country to help make those children's educational experience optimal.
03:51So, again, I won't be long here, but it's very important that the federal government tread extremely lightly before it makes any additional changes to the Department of Education, which, by the way, can really only be done by congressional action.
04:05So, I appreciate that we have this executive order, but ultimately, the decision of whether DOE exists or does not exist will fall to great congresspeople like Congressperson Franklin. So, thank you for your time. Please stay engaged.
04:25Okay. Thank you so much.
04:26Virginia, do you want to say a few words?
04:28Sure.
04:29Come on.
04:30Introduce yourself.
04:31Good morning. Buenos dias. I'm Virginia Saviero, school board member for District 2. I don't want to repeat what Board Member Ferguson said, but all of my schools are Title I schools.
04:44And I was an immigrant that came from Argentina when I was 13, and thankfully to all of the partnerships and the programs that we had, I was able to thrive, you know, 30-something years later. Here I am as an elected official, and our kids need it.
05:00We need the Department of Education, and stand behind it. Thank you, Congresswoman Franco, for having this conversation.
05:08And nuestra comunidad sà necesita el Departamento de Educación. Thank you. Good morning. Buenos dias.
05:14Thank you very much. We have a mom here with us, Victoria Ward. Where are you? Oh, there you are. Okay. You took off your sunglasses.
05:22Yes. Okay.
05:24Hi. My daughter is five years old, and she goes to a Palm Beach County public school. She has an IEP. She was diagnosed with ADHD and separation anxiety, and the school was able to give her mental health care as well as speech therapy and behavior therapy.
05:43Without the funding, they won't be able to give her those therapies anymore, and I'll have a great detriment to her growing up and staying focused and staying on topic with her classmates.
05:54We really, really need this to stay put. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mark?
06:00Hi. Mark Jacobi, retired New York City supervisor and formerly a special ed teacher, and the cuts that DOE are contemplating are detrimental to the most impoverished of our communities.
06:14Federal laws in 1970, all children should be educated in the least restrictive environment. It was renamed in 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Act, which the Department of Ed chairperson didn't even know what the acronym stood for.
06:31In any event, all the therapies, the supportive services for these children would not be available without the public funding, let alone class size, teacher layoffs, and from a personal experience, pre-1975, my sister, who was born with a disability, had to go to a different school because it was up to the building administrators to let her in and not make any provision.
06:55It wasn't until 1975 that she was able to attend the same public high school that I attended. We don't want to go back, and these children, the Title I neighborhoods, the most impoverished and the most needy, are going to be left behind.
07:09And vouchers and private schools, those people, those children will flourish, and our children will not. So dismantling the DOE is going to be a terrible detriment. I mean, federal funding is for everybody. What happens to the states with the people? We don't care.
07:26Well, we do care. If it's up to one state assemblyman or one governor that says, I don't believe in public education, then those schools will suffer. It's a federal issue, and we must stand together. Thank you.
07:40Thank you very much. I'm going to sort of bring this whole circle here, because I think it's very important to understand. We are all in this together. These 190,000 children in our public schools, they're going to grow up in our community together, whether they're rich, poor, whatever color or language their parents speak.
07:58They're growing up together. And the reason that we've had public schools to give equal access is to make sure every child has the opportunity to get educated and then participate fully as adults in our society. So this is not theoretical. The President has dismantled the Department of Education. It is up to the Congress, but he did it.
08:25And what is threatened right now is hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for Palm Beach County, both in terms of the programs you just heard about, as well as financial assistance for our college students. So I want to thank you all here. And people said, well, you know, why is this being done?
08:48This is being done for tax cuts. They are reducing funding for tax cuts for very, very wealthy donors. That's what the billionaire donors, that's what this is about. And I want to thank you all for being here. Everybody needs to push back. Any questions?
09:06Oh, well, we're going to ask the reporters.
09:36Well, whether it's a constitutional issue, I will tell you this. It's illegal what he did to unilaterally dismantle the Department of Education. But it has been done. The employees that are necessary to run it are not there. And actually, what's almost, which is just as bad is the funding is not going to be there.
10:01And that's how we're going to really feel here without funding. Some money is going to go back to states, as you said, but you look at the state of Florida, that money will most likely go to private school vouchers. That's probably what will happen in this state.
10:18Is it your concern? Do you have, have you had any feedback from anyone in Tallahassee about plans to augment the state government in a way so that some of the duties that the federal government undertook will be undertaken in Tallahassee? Do you have any sense of whether or not the money that the U.S. Department of Education will drop through Tallahassee for local school districts, is that money going to be coming via block grant or is it just going to be cut off? Or do you know?
10:48Well, I haven't talked to anyone. I mean, history is our lesson, what's happened here in the state of Florida. First of all, I can tell you this, we're not going to get the amount of funding that we're getting now, which is about $320 million.
11:03This is one of the largest school districts in the country. 190,000 children, there's a lot of children to take care of. But we know just by the actions of the state legislature, their move has been to defund public schools and shift money to private school vouchers.
11:21Incidentally, just so that you know, in this county, most children go to the public schools, maybe 13% of our kids don't actually even go to a private school. So it is really cheating our kids, the billionaire donors, to take that money and send it away. Anybody else?
11:41Well, we do have local control and the state really is in charge of most of the funding. The school board, which incidentally does a very great job, we're very, very lucky here, or blessed, I should say, in Palm Beach County.
11:59There is local control, but what we have found over the years that if you look at the country as a whole, and in so many areas of this country, they don't have resources like we have. They don't have great school boards like we have, especially in a lot of the rural areas.
12:19And so there's always been a thought that a certain amount of resource must, and direction, must come from the federal government. And that includes making sure that under-resourced children get full education, that children who have disabilities with their learning, that they get a full education.
12:42And this county has used the money very creatively also for mental health treatment, things like that. Anybody else? Pardon me? Okay. All right. Well, okay. In terms of the Congress, you know, Democrats will be fighting this when the budget comes up.
13:04There will be a bill to dismantle, to do legally what the President's done illegally. I think it will have a very hard time passing that because I believe the Democrats, especially in the Senate where they need 60 votes, will not go along with that.
13:22But really, the pushback has to come from the parents and the people. That's why you see some folks here today. And people who are listening here, look, if you like it or you don't like it, let your lawmakers know.
13:37Have you all given any thought to seeking an injunction to the courts? If it's your view that the President should go to a lawyer, why not go to the courts and seek relief?
13:49Well, I wish we could sue, but the Congress is not allowed to sue the federal government. However, there will be, I expect there are lawsuits that will be underway. Anybody else?
14:03A question on a different topic. Vanessa asked a comment about the new federal bill about Trump's experience being in person.
14:11All right. Well, this is something that is very bipartisan, I'm happy to say, which is our county, by the end of this year, will have, between the police and the fire department in the county, Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, we will have spent almost $45 million protecting the President.
14:33I know all our law enforcement are proud to do that. They are very able to work with the Secret Service. But the fact of the matter is, this should be shared by the taxpayers of the country, not by just the taxpayers here, because it is a big, $45 million is a big diversion of our funding.
14:55And so, myself and Tom Keene, who is a member in New Jersey, where the President spends his summer, we have filed a bill and we will be seeking appropriations to get that $45 million here back to the county and going forward to make sure that we're reimbursed. Because really, this is, the funding should be the responsibility of the federal government.
15:20Yeah, you wanted to ask that same thing.
15:33I'm sorry, say that again.
15:34Do you have any concerns with the Department of Education establishing those funds, though? Do you have any concerns with the Department of Education and its job to understand what's going on?
16:05There are so many things that go into getting the child ready to perform well. That's what we should be looking at, not just some test scores. We've got to figure out what has caused that. Really, what for the Department of Education, you wouldn't see literally millions of children left behind in this country, no question about it.
16:27You're welcome. Anybody else? All right, we did, okay, I'll answer your questions separately, okay. All right.