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People protest President Donald Trump's plans to dismantle the Department of Education outside the agency in Washington, on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. The Education Department announced on Tuesday that it was firing more than 1,300 workers, effectively gutting the agency that manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools. Eric Lee/The New York Times
CNN —
The Education Department’s civil rights office has been among the hardest hit by layoffs, with the Trump administration shuttering seven of its 12 regional offices and laying off nearly half of its staff.
One current employee said the moves amount to a “soft closing” of the office. “This will completely halt the vast majority of cases that we can take in, evaluate and investigate,” said the employee, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution.
The Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, aims to protect students by holding schools and colleges that receive federal funds accountable for combating antisemitism, islamophobia, racism and discrimination against students with disabilities.
About 1,300 employees at the Department of Education were informed that they were being laid off Tuesday. The civil rights office lost the largest proportion of employees of all the programs affected – losing 243 of 557 workers, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Ed Reform Now.
The regional offices in New York, Cleveland, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas and Chicago were closed, with their entire staffs laid off, multiple sources at the department told CNN.
The expectation, employees said, is that the civil rights cases being handled by these offices will be redistributed to the regional offices that remain open in Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Kansas City and Washington, DC.
Education Department cutting nearly half of workforce
Another current OCR employee told CNN they’re concerned about the office’s ability to manage its caseload with the massive reduction in staff.
“There was already a case backlog, and now these cases will simply fall to the wayside,” the employee told CNN. “This work cannot be done without staff. The messaging that this will increase efficiency and that OCR will continue to be able to fulfill its statutorily-mandated mission is a lie – students will suffer harm from this that, for many, will have repercussions for the rest of their lives.”
“To better serve American students and families, changes are being made as to how OCR will conduct its operations,” Madi Biedermann, the department’s deputy assistant secretary for communications, told CNN. “OCR’s staff is composed of top-performing personnel with years of experience enforcing federal civil rights laws. We are confident that the dedicated staff of OCR will deliver on its statutory responsibilities.”
Current OCR employees also expressed worry about which civil rights investigations will be deprioritized, as the Trump administration has made combating what it considers anti-Israel and antisemitic movements on college campuses a priority.
On Monday, OCR sent letters to 60 colleges and universities it says are under investigation for alleged violations “relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination,” warning institutions of possible consequences if they don’t take adequate steps to protect Jewish students.
“The political appointees at OCR seem more concerned with politically-motivated directed investigations that rile up their base and that they can investigate through headlines rather than with complaints filed by everyday folks – regular taxpayers – who believe their civil rights have been violated and need help,” a current OCR employee told CNN.
On March 7, OCR acting assistant secretary Craig Trainor sent out a memo to staff, saying the office must act on the backlog of antisemitism complaints, pointing a finger at the prior administration for failing to adequately respond to these cases.
While the memo, reviewed by CNN, says that it should not be interpreted as “deprioritizing” other cases, employees point out an inherent contradiction in their new directives.
“With a skeleton crew staff and direction to act on one category of cases, the others are necessarily de-prioritized,” a current employee said, noting that cases involving race and disability, for example, would be deprioritized.
This story has been updated with comment from the Department of Education.
IUSD OPEN DESPITE
MEMBERS HEALTH CONCERNS
Although IUSD decided to remain open ITA leadership did express our profound disappoint with the decision and forwarded the many concerns you raised to Dr. James Morris County Administrator for Inglewood Unified. Keep voicing your concerns, and most importantly prioritize the safety of yourselves, students, and colleagues.
In Solidarity,
fires.docxLETTER OF INTENT
DECEMBER 2024
The Senate passed legislation early Saturday to boost Social Security payments for nearly 3 million people who receive pensions from work in federal, state and local government, or public service jobs like teachers, firefighters and police officers. Photo illustration by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Senate passes Social Security benefits boost for many retired public service workers
Senate passes Social Security benefits boost for many retired public service workers
By — Stephen Groves, Associated Press
Politics Dec 21, 2024 1:57 PM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed legislation early Saturday to boost Social Security payments for millions of people, pushing a longtime priority for former public employees through Congress in one of its last acts for the year.
The bipartisan bill, which next heads to President Joe Biden, will eliminate longtime reductions to Social Security benefits for nearly 3 million people who receive pensions from work in federal, state and local government, or public service jobs like teachers, firefighters and police officers. Advocates say the Social Security Fairness Act rights a decades-old disparity, though it will also put further strain on Social Security Trust Funds.
WATCH: A look at the Social Security funding gap and ways to fix it
The legislation has been decades in the making but the push to pass it came together in the final weeks — and was completed in the final minutes — that lawmakers were in Washington before Congress resets next year. All Senate Democrats, as well as 27 Republicans, voted for the bill, giving it a final tally of 76-20.
"Millions of retired teachers and firefighters and letter carriers and state and local workers have waited decades for this moment. No longer will public retirees see their hard-earned Social Security benefits robbed from them," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
The bill repeals two provisions — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that limit Social Security benefits for certain recipients if they receive retirement payments from other sources such as the public retirement program for a state or local government.
"Social Security is a bedrock of our middle class. It's retirement security that Americans pay into and earn over a lifetime," said Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who has pushed for the proposal for years and will leave Congress after losing reelection.
He added that the current restrictions make "no sense. These workers serve the public. They protect our communities. They teach our kids. They pay into Social Security just like everyone else."
People who currently have reductions in their Social Security benefits under the exceptions would soon see a boost in their monthly payments. But those increased payments would also add an estimated $195 billion to federal deficits over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Social Security Trust Funds were already estimated to be unable to pay out full benefits beginning in 2035, and the change will hasten the program's insolvency date by about half a year. A typical dual-income couple retiring in 2033 would see an additional $25,000 lifetime reduction in their benefits, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Many of the bill's opponents acknowledged that the current reductions are not fair to public service retirees, but said they could not support the bill when the entire program faces challenges.
"We caved to the pressure of the moment instead of doing this on a sustainable basis," said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who opposed the bill.
The policy changes will also heap more work on the Social Security Administration when the agency is already at its lowest staffing level in 50 years. The agency currently has a staff of about 56,400 — the lowest level since 1972, according to an agency spokesperson — even as it serves more people than ever. The stopgap government funding bill that also passed early Saturday did not include increased funding for the agency, which is currently in a hiring freeze.
Still, Republican supporters of the bill said there was a rare opportunity to address what they described as an unfair section of federal law that hurts public service retirees.
"They have earned these benefits. This is an unfair, inequitable penalty," said Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.
GOP supporters of the bill also said they would return to work on larger fixes to Social Security. President-elect Donald Trump, however, has said he will not touch the benefits, even as his administration looks to make deep budget cuts elsewhere.
Senate Republicans are nonetheless working on ideas that would put the program on better financial footing, but also inevitably require a scale-back in benefits. One fiscal hawk, Sen. Rand Paul, pushed Friday for a proposal to gradually raise the Social Security retirement age to 70, although a vote to add that provision to the bill only received three votes in favor of it.
"There's so much riding on us getting this right and having the courage to fix Social Security over the next few years," Tillis said. "We will rue the day that we failed to do it."
October 2024
October 2024
10/23/2024 - Message from ITA President regarding Retro-Checks:
Per Payroll, The 2% raise was included on the salary scale starting in August. The 2% check issued on 10/23/24 is for only staff that worked in the month of July because they did not adjust the pay. Not everyone worked in July that's why everyone didn't receive a check. I hope this clarifies the situation and apologize for any misunderstandings or confusion.
10/18/2024- Statewide Conferance Grants
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