After weeks of the Department of Education (ED) funds being frozen and some back-and-forth on specific title programs, the Trump administration has decided today to release all of the funds, according to the Associated Press.
The freeze took effect on July 1, and since then, there has been controversy and confusion surrounding that decision.
These are the programs AccessWDUN previously reported were frozen:
Unfrozen effective July 25, 2025:
Title I-C: Migrant education ($375-million)
Title II-A: Professional development ($2.2-billion)
Title III-A: English Learner Services ($890-million)
Title IV-A: Academic enrichment ($1.3-billion)
Unfrozen effective July 18, 2025:
Title IV-B: Before and after-school programs ($1.4-billion)
Before the news came out, AccessWDUN spoke to Gainesville City School and Hall County School officials about the different title programs and what would have happened if the funding had remained frozen.
“As of right now, it’s business as usual as we wait on the decision of the federal funds,” HCSD Director of Federal Programs Brittany Bennett said. “If we don’t receive it … it would reduce the access to professional learning for teachers … it would limit the endorsement opportunities for dyslexia, ESOL, gifted, reading, and instructional coaching … it would also limit some of the students having opportunities for the supplemental tutoring and the summer learning programs.”
All told, Hall County Schools would have had roughly $2.8-million frozen, but the majority of the funds were released according to HCSD Director of Title I Services Heather Barrett.
Title I-C is for migrant education. Bennett said that under that program, they have student service providers (SSPs) go into schools to provide tutoring to students and provide extra support for potential interruptions in schooling that may have been lost due to traveling. This program can be for students who live in or do not live in the United States.
Title II-A is for professional development, and Bennett said it focuses on improving teacher quality.
Through that title program, teachers were able to get subs so they could spend time diving into student data, provide books, and contract services. That program also funded dyslexia, gifted, instructional coach, and reading endorsements for HCSD.
Title III-A is for English learner services.
Gainesville City Schools Director of School Improvement and Student Support, Shea Ray, discussed how much the school system receives and what they would have done without the funding.
“In fiscal year 25, we received $306,845 as a school system for Title III A, and we distributed that to all 10 schools,” Ray said.
Without the funding, GCSS would still provide ELS to its 2,472 English learners.
“We will still provide services,” Ray said. “There's no doubt about it, because we do serve such a large English learner population, we will still provide services.”
Ray added that they may have had to scale back in certain areas if the funding remained frozen.
“We may have to scale back in some areas in terms of, you know, supplies or something that we might typically buy,” Ray said. “Or one of the things that we often use federal funds for is what we call paraprofessionals, and so they are extra staff members who can go into classrooms and help with small group instruction.”
HCSD said they have 7,002 English learner students in the district, which makes up about 26% of the student population. Bennett said they would have continued receiving that funding due to ESOL being a primarily state-funded program, but that Title III-A, for their purposes, was supplemental.
“Anything that we notice that the students may need more support, like with our immigrant populations, our newcomer population, we were able to create a newcomer academy,” Bennett.
Title IV-A is for academic enrichment. Specifically, HCSD uses the funding to employ two-and-a-half college and career coordinators. They meet with students one-on-one and help with the transition to college and career pathways.
Title IV-B is for before and after-school programs. It was the first to be released from the freeze and primarily impacted the Boys and Girls Clubs of Lanier’s tutoring programs.
Title I-A was never frozen by the administration, but it may be one of the most critical programs for low-income and disenfranchised students. HCSD receives $6.7-million in Title I-A funding, which is a formula-based grant based on poverty across the entire district.
There are currently 21 Title I schools in Hall County.
Barrett said that free and reduced lunch forms play a determining factor in the funding, so it’s important that everyone eligible fills one out.
“We do everything, we have the forms in different languages, we have the form online … we have different staff members in the school that help, even to call parents,” Barrett said.
Before learning that the funding had been released, Bennett said there were a lot of “unknowns.”
Now, the funding has been released for this school year as of the writing of this article. Whether it will remain the same for this school year or future school years is to be seen.
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities” that instructed ED head Linda McMahon to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the department and “return authority over education to the States and local communities.”
The status of the department that was created in 1979 remains in flux as we head into the 2025-2026 academic year.
“I’m grateful to the U.S. Department of Education for making the decision to release remaining federal education funds. This is welcome news for Georgia’s students, families, and educators as we begin a new school year,” Georgia Superintendent Richard Woods said.
