In the past few months, the Trump Administration has made efforts to cut billions of dollars in federal funding from crucial school programs in the United States. These budget cuts are rooted in bigotry and unfairly target minorities. An estimated $811 million was withheld from California alone, and approximately $6.2 billion was kept from schools across the country. This money was intended to go to critical services like English language learners, education for migrant students, and after-school programs, as well as efforts to hire more qualified teachers. Taking away this vital funding would be incredibly harmful to schools across the country, but especially to large and diverse schools like Berkeley High School. BHS has a wide range of student needs, and the proposed budget cuts would take away support programs designed to help meet those needs.
After the Trump Administration announced they would be withholding the federal funding from schools, despite Congress having already approved a budget for 2025, California, along with 23 other states, sued the Trump Administration. Following the lawsuit, the Administration partially relented, agreeing to release the funding set aside for after-school programs. This was an important victory, as many working parents rely on after-school programs. However, the Administration still refused to release funding for other important causes, like programs to help migrant students.
The Trump Administration’s crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives is well known by now, and the proposed budget cuts seem to be a continuation of these bigoted policies. Budget cuts as extreme as these would gut programs put in place to help the students who need it most. Many of these students are part of minority groups, like students of color, students with disabilities, and students from lower-income families. Federal grant money is crucial to maintaining protections for minority students, especially those with disabilities. At BHS, which has an incredibly diverse student body, protections and services for minority students are incredibly important, and having those be taken away would be very harmful to a lot of students.
Such a massive reduction in funding would also lead to fewer staff members, and therefore larger class sizes. Berkeley High, having such a massive student population, would suffer greatly from this. Larger classes lead to less individual support from teachers, causing more students to fall behind without the necessary support from their teachers.
Another specific service the Trump Administration is attempting to cut federal funding for is mental health services. As many people are aware, mental health is crucial for everyone, but especially for teenagers. Cutting funding from mental health services is an incredibly short-sighted decision, and it would harm a lot of students. Berkeley High’s health and wellness centers are incredible services that help a lot of kids, but without proper funding, they would have to shrink to a much smaller scale, which would lead to fewer resources and being able to help fewer kids. Again, this decision would especially impact minority students, who have been shown, on average, to have more mental health struggles than their peers. Mental healthcare is also intrinsic to maintaining a safe learning environment for students, and taking that away would damage BHS’ carefully cultivated learning environment.
Education is crucial to the future of both individual students and the country as a whole. The Trump administration is attempting to tear that down for illogical, bigoted reasons. The attempted budget cuts unfairly target minorities and would completely decimate programs and protections put in place to help students who need them. Without this support at schools, especially those as diverse as BHS, more students would slip through the cracks.