South Dakota education officials say federal funds that had been frozen are being released.
The Trump Administration froze over $6 billion in education grants earlier this summer, saying the funds were "under review."
South Dakota’s share of that money was just under $26 million dollars, according to a South Dakota News Watch report.
Rob Monson is executive director of School Administrators of South Dakota. In an interview Monday with SDPB's In the Moment with Lori Walsh, he said the bulk of that money — under what are called “title funds” — is being released to the state.
"So that’s a huge relief to a number of superintendents who were looking at hundreds of thousands in budget shortfalls for people who were already under contract — that you would have had to find that money somewhere,” Monson said.
This comes after White House officials said Friday they plan on releasing the funds.
Monson said the grants pay for federal programs most South Dakota school districts take part in.
“Things like professional development and English as a Second Language programs, ESL — teachers are hired in school districts based on those federal funds. It’s not really local tax dollars that are paying a large part of these programs," Monson said. "So when those moneys aren’t coming from the federal government, out of the Department of Education, there is no money for those programs.”
Monson says with these grants in place, the state’s federal funding is level for the coming school year.
