Trump plan takes second shot at ending rural schools program Congress created to address resource gaps

Classroom at Velva Public Schools, which educates 
roughly 450 students. (Velva Public Schools photo)

The Trump administration is pushing to end the Rural Education Achievement Program by rolling the money into a $2 billion block grant. But rural schools rely on REAP to fill the funding gaps for "tutoring, afterschool and technology needs," reports Linda Jacobson for The74. Smaller school district leaders say the funding "is vital."

REAP was created by Congress to help rural schools meet the same educational standards that bigger public schools must adhere to, even though rural areas have fewer services and resources for helping students reach those strict benchmarks.

Monty Mayer, the superintendent of the Velva Public Schools in North Dakota, which serves nearly 450 students across two schools, told The74, "Money rolled into a block grant would be swallowed up by the bigger schools as their needs are much greater than ours. [That would leave] “small rural schools looking to find answers in different places without a clear picture as to where those resources would come from.”

When Education Secretary Linda McMahon gave her testimony to the Senate appropriations committee in late April, she "faced several questions from both Democrats and Republicans about the future of the program. She suggested that REAP was underutilized," Jacobson writes. McMahon testified that rural schools don't apply for REAP dollars because they lack grant writers and grant writing expertise.

Rural education experts don't agree with McMahon. They claim Congress designed REAP to be flexible because rural schools lack grant writing staff and expertise. "States or districts don’t write grant proposals for the funding, said Steven Johnson, superintendent of the Fort Ransom Public School District, which operates one elementary school in southeast North Dakota," Jacobson reports. "Districts eligible for the funds, based on size and location, receive an invitation to apply. And most do, Johnson said."

During her testimony, McMahon also said that REAP funds weren't "giving the returns that we hope to see for rural schools." McMahon did not cite the evidence or measurement standards that informed her statement.

This is the second time the administration has pitched the block grant proposal. Last year, "Congress ultimately rejected it." Jacobson reports. "With the appropriations process likely to drag out for months, it’s unclear whether lawmakers will be more receptive this year."

Small towns use simple fix that starts with private funds to keep high schoolers out of dead-end jobs

rootED advisors help rural students navigate educational
and employment complexities. (rootED photo)

A new program launched by billionaire investment banker Byron Trott is helping students at small-town high schools develop and execute after-high-school plans that tap into their interests and keep them out of "dead-end jobs," reports Lauren Weber of The Wall Street Journal. 

Called rootEd Alliance, Trott's program "has placed advisers in schools across seven states to fill a gaping void: 17- and 18-year-olds are expected to navigate an astoundingly complex labor market, often with little or no explicit guidance," Weber explains. 

The majority of the 280 schools that rootEd partners with "already have guidance counselors," Weber writes. But many are "overstretched with basics like sorting students’ schedules and managing the life emergencies that hit students all too often."

The program partners with more than 1,500 national
and local businesses. (rootED photo) 

By planting an advisor dedicated to providing career guidance and opportunities, students and their post-high school plans get more attention. According to Weber, that kind of focused planning is particularly important for rural students who are traditionally exposed to fewer career options and role models. Root advisers also help employers connect with potential employees to fill skilled-labor shortages. 

Through its advisors, rootED also aims to help students avoid poverty by training for careers with solid pay and promotion possibilities. Weber reports, "Once a school is staffed with a rootEd adviser, students are 54% less likely to wind up in low-skill, low-paying jobs than before." 

At schools where a rootEd advisor is working, students are more likely to pursue higher education. Weber adds, But advisors are "agnostic on whether students choose college, military service, employment or trade school," Weber reports. "The goal is for each senior to have a Plan A and ideally a Plan B." To help students develop those plans, advisors take students to different trade schools and colleges and promote scholarships.

Rural Vermont schools face district mergers and closures as student populations dip and per-pupil costs climb

Third and fourth grade students at Peacham Elementary School, in Peacham, Vt. The school has 60 students and is tucked in a rural northeastern part of the state. (Photo by Oliver Parini, The Hechinger Report) 

Over the past 20 years, smaller schools in Vermont have grappled with shrinking student enrollment, rising per-pupil costs, and property tax hikes. As the country's most rural state, Vermont's educational challenges are being "closely watched by rural education advocates nationwide," reports Chris Berdik of The Hechinger Report. Vermont's educational struggles mirror that of many American rural school districts. 

Across Vermont, public schools have lost 20% of their student population. That kind of steep decline has an outsized impact on rural school budgets, which must juggle increasing per-pupil costs, rising health care costs for teacher benefits and spending limited by a smaller property tax base.

Vermont lawmakers have passed a series of district consolidations to cut costs and offer students more services. "In 2015, Act 46 triggered several years of mergers — first voluntary, then required — that eliminated dozens of districts and led many small schools to close," Berdik explains.

In July, the Vermont legislature passed Act 73, which mandates "a minimum of 4,000 students per district, a threshold now met by only 1 of the state’s 119 districts," Berdick writes. The extreme educational changes Act 73 would require "ignited intense pushback from people fearing the loss of local control over education, even from a majority of the task force created to map options for bigger districts."

Supporters for consolidation "maintain that the crises of declining enrollment, falling test scores and tight education budgets demand a bold response," Berdik reports. Opponents want "any mergers and closings to be voluntary and done with a clear-eyed accounting of what’s to be gained and lost."

Vermont lawmakers will decide this month whether to proceed with Act 73 or dial back the proces to leave time and space to retool their plans.

Rural schools may face dire teacher shortages as federal funding is canceled, and H-1B visas are priced out of reach

In many rural schools, the majority of teachers are
not from the U.S. (Adobe Stock photo)

Federal funding cuts and skyrocketing H-1B visa fees are likely to deepen teacher shortages in rural schools, where international teachers helped fill staffing shortages.

Earlier this year, the federal Department of Education canceled teacher residency and training grants for rural schools. In September, President Donald Trump "announced a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications — visas hundreds of schools use to hire international teachers for hard-to-staff positions," writes Ariel Gilreath of The Hechinger Report, which covers education.

Melissa Sadorf, the executive director of the National Rural Education Association, told Gilreath the H-1B fee increase could cause the rural teacher workforce to "collapse."

Halifax County School District in rural North Carolina serves as an example: "Districtwide, 101 of 156 educators are international," Gilreath reports. "Of the 17 teachers who work at Everetts Elementary School in the district, two are from the United States."

Since few rural schools have the funding to pay $100k for an H-1B visa, districts will be forced to hire international teachers through the J-1 visa, which requires recipients to return home after three to five years.

While the J-1 visa helps schools fill staffing holes, it doesn't deliver a return on investment through retention because teachers have to leave the country just as they are hitting their stride in the classroom.

With fewer American college students choosing elementary and secondary teaching as a profession, the U.S. has an overall teacher shortage "that’s made filling vacancies one of the most challenging problems for school leaders to solve," Gilreath explains. 

In rural Bunker Hill, Illinois, where "more than 500 students attend two schools, some positions have gone unfilled for years," Gilreath reports. "Students often end up with a long-term substitute or an unlicensed student teacher."

What's for lunch? This year's school lunches include restrictions that challenge cafeterias and budgets

'Woodles' are a versatile school lunch favorite.

Estimates on how many rural children rely on school lunches for at least one nutritionally balanced meal to fill their bellies each weekday hover around five million. Nationwide, school cafeterias in America "serve 45 million meals a day," reports Kim Severson of The New York Times. "If they were a restaurant chain, it would be the largest in the country."

Besides the sheer number of meals that need to be served, school cafeteria planners and workers are managing "tighter nutritional standards, and limits on food purchased from other countries, like bananas, to 10% of what’s served," Severson explains. "School nutrition directors are bracing for the impact of federal budget cuts and updated federal dietary guidelines."

Some schools have already implemented some of the new guidelines, which include less sugar, fewer food dyes and more scratch-made entrees. But upgrading lunches while reducing costs will be tough on school cafeteria budgets. Severson adds, "And then there is the biggest challenge of all: How to satisfy the fast-changing tastes of a generation of food-savvy children."

Severson outlines what's new on the menu for 2025-26 school meals; a few are shared below.

• Sugar reduction and "cultural-club" food: Lunch favorites such as yogurt, milk and cereal are limited by grams of sugar. "A cup of chocolate milk, for example, can have only 10 grams or less of added sugar," Severson writes. Schools can opt to use "more culturally inclusive [ingredients], or swap out meat with legumes, tofu and other alternative protein sources."
• Make it from scratch, like they did before the 1980s, which saves money and is generally healthier. "Cooking from scratch is one way to make school food healthier," Severson reports. "More districts are trying to bring it back after economic pressures and looser federal standards in the 1980s resulted in an era of heat-and-eat meals."
• Bring on the noodles and 'Woodles': "Woodles are the most exciting new thing to hit the cafeteria this year," Severson explains. "The dried ramen noodles, made by a South Carolina company, were created specifically for school food service, with enough whole wheat to satisfy federal nutrition requirements."

Funding system for rural schools that overlap with national forests is 'brutal.' Advocates seek a new solution.

Trinity Alps office building in Weaverville, California, pop. 3,667.
(Trinity Alps Unified School District photo via The Daily Yonder)

A lack of support for the 20-year-old Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act program has rural schools in 41 states preparing for a possible loss of vital funding. Leaders of those rural schools are advocating for a renewal of funding and a better plan for more secure funding in the future. 

"The law was up for re-authorization in 2024 but died last December without a vote from the House of Representatives," report Claire Carlson and Lane Wendell Fischer of The Daily Yonder. "The Senate had already voted unanimously to approve it."

The federal program provides money to counties that include National Forest land. "Because public land cannot be used or taxed for local interests, the SRS program offsets this loss of local revenue by allocating federal funds to support essential community infrastructure like roads and schools," Carlson and Fischer explain. "SRS requires regular re-authorization, typically every three years, and is often accompanied by reductions in funding."

In 2016, SRS funding wasn't approved in time, and schools missed a year of needed funding. The same thing may happen in 2025. Jamie Green, superintendent of Trinity Alps Unified School District in rural Trinity County, California, told the Yonder, “This every three-year thing, it’s brutal. Absolutely brutal.”

In 2023, Trinity Alps was allotted $600,000 from SRS. "These funds accounted for 5% of the district’s budget and were essential in paying for teachers, programming, and maintenance work," the Yonder reports. "With no clear path toward re-authorization, Green’s current goal is to do what he can to cushion Trinity Alps for the looming shortfall."

With the ongoing potential for funding gaps or reductions within the program, advocates want a longer-term solution. Mark Haggerty, a senior fellow at the independent nonprofit research institute Center for American Progress, favors establishing a trust. He told the Yonder, "A trust makes sure that communities have the resources they need. . . . It’s not asking the taxpayers for permanent appropriations, and it’s not adding to the debt. But it gives counties and schools predictable payments that they can rely on."

To read about obstacles a trust faces, click here.