TUSD says programs for 10,000 students and 30 jobs are saved as feds release frozen grant money just days before school begins

Originally published on AZ Luminaria on July 25, 2025.

The Tucson Unified School District learned Friday it can proceed with funding its English education programs, teacher professional development, mental health services, technology programs and more after the Department of Education said it will unfreeze grant money it put on pause this summer.

Friday’s announcement ended weeks of uncertainty for school districts around the country, but it is unclear whether all of the nearly $7 billion in grant funding that was approved in March will go to the schools that need it.

“This is really good news,” said TUSD Chief Financial Officer Ricky Hernández. “The Arizona Department of Education will release funding starting next week and are waiting for the numbers. It sounds like everything will be business as usual — at least for the next school year.”

The Education Department froze the money on July 1 as it conducted a review of the grant-funded programs. Two weeks later, Arizona and more than 20 other states filed a lawsuit challenging the freeze. The lawsuit, led by California, argued withholding the money was unconstitutional and many low-income families would lose access to critical after-school care if the grants were not released.

Last week, the feds released $1.3 billion to fund before and after-school programs, after Republican senators sent a letter asking the Trump administration to send the funds to states. 

At that point about $5.5 billion in grants still remained on pause, but on Friday the department announced The Office of Management and Budget had completed its review of the programs and will begin sending the money to states next week, the Education Department said.

Arizona was to receive about $124 million in grant funding, according to the Arizona Department of Education.

 “The release of federal funds that were being reviewed by the Trump administration is good news and no surprise to me,” said Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne. “When the review was announced I noted that the federal government is merely ensuring that the funds are being used appropriately and not for ideological purposes. People need to be assured that their education tax dollars are being used to advance academic goals and not social indoctrination.”

Hernández said TUSD — the largest school district in Southern Arizona with 40,000 students — hopes it will get the $6 million it budgeted for.

“I have a sense it will be the same amount we were originally told,” he told Arizona Luminaria. “And there’s going to be some reporting and compliance requirements. It looks like it will be normal programming.”

At TUSD, which has 88 schools in grades K-12, the grant-funded programs are at 22 schools and include nearly 10,000 students and 30 paid positions.

Some district teachers also work in the grant-funded programs to supplement their paychecks, Hernández said.

The six grant programs under review included one known as 21st Century Community Learning Centers. It’s the primary federal funding source for after-school and summer learning programs and supports more than 10,000 local programs nationwide, according to the  Afterschool Alliance. Also under review were $2 billion in grants for teachers’ professional development and efforts to reduce class size; $1 billion for academic enrichment grants, often used for science and math education and accelerated learning; $890 million for students who are learning English; $376 million to educate the children of migrant workers; and $715 million to teach adults how to read.

This article first appeared on AZ Luminaria and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.