On December 12, ACT Now Illinois found out that the Department of Education would be discontinuing two federal Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) grants.
"We were shocked," said ACT Now Director of Community Schools Leslie Rivers. "We did not see this coming at all. We have only gotten really positive feedback about our grant performance. We've been seeing metrics improve in our grant objectives. We've been complying with all the federal regulations regarding grant execution."
The grants, which total $18.5 million annually, fund community school services in 16 school districts and 32 schools, serving approximately 19,000 students and their families.
They fund things like wraparound mental and physical health services, as well as after school and summer programs, so Rivers said cutting the funds would have a "devastating impact."
"We already know of a few people who've been terminated because we can't guarantee funding for them on January 1," Rivers said. "We know of after school programs that are going to stop immediately ... Schools are scrambling right now to try and find any sort of way that they can keep these programs going."
In an attempt to retain funding, ACT Now is suing the U.S. Department of Education. The lawsuit, filed Monday afternoon, follows the Department of Education's denial of ACT Now’s request for reconsideration and reversal. The organization joins others, such as American Federation of Teachers in suing the Department of Education.
Rivers said the ACT Now is also hoping to gain the attention of legislators and work with local partners to come up with other ways to continue to carry out activities through the end of the school year.
"Right now, we're just trying to put a pause on that so that we can at least access some funds on January 1 and try to wind down some of these things instead of having an abrupt halt that will really impact these communities," Rivers said.
ACT Now filed the lawsuit after receiving a notice of discontinuation citing alleged application-related issues.
But ACT Now Deputy Director for Policy Communications and External Affairs Emma Giamberdino said the grants having been approved, funded and implemented without prior notice of noncompliance.
"We hadn't, in our perspective, in our facilitation of funds to these schools and partners, we weren't in any non compliance with the grant program itself," she said.
She said the goal of the lawsuit, which calls the Department of Education's decision "unprecedented and unlawful" is to reverse that decision.
"We're really trying our best to understand our ability to keep these programs up and running, keep our partnerships able to access these dollars," she said. "We're not coming from it from a political stance at all. We're coming from a point of we have been compliant. We have the data and the evidence to suggest that we have had good standing with the program."
And Rivers said she hopes the Department of Education can see it this way, too.
"Supporting kids and setting kids up for success is not a partisan issue," Rivers said. "Turning that into a partisan issue and a political issue is devastating to Americans, and we're hoping to send the message that Community Schools works, and we are working to help kids in Illinois be set up for success."