EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS:

A month into the government shutdown, impacts on schools so far are difficult to see from the outside. School systems, which rely mostly on state and local funding, still have access to the biggest blocks of federal funding. But money has been cut off for some programs, and federal Education Department workers who help states and schools with a wide range of issues have been furloughed or laid off.

During the shutdown, the Education Department has said it will continue to make money available for two key grant programs — Title I, for schools serving low-income communities, and IDEA, for special education — as well as federal student aid including loans and Pell grants. For other programs, the impact is less clear.

The department has said it would not issue new federal education grants during the shutdown. Most grant programs make awards over the summer, and the department said grantees should be able to draw upon money that was awarded previously. But some programs did not receive annual disbursements from the federal government because they were scheduled for Oct. 1, after the shutdown had started.

Here is a guide to localizing stories about how the shutdown is affecting schools.

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READ AP'S COVERAGE:

Government shutdown offers schools a glimpse of life without an Education Department ___

WHERE TO FIND DATA ON SPENDING FOR EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Budget tables on the Education Department website show breakdowns for state-by-state spending for a wide range of department programs. The figures for 2026 are only proposals, but the tables include spending for 2024 and 2025.

https://www.ed.gov/about/ed-overview/annual-performance-reports/budget/budget-tables

Some grant recipients say it’s hard for them to know how their funding is affected because so many Education Department workers have been furloughed or laid off. One avenue is to reach out directly to recipients of past grants to ask how their federal funding has been affected.

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IMPACT AID

Among the programs that has seen federal money cut off is Impact Aid, a $1.6 billion program that boosts budgets of school systems that have little local tax revenue to draw on for education because the boundaries of their districts include federal property that is exempt from paying local taxes.

State-by-state data on Impact Aid payments is available here from the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools: Impact Aid Payments - National Association of Federally Impacted Schools

A report from the same association details how much aid goes to individual school districts: Basic Support Blue Book

In the charts showing districts that receive the aid in each state, the column under “LOT" indicates how dependent a school district is on Impact Aid money. Districts with higher percentages are more dependent on Impact Aid money. In fiscal year 2025, a total of 129 school systems around the country were classified as 100% LOT, which stands for “learning opportunity threshold,” according to the association.

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GRANTEES FOR SOME PROGRAMS ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE

Several programs have websites that show individual grant recipients. Here is an example for McNair grants, one of the TRIO programs designed to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds overcome barriers to education. The individual universities that receive the grants can be found under the tab “awards and funding history.” https://www.ed.gov/grants-and-programs/grants-higher-education/federal-trio-programs/ronald-e-mcnair-postbaccalaureate-achievement-program#awards-funding-history

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CONSIDER THESE REPORTING THREADS

— What impacts are leaders of your local school systems seeing? Is there guidance they typically receive from experts at the Education Department who are no longer available? Where are they turning to fill in the gaps?

— For school systems in your state that rely heavily on Impact Aid, how long can they continue to operate with the money they have in reserve? What contingency plans are being made to keep up their operations?

— Colleges in your area may be seeing disruptions to grants they use to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Are there students they are not able to help attend college or graduate school because of problems with grants coming through? ___

Localize It is a resource produced regularly by The Associated Press for its customers’ use. Questions can be directed to the Local News Success team at localizeit@ap.org. View guides published in the last 30 days here.