President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week for the United States Secretary of Education to go forward with the closure of the Department of Education.

Today, United States Representative Ami Bera held a press conference at Leo A. Palmiter High School alongside Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools David Gordon to address the impacts of Trump’s cuts on schools in Sacramento.

Bera and Gordon also highlighted the threat of a billion-dollar cut to locally sourced food programs. 

Federal education serves as a key function in supporting Sacramento County schools, which serve more than 250,000 students, according to Bera’s press release. 

Bera said the most important thing they can do to ensure the future is to invest in the younger generation. He said they’re doing whatever they can through the legal system to stop the cuts from happening because they believe Trump can’t take those funds away. 

“We think what President Trump is doing is illegal,” Bera said. “[Congress] created the Department of Education. We believe we’re the only ones that can actually get rid of the Department of Education. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to fight them on that. We’re the ones that appropriate and authorize the funds to educate our kids.” 

Bera said the budget cuts are creating a lot of uncertainty and a lot of challenges. Recently, the U.S. The Department of Agriculture cut $1 billion dollars in funding that gives local schools, food banks and tribal governments money to buy food from farmers.

“For a lot of kids in our community, the only hot meal they ever get is the one that they get at school,” Bera said. “So if that actually goes through, that’s going to impact not just the kids, but also the local economy.”

This school year, Sacramento County received an estimated $232 million in federal funds for students. 

The county’s students include low-income, students with disabilities, those experiencing homelessness and English learners.

“Federal funding helps us support those students, our students with disabilities, who are a major part of our educational system here and our staff does a wonderful job with our initiatives,” Gordon said. “We have a major initiative here in Sacramento County to upgrade literacy in our county, particularly for our most underserved students.”

Gordon said academic initiatives are going to take second place if people are consumed by fear and everyone is worried about what’s going to be the budget for the next year.

“This is about protecting our families, protecting our people, protecting our communities and making sure that we can keep our academic mission strong and keep moving forward,” Gordon said. “We will get through this because we will fight this, and we will make it happen that our kids get protected and get served.”

Gordon, also spoke on the 60 mental health clinicians that are stationed in the schools at no cost, because they can bill Medicare. 

Bera mentioned early childhood programs could also be affected with federal cuts.

“Head Start is so important because it focuses on kids from age zero to five. That early investment, plenty of studies show that you’ll have benefits for the rest of that student’s life,” Bera said. “So cutting early childhood education is a real dumb idea, because it is going to hurt our kids today, but it’s also going to hurt that next generation of adults.”

Keyshawn Davis is a communities reporter at CapRadio. CapRadio is a partner of The Intersection and CVJC.