President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives.

The move has local school superintendents concerned about the future of education in the Ohio Valley, but remained determined to provide the best experience possible for their students.

Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979. Republicans said they will introduce a bill to achieve that.

The department, however, is not set to close completely. The White House said the department will retain certain critical functions.

Trump said his administration will close the department beyond its “core necessities,” preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants and money for children with disabilities. The White House said earlier it would also continue to manage federal student loans.

The president blamed the department for America’s lagging academic performance and said states will do a better job.

“It’s doing us no good,” he said at a White House ceremony.

Already, Trump’s Republican administration has been gutting the agency. Its workforce is being slashed in half, and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.

Local superintendents said they’re all worried about the effects of this executive order.

“Dissolving the Federal Department of Education is of significant concern for all educators,” said Marshall County Superintendent Shelby Haines. “While this decision brings uncertainty to some important aspects of education supported through federal funding, Marshall County Schools will continue to monitor the implementation of the order and provide quality education to all students.”

Ohio County Schools Superintendent Kim Miller indicated school officials have little choice than to deal with directives as they come.

“In education, we adapt every day,” she explained “If and when an order is signed, we will adapt again. My priority is focused on the continued success of our students and fitting their unique needs.

“While we cannot control what happens at the federal level, we can reassure our community that we remain committed to our kids.”

Shadyside superintendent John Haswell said the tricky part of this situation is that Trump claims all of the money that was going to the federal level is now going to go back to the states. He added every school in Ohio has title programs, which is extra help in reading and math, coming from federal funds. Now that Trump says Title One funding will be preserved, Haswell said, if Trump keeps his word, things will be OK financially on the services.

“No matter what, we’re going to help kids that are struggling,” he said.

Union Local superintendent Zac Shutler said it’s hard to know right now what will happen for his district. He said the Department of Education is involved in a lot aside from funding, including student loans and assisting students with specific needs, so he doesn’t know how the dismantling will impact that. It would depend, he said, on how those responsibilities will be disseminated through the states with appropriate funding.

Like Shadyside, much of Union Local’s funding comes from the state, with a portion of the district’s funding coming from the federal government. He did add, though, a lot of that lead is taken by the federal government to provide some uniformity in what students are receiving within each state. Without that level of uniformity, it could create larger disparities, especially for rural school districts.

He said this situation is unprecedented in recent history, so the district will wait and see how it plays out.

“There’s really no way to know exactly how this will play out,” he said. “Maybe in the best-case scenario, those federal dollars are allocated to each individual state and then disseminated from there to the individual districts to provide the same services. Maybe with less oversight, maybe with more oversight.”

He noted people in leadership roles have a job to focus on what they can control and stay steady with their teams.

“I think when things are shakiest, it’s most important for superintendents and building principals and state representatives to be the steady hand to guide the ship right now,” Shutler said. “And that’s what I’m hoping to be for the people here and students here at Union Local.”

Advocates for public schools said eliminating the department would leave children behind in an American education system that is fundamentally unequal.

“This is a dark day for the millions of American children who depend on federal funding for a quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said.

Democrats said the order will be fought in the courts and in Congress, and they urged Republicans to join them in opposition.

Trump’s order is “dangerous and illegal” and will disproportionately hurt low-income students, students of color and those with disabilities, said Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The department “was founded in part to guarantee the enforcement of students’ civil rights,” Scott said. “Champions of public school segregation objected, and campaigned for a return to ‘states’ rights.'”

Supporters of Trump’s vision for education welcomed the order.

Freshman U.S. Congressman Riley Moore, R-W.Va., applauded the executive order.

“I proudly ran on eliminating the federal Department of Education and block granting those dollars directly to the states, and I am proud to see that come to fruition,” Moore said in a statement Thursday. “Educational outcomes have been disastrous since the Department’s creation under President Carter — and it’s time we fully returned the decision-making authority back to the states. I’m grateful to President Trump for keeping his campaign promise, and, in Congress, I can’t wait to work on legislation to make this action permanent.”

“No more bloated bureaucracy dictating what kids learn or stifling innovation with red tape,” Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said on social media. “States, communities, and parents can take the reins — tailoring education to what actually works for their kids.”

The White House has not spelled out formally which department functions could be handed off to other departments or eliminated altogether.

The department sends billions of dollars a year to schools and oversees $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.

Currently, much of the agency’s work revolves around managing money — both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programs for colleges and school districts, like school meals and support for homeless students. The agency also is key in overseeing civil rights enforcement.

States and districts already control local schools, including curriculum, but some conservatives have pushed to cut strings attached to federal money and provide it to states as “block grants” to be used at their discretion. Block granting has raised questions about vital funding sources including Title I, the largest source of federal money to America’s K-12 schools. Families of children with disabilities have despaired over what could come of the federal department’s work protecting their rights.

Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14%. The money often supports supplemental programs for vulnerable students, such as the McKinney-Vento program for homeless students or Title I for low-income schools.

Colleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.

Staff writers Joselyn King and Josie Burkhart contributed to this report.