Category: Federal Government Actions

USDE Publishes Rule to Allow Grant Cancellations for Convenience (August 26, 2026)

On August 24, 2026, the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Department of the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) published proposed rules in the Federal Register that would give itself more leeway in how and why it cancels federal grant funding. The rule changes would codify methods for cancellation of grant funding that fails to align with the Trump administration’s policies, including allowing the USDE to cancel discretionary funds “for convenience.”

The changes would also require grant program recipients to comply with executive orders, would give the USDE authority to review “information from the grant application and previous grantee activity,” and would allow the USDE to “issue a partial award, provide funding in installments, or delay the release of funds.”

The new rules would also cut off some of the ways grantees could use to appeal the loss of their funding and remove requirements that the USDE publish grant competition notices in the Federal Register, where agencies post new rule proposals and public notices and seek pubic comment. They also include some of the language the Trump administration has used to prohibit what it considers to be diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to grant making criteria.

The public comment period for the proposed rules ends on September 23, 2026, after which the USDE plans to finalize the regulations in late 2026.

Sources: K-12 Dive and Ed. Week

HHS Developing a National Autism Elopement Alert System (August 28, 2026)

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in partnership with other federal agencies, has announced that it is developing a national autism elopement alert system for missing children and adults with autism. The goal of the project is to strengthen response coordination among emergency personnel, first responders and community partners as a means to help with the problem of “elopement” or when students wander away from schools.

To address the problem of elopement, schools can work with parents to document the possibility in a student’s individualized education program, report any such incidents, and use prevention measures such as putting out-of-reach locks on doors, according to research and advocacy groups. 

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some children with disabilities, such as those with autism or intellectual disabilities, may have challenges understanding safety issues and communicating with others and elopement typically includes situations where wandering away from care may result in injury or harm and differs from brief moments when a child may run away from a caregiver. According to the National Autism Safety Council, there have been 52 autism-related elopement fatalities of children ages 5-17 so far this year and about 53% of autism-related elopement fatalities in 2025 involved children ages 5-9. Five of those fatalities occurred in school settings.

According to a 2012 study published in Pediatrics, about half of all children with autism attempted to “elope” or wander away from a caregiver at least once after age 4.

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.

DCL Focuses the Use of Ed Tech in Classrooms (August 22, 2026)

In an August 20, 2026 Dear Colleague letter (DCL) issued by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE), the agency defended technology use in classrooms, saying the use of educational technology is a separate issue from the use of recreational technology. The letter acknowledged the growing concerns from parents, educators, and policymakers on students’ screen time in schools, but said those concerns require both “thoughtful consideration” and “careful distinction.” The DCL also said the policies on screen time and technology use in schools should be made by states and local communities, noting that stakeholders’ questions should focus on whether educational technology is improving learning and student outcomes and not whether students and teachers should use technology.

Recently, school leaders and K-12 technology experts have warned against state and school district policies that simply focus on limiting or banning the amount of time students spend on screens. In fact, the Consortium for School Networking most recently released guidance that emphasizes the importance of reducing “low-value” screen use and ensuring that devices are used for clear instructional purposes. 

The USDE’s DCL is used as guidance and not as a means of federal enforcement and advises that policymaking on technology use in schools “should focus on educational value rather than screen exposure alone.”

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.

Report: Proposed Head Start Changes Would Adversely Affect Children (August 21, 2026)

According to a report by the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University, which included a 50-state policy analysis of state childcare licensing standards, as researchers compared states’ licensing standards to existing federal Head Start quality standards they found the quality of early care and learning programs with regard to state standards is too often not aligned with best practices and research. In fact, the report claims that proposed changes in federal standards by the Trump administration would result in most toddlers experiencing worse adult-to-child ratios and only two states would meet Head Start lead teacher qualification requirements. The report also revealed that if Head Start programs would began to follow state childcare licensing standards instead of the federal performance quality standards that have been in place for years, only five states would require Head Start centers to be accessible to children with disabilities, only about a third of states would require programs to accommodate children with disabilities in classroom activities, and there would be uneven implementation of disciplinary approaches whereby some states would  allow or not explicitly ban abusive language, rest-related punishment, physical restraint, and locked or dark-room timeouts.

The report also found that “high-quality early childhood experiences are unevenly distributed, varying based on state, program type, funding stream, and zip code.” It also avers that “State licensing answers one question: What is the minimum set of standards required so children are not in danger? By contrast, Head Start asks: What conditions produce lifelong improvements for children’s development, health, learning, and family well-being?”

For more details from K-12 Dive, click here.

New DCL Eschews Disparate Impact (August 19, 2026)

On August 18, 2026, The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a Dear Colleague letter (DCL), providing school discipline guidance for district leaders, rebuffing previous attempts to reduce discipline disparities for Black and other historically marginalized students and calling for schools to “stop racial balancing.”

According to the letter “neither Title VI nor the Constitution requires the use of race in student discipline” and “neither Title VI nor the Constitution prohibits unintentional disparate impact; nor do they require schools to consider race in student discipline to address an unintentional disparate impact.” The DCL also says ”it is race discrimination under Title VI for the school to evaluate the racial outcomes of their discipline policies and to make decisions based on or because of those racial outcomes.″

While DCLs provide guidance for school districts and convey the USDE’s enforcement approach to civil rights laws, they do not have the force of regulation or formal policy.

For more from K-12 Dive, click here.