Unit 5 is working to adjust as a student support program at Cedar Ridge and Fairview Elementary schools loses federal grant funding at the end of the month.
Unit 5 has participated in the Community Schools program since 2012. The aim is to remove barriers to receiving a quality education — like food insecurity or lack of school supplies. It provides both in-school resources and after-school programming.
Beginning at Fairview Elementary, the program soon began to utilize services from The Baby Fold, adding a coordinator and clinician who are employed by the agency, but who work at the school. A few years later, the program was offered at Cedar Ridge Elementary.
The program has been funded through local grants, donations and, beginning in 2024, federal grant money.
The grant, at $1 million annually over five years, was used to support and expand programming at both schools. In December, the U.S. Department of Education announced the rest of the grant money will not be awarded. The cuts were another step in a series of Trump administration actions meant to defund “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives.
Many grant applications included language to that effect — a requirement when the grants were filed under the Biden administration, but which now are a disqualifying feature under the Trump presidency.
ACT Now Illinois, through which the grant money was secured, got the cancellation delayed by a month. Yet a combined $74 million in future and unspent funds will be lost for ACT Now Illinois programs, including the $1 million per year for Cedar Ridge and Fairview, when the federal cuts go into effect in February.
Future plans
Despite the loss of federal dollars, Unit 5 is committed to continuing Community Schools. The district is currently seeking alternate avenues with district funds, other grants or more donations to keep programming afloat. While the district can absorb some of the costs, the change will still force the program to operate on a smaller scale at both schools.
“I think we have to be pretty creative with how we're going to make things work,” said Michelle Lamboley, assistant superintendent. “We were able to have more robust enrichment opportunities for the students. We were able to provide transportation for those opportunities ... we won’t be able to provide that for students anymore.”
Unit 5 has had recent struggles with transit. The current state budget added no new money for transportation reimbursement for schools, leading to more costs falling on the district. Unit 5 spent $1.4 million on 13 used buses in July, a purchase the district had to use working cash funds to pay for, amid a bus shortage in McLean County’s largest school district.
“What will happen is the students won't be able to be transported, which means some students won't be able to participate in the after-school activities,” said Lamboley.
Unit 5 committed money to fund the program — in a smaller capacity — through the end of the current school year.
“We know the support that the coordinators provide to the families, the students and the teachers is huge, “ said Lamboley. “And so our goal was to try to keep those positions — to an extent, we weren't able to keep everything — because they really help.”
Baby Fold involvement
The loss of funding also will have an effect on how The Baby Fold can continue supporting the program. The Normal-based agency provides enrichment specialists and coordinators to focus on the four pillars of the Community Schools model: expanded and enriched learning time and opportunities, active family and community engagement, integrated student support and collaborative leadership and practices.
“The Baby Fold has worked with us to employ people that are embedded in our schools. So while they're Baby Fold employees, they work in our schools every day, they're a big part of our community,” said Lamboley.
Clete Winkelmann, Baby Fold president and CEO, said the six agency staff members currently involved at the two schools will likely be cut back to three.
“It's going to look different, it's going to kind of backtrack to where we were before the ACT Now money infused the opportunity to go deeper into the schools with the work,” said Winkelmann. “But it will continue.”
Funding for the program allowed Baby Fold staff to take on some of the needs a student or their family may need, like winter clothing or housing insecurity.
“So without that, where's that fall? Then it falls back into the school district, with the teachers, with the social workers that are there,” said Winkelmann. “And they don't have the time to address those kinds of issues.”
