Dozens of emotional Division of Training staff took half in a last “clap-out” in Washington, D.C., after shedding jobs amid the Trump administration’s agency restructuring.
The administration slashed about 50% of the department’s workforce as a part of President Donald Trump and Training Secretary Linda McMahon’s technique to abolish the division and ship schooling choices to the states.
The departing civil servants, who’ve both been terminated, retired or voluntarily bought out, have every been given about half-hour to retrieve their belongings this week — earlier than exiting the constructing to clapping colleagues who had been screaming “thanks!” outdoors the workplaces in Washington, D.C.
Former Secretary of Training Miguel Cardona speaks in entrance of supporters of schooling employees throughout a clap-out occasion in entrance of the Division of Training constructing in Washington D..C., March 28, 2025.
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The final schooling chief, former Training Secretary Miguel Cardona, visited his previous workplace to have fun staff affected by the workforce shakeup.
Clapping, shaking palms and cheering them alongside, Cardona informed the civil servants, “Thanks to your service.”
“These public servants which might be strolling out proper now deserve a thanks. They deserve respect. They’ve labored exhausting — not simply through the time that I served as secretary however earlier than that,” Cardona, carrying plain garments, informed reporters in a quick assertion outdoors company headquarters.
“I am right here, for the workers right here, to say thanks,” he added.
Former Secretary of Training Miguel Cardona joins supporters of the Division of Training employees throughout a clap-out occasion in entrance of the Division of Training constructing in Washington D..C., March 28, 2025.
Arthur Jones II/ABC Information
DeNeen Ripley shook Cardona’s hand and informed him her total transportation division was eradicated. Ripley has labored on the division over 30 years and stated she is taking an early retirement now.
“It appears like a demise,” Ripley informed ABC Information. “It appears like a foul divorce of kinds, it simply feels heartbreaking.”
Regardless of the large overhaul and virtually 2,000 staff misplaced, McMahon has pressured the Division of Training will proceed to manage its statutory features that college students from deprived backgrounds depend on, together with grants, formulation funding and loans.
“The president made clear in the present day that not one of the funding will cease for these [programs],” McMahon informed ABC Information Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott after Trump’s govt order signing final week, which directed McMahon to make use of all mandatory steps permitted beneath the legislation to abolish the company she’s been tapped to steer.
“I feel it’s his hope that much more funding might go to the states. There might be extra alternative for it. And, you realize, he means what he says. And so there’s not going to be any defunding or discount in funding,” she added.
A dream job “snatched”
Washington, D.C., native Leondra Richardson and a crowd of emotional colleagues throughout the division left the near-defunct company’s headquarters for the ultimate time Friday.
“It was a dream job,” Richardson informed ABC Information. “And that dream was snatched from me by the brand new administration.”
Richardson stated her total workplace, the Workplace of the Chief Information Officer, was folded earlier this month by the “discount in drive” carried out on March 11.
Sydney Leiher, a midlevel profession public servant, stated she felt compelled out and would not know what’s subsequent for her. After leaving together with her belongings, together with a seashore volleyball and Dealer Joe’s sack, Leiher pressured the reforms should not solely unjustified but additionally unpopular.
“It is positively emotional,” Leiher stated, holding again tears. “I really feel unhealthy for all the individuals within the Chief Data Workplace who must, like, collect all of our laptops and tools — like, they do not wish to be doing this both.
A Division of Training employee acknowledges a crowd of supporters after leaving the Division of Training constructing, March 28, 2025.
Josh Morgan/USA TODAY Community
“It is only a actually unhappy day. However seeing the assist out right here from all of different Division of ED workers after which additionally, like, different federal businesses after which the general public simply makes it reveals to me that, like, individuals don’t want this, and like, this isn’t standard, and this should not be taking place,” Leiher added.
Richardson and Leiher each labored in the identical division, the OCDO, that was shuttered. With out the workplace, Richardson stated there’ll hardly be anybody left on the federal stage to gather information to indicate scholar enhancements or delays.
The Trump administration has claimed it’s making cuts to rid the federal government of bureaucratic bloat, however Richardson informed ABC Information her IT job was not coverage based mostly or bureaucratic. Leiher, an analyst who labored on synthetic intelligence machine studying, informed ABC Information that she took this job after getting back from the Peace Corps. She added that civil service work should not be about politics.
“I consider in public service,” Leiher stated. “I consider in a nonpartisan civil service. We’re necessary, we matter.”
In the meantime, departing civil servants akin to Dr. Jason Cottrell, an information coordinator within the Workplace of Postsecondary Training, the most important grant-making division within the division, stated he believes college students are being put in jeopardy because the Division of Training is diminished.
“Our nation’s college students are going to endure,” Cottrell stated. “I consider the doctoral college students which might be, you realize, making an attempt to do analysis on most cancers or, you realize, studying or no matter it could be, and with out the funds to assist them, they will — it may be exhausting for them to succeed with out these funds, and we’re not going to realize that data that we want.”
DeNeen Ripley, who labored on the Division of Training for over 30 years, stated she is taking an early retirement amid the layoffs on the company. “It appears like a demise,” Ripley informed ABC Information, March 28, 2025.
Arthur Jones II/ABC Information
The farewell ceremony on the division comes as “clap-outs” are set to proceed throughout the nation subsequent week at regional workplaces in locations akin to Cleveland, Dallas and San Francisco. However these moments hit particularly near residence for Richardson, who detailed how she overcame a teenage being pregnant whereas rising up east of the river within the Southeast quadrant of town.
She stated it is so shut but so “far-off” from the federal authorities.
“I hate that I am unable to be a voice or inspiration to the younger women rising up in Southeast D.C. that I needed to encourage,” Richardson stated, including that she “needed to present an opportunity to, you realize, present that there is one other approach and you can also make it ahead.”
“You may make a huge impact and an enormous distinction within the nation coming from the place we from,” she stated.
ABC Information’ Alex Ederson contributed to this report
