Trump administration cuts millions in grants to 40 Kentucky schools

Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Lexington Herald-Leader on Dec 24, 2025

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — The U.S. Department of Education has canceled grants for 40 schools across 20 Kentucky school districts, according to the Lexington committee that administers the funds.

The grants were slated to award $47 million to Kentucky school districts over five years, but federal officials are canceling the final two years of the funding, known as “Full-Service Community Schools grants,” said Lisa McKinney, communications director at the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

“We are disappointed that the grant got rescinded early,” McKinney told the Herald-Leader on Tuesday. “We’ve seen promising results at many of our schools in reducing chronic absenteeism and increasing testing scores. Now was the time for us to use the data we’ve collected to share and scale what works." The Prichard Committee, which promotes improving education for Kentuckians, is appealing the decision.

The cuts, the latest effort by the Trump administration to slash federal spending, total tens of millions of dollars nationwide. Districts and organizations that administer the money were told of the cuts just two weeks before the next round of funding was set to arrive, according to the news outlet Education Week.

The grants provided a wide range of services for students and families, including health care, tutoring programs, meals and immigration assistance.

McKinney said the Prichard Committee “received general language about the grant not being in line with current priorities.”

Murray Bessette, the Trump-appointed acting head of the Education Department’s office of planning, evaluation, and policy development, said due to either a violation of federal civil rights law or a conflict with the current president’s policy agenda, “The grant is therefore inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, the best interest of the federal government and will not be continued,’” according to a Dec. 12 letter sent to another state and reviewed by Education Week.

In Fayette County, affected schools include Millcreek Elementary and Northern Elementary.

Statewide, grants had been awarded to the following districts: Fayette, Bracken, Carter, Christian, Clark, Covington Independent, Danville Independent, Daviess, Dayton Independent, Hopkins, Jefferson, McCracken, Owensboro Independent, Paducah Independent, Rockcastle, Rowan, Scott, Shelby, Warren and Washington.

Those districts typically worked with community and business partners to remove non-academic barriers to learning such as transportation or mental or physical health issues, McKinney told the Herald-Leader.

Those school districts also partnered to enhance and create learning experiences both in and out of the classroom, McKinney said.

Ben Kirtley, the Community Schools Director for Warren County Public Schools, sent a letter Dec. 19 to community members notifying them the cut would be effective Dec. 31.

“This is very disappointing, especially because we still have several years remaining on the grant,” Kirtley wrote. “The Prichard Committee has submitted a reconsideration request, and we are hopeful the discontinuation will be overturned.”

At Jennings Creek Elementary in Warren County, he said, kindergarten readiness increased from 32% to 42% last school year. Chronic absenteeism decreased from 14.8% in November 2024 to 10.7% in November 2025.

“We have achieved so much with this initiative and do not want to lose our momentum,” Kirtley said.