When class is back in session at the Deer Valley Unified School District in Phoenix, Arizona, on July 31, its 33,000 students and 4,000 employees could be without critical programs for educators and children alike.

Late last month, the Trump administration sent an email to every state notifying them that the Department of Education would be withholding nearly $7 billion in federal funds, so it could figure out if the programs aligned with the federal government’s priorities.

“When federal dollars are being held hostage, it makes my job really difficult,” Curtis Finch, the Deer Valley superintendent, told HuffPost.

Across the country, school districts were thrown into chaos. Congress had already allocated funding, and school districts typically begin planning for the next school year several months in advance, so by the time the freeze was announced, budgets had already been set for the upcoming school year.

At top of mind for Finch are the curriculum experts employed by the school district. These are the educators who “teach our teachers on how to correctly execute our curriculum,” he says.

If Trump doesn’t release the funds, he’ll have to lay off 10 people.

“I’m trying to guess whether I cut these people today or do I assume this is just political bluster?” Finch said. Deer Valley is the fifth largest school district in Arizona and has consistently ranked among some of the best in the state.

Most school administrators are in similar positions.

AASA, The School Superintendents Association, the professional organization that represents more than 10,000 school administrators, conducted a survey of more than 600 superintendents in 43 states.

Their findings reveal that the abrupt freezing of critical resources will leave schools in dire straits.

Of the respondents, 74% said they would be forced to cancel academic programs like math and literacy coaching, tutoring and after school programs.

Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed said if the Trump administration doesn’t act now to release the funds, they would have to begin cutting services and lay off staff by Aug. 1.

Another 21% said they would have to begin making tough decisions by Aug. 15, and 23% percent of respondents said they already began reallocating funds and making cuts.

Half of the respondents said the funding freeze would lead to teacher layoffs, particularly among educators who work with English learners and special education staff.

In the survey, the educators made it clear that it’s the most marginalized students who will feel these cuts the most.

“It’s not just about dollars,” Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent of Pflugerville Independent School District in Texas, told the surveyors. “It’s about the message we send to our most vulnerable students when we withhold the very support they need to succeed.”

In the Deer Valley district, Finch says about 1,500 students need English learning services, including 400 new students from Taiwan.

“They leave Taiwan on Friday, and they’re in school on Monday,” Finch said. “We have to get students adjusted, caught up, and placed in the proper spot.”

But with funding for programs that the Trump administration doesn’t like, Finch isn’t sure how he will handle students who need English language learning professionals.

Hundreds of Taiwanese workers were drawn to the area after the Biden administration poured a bunch of money into TPMC, a semiconductor manufacturing plant in the area. Earlier this year, the Trump administration gave the company $100 billion to build more factories.

But now there’s a chance the new workers’ children will arrive in a new country without any support to learn the language at school.

The government’s claim that the resources must be withheld in order to make sure they align with Trump’s priorities is a thinly-veiled way of saying they’re targeting programs that benefit immigrant students and children of color.

“As a district serving a majority of low-income and minority students, the loss of federal funds will have a devastating impact on our ability to provide high-quality education,” Sherlene McDonald, the superintendent of Tarrant City schools in Alabama, said in the report. “Without this support, our progress in closing achievement gaps and promoting academic success is at serious risk.”

The Trump administration has been on a crusade to dismantle the Department of Education and remake the public school system that currently serves 43 million students.

When Trump returned to the White House in January, he immediately began issuing executive orders designed to curb diversity efforts in government, including in K-12 education. With the help of Elon Musk, the administration also began cutting funding to government programs and grants they deemed antithetical to their anti-diversity mission.

Trump also laid off approximately half the staff at the Department of Education, and championed the idea that through this agency, teachers were indoctrinating children with left-wing ideas.

Now in Arizona and across GOP-led states, there’s a big push to defund public schools while pumping money into programs for charter schools and school vouchers that even the wealthy can use to subsidize private school tuition for their children.

Finch sees the funding freeze and the big push for charter schools as intertwined. “The public schools are the ones that are going to get the short end of the stick,” he said.

“We’re already being starved to death and when federal dollars get squeezed, that’s just one more nail in the coffin for public education.”