MARSHALL — President Donald Trump could take the first steps toward closing the U.S. Department of Education as soon as this week, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

On a local level, area school superintendents said it was too early to tell how their districts might be impacted if the Education Department is dismantled.

“We haven’t gotten any word,” Marshall Public Schools Superintendent Jeremy Williams said Thursday.

Williams said the Marshall School District received a total of more than $2.6 million in funding from federal sources for the 2024-25 fiscal year. While not all of that total funding came through the Department of Education, hundreds of thousands of dollars went toward support services for students, like Title I and special education.

“We are unsure how these funds would be distributed if the closure of the federal Department of Education happens,” Williams said.

Superintendents at the Tracy and Lakeview public school districts said their districts also receive federal funding for special education, and to provide students with additional help in reading and math.

Trump has said he wants his new education chief, Linda McMahon, to “put herself out of a job” and close the Education Department, the Associated Press reported.

McMahon was confirmed by the Senate on Monday, and an executive order to shutter the department could come as soon as this week. McMahon told employees it was the department’s “final mission” to eliminate bureaucratic bloat and turn over the agency’s authority to states, the Associated Press reported.

Eliminating the department altogether would likely would require an act of Congress, the Associated Press reported.

Williams and MPS director of fiance Sarah Kirchner said the Marshall school district received a total of $2,643,500 in federal funding for the 2024-25 fiscal year. Not all of that funding comes through the Department of Education.

Of Marshall’s total $2.64 million in federal funding, $1.3 million is used toward the district’s food service management contract, Kirchner said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provides funding and regulatory oversight to state agencies that administer school nutrition programs, she said.

Kirchner said Minnesota’s free school meals program is a state-funded program that provides reimbursements for meals served to students who don’t qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The reimbursements mean all students can receive meals at no cost to them.

After food service, the next largest uses of federal funding at MPS include special education, at $626,500, and Title I at $465,000. Title I funding is meant to help raise the achievement of students not meeting standards in schools with high percentages of low-income children, according to the Minnesota Department of Education. MPS also received federal funding for Title II, which focuses on class size reduction and professional development for teachers; Title III, which focuses on English learners; and Title IV, which focuses on technology, giving students access to a well-rounded education, and safe and healthy schools.

Marshall Public Schools also received $93,000 in federal funding for Adult Basic Education. MPS is the fiscal host for ABE, and manages the funding for the program, Kirchner said.

“These funds currently come to us from the federal level through the state,” Williams said of MPS’s federal funding. If the federal Education Department is closed down, he said, “Our understanding is it would mean a change to more local control, and we anticipate the funds would come from other sources. They do represent funding that supports specific needs of our learners beyond core instruction.”

Officials at other area school districts, including Tracy Area Public Schools and Lakeview Schools, also said there were a lot of unknowns regarding plans to close the Department of Education. Tracy Superintendent Chad Anderson said he did not want to speculate on them.

“At this point, we have not been told anything,” said Lakeview Superintendent Chris Fenske. “If federal funding is completely eliminated and the money doesn’t continue to flow through to the states, then schools will have to fund these programs out of other general fund sources. or look to scale back student programming in these areas or other areas to ensure balanced budgets at the local district levels.”

Anderson said Tracy Area Public Schools received a total of $240,515 in federal funding for the 2025 fiscal year. Those funds were spent on Title I, which included salaries for teachers who provide students with extra reading and math help; and on Title II, which included professional development and class size reduction.

Fenske said the Lakeview district received a total of $157,447 in federal funding in its 2024-25 budget.

“It is just over 1.5% of our revenues,” he said.

Fenske said $90,000 of that federal funding was used for special education.

“Special education expenses are not fully funded by either state or federal sources, so districts take from other sources in the general fund to cover mandated special education costs. This is called a cross-subsidy,” Fenske said.

Of Lakeview’s total federal funding, $67,447 was used for the Title I and Title II programs.

“This is used for students in grades K-6 who need extra assistance in reading and math,” Fenske said. The federal funding was not enough to cover current costs for those programs, he said. School districts take from other sources in the general fund to cover the costs.