The Dept. of Ed. Executive Order - A Special Episode with Abe Saffer, a Senior Legislative Representative at AOTA

All right. We are here for a very special episode of the podcast today. We just had a executive order signed by President Trump, all about the Department of Education and kind of the way that he wants to dismantle it in his words. I believe that's what he used. And we are joined today by Abe Saffer, the senior legislative representative for AOTA. He's been on the show a few times, and we're excited to have him here. So Abe, thanks for joining us on The Spare of a Moment. Yeah, no, my pleasure to be here. Thanks, as always. Yeah, so you and I are both wearing some public education shirts here, and that's what we're talking about. So we just want to dive right into this. What are your initial reactions, your initial thoughts on this, this executive order that's been signed? The executive order was actually the second of two big actions that have occurred over the last two weeks, the last almost 10, guess nine days, that are really impacts of the departments of education's work. The first was last week, I think it was the 11th, the Department of Education had what was called a reduction in force. And this is not a, I wouldn't say it's a common thing, but it is a normal thing. It is, you know, it is when a department decides they want to, you know, massively shift priorities from whether it's one administration or another or something has been identified as like not, you know, not needed anymore, they'll reduce force and have layoffs. Last week, they actually laid off over half of the Department of Education. So I think the numbers is that it went from like 41 something, 4100 staffers to just over 2000. So they had a massive reduction. Given that plus the idea that or the fact that we've been waiting for this Department of Education for now, like six weeks, this, this executive order, it was almost anti-climatic. So the executive order itself, it does say that the Secretary of Education shall do everything, and, you know, basically within her legal authority to move programs outside of the Department of Education and to essentially shutter it. This was something the day after she was confirmed by the Senate to be the Secretary of Education. She sends out an email to all of her staff saying that they're embarking on the final mission of the Department of Ed. So, you know, not great, but the fact that it wasn't, you know, that there wasn't anything in there that surprised me, I think, was sort of like the one good takeaway from all of this. That's true. Okay. And yeah, I know as President Trump was signing or finishing up signing, he looked over to Linda McMahon and kind of said like, you know, hopefully you'll be our last Department of Education Secretary. And it's like kind of as weird to hear that. So, okay. So basically, it's been slashed in half already, the Department, and now it's, they're trying to go all the way to zero. Basically, what do you see as the right now impact on school-based occupational therapy practitioners as well as those who we serve? Is there going to be an immediate impact? Will it be like six months out or even longer? What do you think? So, the weird thing about federal education policy is it's not like federal health care policy, like by colleagues at AOTA handle. If you were to pass a bill that changed Medicare on January 1st of 2026, the landscape is different on January 1st of 2026. Education, because the federal government's role is already so small, it's only 10% of funding and IDEA, which is 3% of the total is the only one that's really prescriptive. Because of their role, their job is more, helping just share information, providing technical assistance. And so, there's going to be really almost no, the average practitioner is not going to notice the difference in the early stages. Or they're out. I think some of the differences in that though people will notice it, hopefully, that there's less pressure on their bosses, on their administrators to sort of say no to everything. Because there might be some smaller or lower amount of oversight that the department does to, you know, relate to IDEA or ESSA, than is being done, has been done previously. The real issue with this is that there's going to be sometimes when leadership at the Department of Education could really spread the word about best practices or some program that's being used, that's amazing. And so, that's going to be sort of one of the areas that's going to be a real loss to us if this doesn't, you know, get reversed or improve somehow in the next few years. But I mean, you know, the question I get asked all the time is what's going on going to happen to IDEA and I tell folks nothing. For the Department of Education to be eliminated, they would need to pass a bill because basically every office that you, we care about is in the OT world, is required to be there by law, by statute. So, the Office of Special Education Program, for example, was created by IDEA and it said it's part of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which was created by the, oh god, Department of Education Organization Act. So, all these offices has to be there by law. Otherwise, they're breaking the law. So, you know, I think that there's, that the opportunity is sort of as you're looking to how the change is going to take effect, Congress is going to have to step in and anytime you have a proposal to change something that has been around for, you know, the Department of Education has been around since 1979. Anytime you have those sort of changes, you're going to have to offer a proposal, you know, what that change proposed proposal will look like and it's, you know, I think it's going to be wildly unpopular, frankly. And I'll say this is the child of two teachers who had an IEP from kindergarten through 12th grade. Like, you don't mess with the parents of kid over disabilities. And so, I know that that's something that no one in DC wants to do. Okay, but I want to bring that up because although the programs still exist, the departments still exist and those are protected by Congress, will they still be effective? Like, I know a lot of times if parents can work their way up and get support from the federal government or states can, but if there's no one there to really help them, are things just going to move at a grinding rate or things? Yes, that's going to be one of the big impacts is that if a state or a, you know, a district needs technical assistance or, you know, for example, they want to be, they want to be able to say, like, hey, I have X amount of ID, a funds, can I use it for this? The response time is going to be much longer because the number of people that are responding to that are, you know, just are far fewer. Osir, and or Osir, the special ed and rehabilitation services and OESC, which is Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, they were largely spared from the layoffs. So they did lose some people, but not nearly as much. Most of the people came from the federal, the financial aid office for higher ed and well as the Office of Civil Rights. And that's scary for some reason, but like, I think it's going to, there's still going to be sort of all of the same processing in place. It's just going to take longer and be less efficient. Yeah, yeah. A lot of what has been said is that this is giving the, it's giving the power back to the states. And when I hear that, I hear, okay, well now there's 50 departments of education that are going to get to choose various different ways to do things. Is that what you think? Okay, but how will it impact the state departments? So I think that, so first of all, there's been a lot of talk about returning education to the states, but it never left. I think I've mentioned on this podcast, but I've definitely mentioned it in a million other places that in terms of the federal government's role in public education in our country, it's only about 8 to 10%. That's IDEA plus Title I funds of ESSA plus Medicaid is about $40 billion a year and all of the public education is about 400 billion. So by definition, that $360 billion has requirements that has requirements that local and state governments put on that money. So it already's been, it's part of the state. So I think the, one of the opportunities I was going on, and again, this is kind of look on the bright side, but one of the opportunities is that because there's going to be less oversight by the federal government, that's going to really empower the local, the, you know, the local practitioner, be able to sort of, you know, try innovative, innovative things like, you know, whole class self-regulation or like all of these new programs that I've been hoping to see really start off like, but I think a lot of administrators are worried that they would get audited or, you know, get in trouble some other way that they're going to be sort of less nervous about that now, maybe, maybe. I mean, that's, I haven't talked to any administrators, but that's how I'm looking at it. The downside is that if something works really well in Maryland, like let's say in the Maryland Department of Education is, you know, implementing a workload model with MTSS and all of the things that we love, they, it's it'll be incumbent on them to talk to the 49 or 40, I guess 50 other departments of education at the state level to share that information. Like, will that happen? Maybe not. In the past, the Department of Education would have been like, this is fantastic. Let's highlight this to everyone in the country and other states would have, you know, the opportunity to think the Department of Education actually has conferences for other departments for their state departments of education to come in and hear about all the latest and greatest. And so that information sharing is going to be lost. And so it's much more incumbent on people that are busy and and over and, and, you know, underpaid already, like, not just the practitioners, but also the folks of the state Department of Education to spread the word. And so that's really like, I can't overstate how much of a loss that is going to be if we don't keep pushing for it. Got to. Yeah. To me understand, I mean, that, that was my biggest concern is that they're not going to be that overarching body to kind of help the states. And you are going to have 50 states doing things 50 different ways, rather than coming together and getting that support. So, yeah. From AOTA's perspective, what are we following most right now? So I think, honestly, first and foremost, we are trying to provide as much information as to members and school-based practitioners across the country as much as possible. I used to work in a job where we had lawyers on staff who were legal advocates and folks who call up and get help. And one of them told me once that they have to basically they can't help 9 out of 10 people that they talk to. And I said, well, isn't that depressing? Or is the 1 out of 10 so amazing that it sort of negates and he goes, no, all of them are great, because even if you can't help someone with their problem, I'm learning that this is how it is going to be, you know, makes them feel better because they don't feel like there's something more that they can be doing. And so that's how I'm taking this approach that there's going to be some bad, you know, bad policy decisions that are, you know, made to come. There's always been bad policy decisions here and there. And so my goal, and I think AOTA's goal, well, and I know AOTA's goal, is to just try to sort of provide as much information to to practitioners as possible. Like, if we know, we want them to know it. That's why I do my office hours, which I'm having another one on May 14th. And actually, the less than 24 hours, or I guess, no, sorry, less than 14 hours after the Department of Education announced it was cutting staff last week. I was on a call with senior leadership at AOTA. And we're actually just announced that today we're having a special session at conference in our largest, in the one of the largest rooms. And it's a panel discussion with someone from a state association, a state association president, someone from a Department of Education on the state level. And me talking about all of the stuff that's going on, you know, the challenge that we're going to see, as well as some of the opportunity that are going to present itself. That's sort of my first and foremost thing. Beyond that, like, stopping Congress from making any of the changes, that, you know, would harm, would actually harm education in the years to come, moving IDEA to health and human services. Like, it's just education is not healthcare. And I can tell you, as someone who does a lot of work on Medicaid and schools, HHS is not the best place to find people that understand how schools work. And so just doing everything we tend to to fight about that and sort of say, like, is the Department of Education perfect? Like, absolutely not. Like, they do things that drive me nuts. But not having them is so much worse that we want to make sure that, like, we can actually get to a place where we're rejecting the calls to eliminate it and working to sort of create this whole companion of care for all students that they get the services they need instead of, you know, having to jump through legal hoops. So it, you know, it's, this is also two hours old. So like, there's still a lot to be that might come up and change over the next few, few days and weeks. But for the most part, our focus is on the practitioners and Congress. Yeah. Hopefully this is a quick answer really quickly. I know large part of the administration's goal is to save money. They're saving, you know, so a few million here, a few million there when they're cutting a bunch of jobs and cutting the workforce of the department in 50 by 50%. And that money's been budgeted to the department from my understanding right by Congress. Will that money, the safe, will the savings be passed on to education? I guess it's kind of what I'm saying. No, as far, so as far as I understand it, any money that was provided the Department of Education that's not being passed on to schools from like IDA funding or SF funding funding for like salaries and benefits for Department of Education staff. First of all, like, it is, it is percentage of the penny on the dollar. Like, it's just not that much money. And also, it has the specific requirement by Congress. So it's illegal for them, you know, be illegal for the Department of Education to say, like, hey, we saved 40 bucks here on salary. So we're going to put that into, you know, IDA, like they're just not allowed to do it. So it maybe it'll save money in the future, but it's definitely not saving money in this, in this fiscal year. All right, Abe. Well, that's going to wrap us up for today. I'm sure we'll have more conversations about this in the future. We'll definitely looking forward to that session at AOTA Inspire. We'll share a link directly to that as well as a link to the article that you just published minutes ago so that everyone can read more. And yeah, if you haven't had a chance to attend Abe's office hours, I get to text him whenever I want, honestly, but you should definitely attend the office hours and learn more about what is going on and how a AOTA is working hard to protect school-based occupational therapy practitioners, as well as those who we provide services to in the school. So, Abe, thanks again. Thanks again. We really appreciate it. And we'll catch up with you next time. Thanks, Jason. I appreciate all you do.