Advocate Today: Release the Funds!
CAPE, along with educators nationwide, learned this week that the White House is withholding $6.8 Billion in Congressionally appropriated education funds for the 2025 to 2026 school year — including 21st Century Community Learning Centers grants for programs CAPE leads at Telpochcalli, New Sullivan, Taylor, Ashe and Turner Elementary Schools.
What does this mean for CAPE and our students?
CAPE will lose about $700,000 in funding that supports comprehensive after-school programs for over 500 low-income students and their families; this will impact four CAPE staff members, 30 teaching artists and 40 teachers who work in those programs.
As of today, CAPE’s programs at these schools will cease to operate on August 31. To say that we are extremely disappointed to share this news is an understatement. This illegal action on the part of the White House will have devastating consequences for students and families across the country, and in our own city.
Some context
The bipartisan FY2025 full-year continuing resolution was signed into law in March 2025. Annually, each state normally receives its allocation for 21st CCLC in April and then receives the actual funding on July 1st.
On June 30th, 2025, Education Department staff informed the Illinois State Board of Education (and all state education agencies) that the Trump administration is withholding $6.8 billion in federal funding for K-12 schools, including 21st CCLC. This funding was required by law to be received by July 1st.
In the past few days, this issue has been widely reported on in multiple news outlets, including Chalkbeat and NPR.
Please take action
Advocate: Reach out to your elected officials to tell them how much you disagree with this action. CAPE is working in coalition with ACT Now Illinois and the national After School Alliance to demand that the funds be released.
Support CAPE Today: Make a gift today — we cannot do this work without significant support from our community, and that includes you! Click here to make a donation — every dollar you contribute goes right to work in a classroom.
Please don’t be fooled into thinking that the gutting of the DOE is a restructuring or improvement in the name of government efficiency. Let’s call it what it is: an elimination of opportunities for people, and children in particular, to learn, to express themselves, and to become fully informed, civically engaged future citizens. We can do better than this — we can BE better than this. Please get involved and stay engaged in whatever way possible to oppose these actions.
If you have questions, need more details, or would like to share thoughts or ideas with me, please reach out to me at amy@capechicago.org.
Sincerely,
Amy Rasmussen
Executive Director
Vaughn Occupational High School 12th-grade student at CAPE, alongside her artwork, during Convergence 2025. This project, titled “Wearable Art,” is a collective artwork made up of individual wings, handcrafted by students, who also wrote positive affirmations on them.
