When students at dozens of schools across Illinois return to class in January, they may find that support services they depend on, such as mental health programs and food pantries, have disappeared.The Trump administration informed ACT Now Illinois last week that it is discontinuing its Community Sc hools Grant, effective Dec. 31. The organization was supposed to receive $18 million in 2026 and another $37 million in the following two years, said Susan Stanton, executive director for the nonprofit that administers the grant.The grant supports programs in 32 schools with 19,000 students across 16 school districts. Two are Chicago Public Schools, while the other schools are in the suburbs or in rural communities.Community Schools provide different types of programs and services in schools, depending on the needs of that community. Some schools use the funding for after school programs, allowing parents to work, and others use it to pay for mentors or clothing closets.“We are going to see these students immediately lose these programs,” Stanton said, noting that around the holidays children and families often need extra support. “The effects are just going to be catastrophic.”The organization has already appealed the decision, Stanton said. Some school districts are holding out hope that the appeal will be granted, while others are already sending out layoff notices to staff that will be affected if the money disappears. About 600 staff work in ACT Now funded Community Schools programs.Chicago Public Schools has a small grant through this program, as do a few other entities across the state. CPS was unable to provide information about whether its grant was canceled.But ACT Now gets the biggest grant in Illinois, by far.The Trump administration has not officially announced the canceling of the grants. But Education Week reported this week that 19 of the 70 ongoing five-year Community Schools Grant awards were being discontinued.In the letter to the organizations, the Trump administration states that it is canceling the grant due to either a violation of federal civil rights law or a conflict with the current president’s policy agenda. It is one of many grants that the federal government is canceling for this reason.Like ACT Now, all the grant recipients were expecting several more years of funding. According to Education Week, about $61 million in funding is being eliminated for 2026, and $107 million will be eliminated through 2028.Stanton said the organization has reached out to Democratic and Republican lawmakers, hoping that they can get the federal government to reverse course.“This was a huge shock for us,” she said. “No one had prepared for this.”Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, called the Trump administration’s decision to cancel these grants a “direct attack on students, families and the educators who serve them."“Instead of listening to educators and strengthening neighborhood public schools, this administration is actively working against them — placing ideology over the needs of America’s youngest residents,” she said in a statement.She also called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to fully fund Illinois schools to mitigate the effect of Trump’s cuts. ...read more read less