From summer school to language class, Education Department freezes leave students bereft of learning lifelines

Desperation crept into Sylvia’s voice as she rattled off all the ways her life would become more difficult if a free learning program that her son attends during the summer shuts its doors.

Desperation crept into Sylvia’s voice as she rattled off all the ways her life would become more difficult if a free learning program that her son attends during the summer shuts its doors. A single mother, Sylvia works as a janitor and is the sole breadwinner for her family which includes her 10-year-old as well as her ailing mother. “I cannot sleep at night,” said Sylvia, who spoke to CNN through a translator as she picked up her son, Gabriel, at the end of a long shift. “Gabriel is asking, ‘Mom, why you are crying? Why are you crying, mom?’” She has been crying, she said, because she knows that the glue that keeps it all together — a nonprofit program that allows her son to have a safe place to stay, warm meals and a chance to learn English — is being targeted by the Trump administration. She declined to give her last name, citing privacy concerns amid the current political climate. Aspire Afterschool Learning, where Gabriel spends his days during the summer school break in Arlington, Virginia, is one of more than 10,000 summer and after-school programs across the country that has been pushed into a state of perilous uncertainty after the Department of Education abruptly paused the grant it depends on to keep things running. The fund, called 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC), is a federal program that was among a huge swath of nearly $7 billion of education grants that the department suddenly froze this month, with little notice.