MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A political battle between the Trump administration and Maine Governor Janet Mills is targeting public school funding. The administration has threatened to pull millions of dollars in federal money because Maine does not ban transgender athletes from school sports. That has left education leaders across the state anxious about what they will do if the money goes away. NPR's Jonaki Mehta went to a rural district in Maine where federal dollars play a big role in students' lives all day long.
BARBARA WELCH: Hi, Mia Martin (ph). Happy Monday, Monday.
JONAKI MEHTA, BYLINE: Around 7:30 in the morning, the students of Mill Stream Elementary jump off of buses and roll into the front doors of their schools.
WELCH: Are you excited about being back at school today?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #1: Yes, yes.
WELCH: I am. Boy, oh, boy. I got...
MEHTA: Longtime educator, Barbara Welch, greets the students, many who make a sharp left for the cafeteria.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Cinnamon toast, you got it. There you go. Good morning.
MEHTA: Breakfast is one of at least two free meals kids get here at Mill Stream, which is essential in a community where about two-thirds of the families struggle with poverty.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: At home, I ate already cereal, but it doesn't really fill me up, so I ate a little more.
MEHTA: I'm glad you came for breakfast this morning. Fill those bellies.
Recently, the Trump administration froze money for school meals in Maine over a fight with its governor. The money was eventually restored, but that experience has made the administration's other threat to pull all federal funding from schools feel real for educators like Barbara Welch.
WELCH: Our district would be devastated if we did not have these funds because they support a wide variety of different programming.
MEHTA: In this district, federal money made up for a little more than 11% of the budget last year, but it plays an outsized role at the elementary schools in the Skowhegan area, including Mill Stream. They all receive Title I money. That's the biggest grant public schools get from the federal government. Nationwide, about 18 billion Title I dollars went to school serving low-income students last year.
JONATHAN MOODY: Our title program and our federal funds impact our most needy students. They're the backbone of our intervention systems. They help students get on pace.
MEHTA: The district superintendent, Jonathan Moody, says that's the whole idea behind Title I, to close the achievement gap between lower-income students and their peers. The students in this rural area come from six surrounding towns, many traveling for miles without hitting a traffic light. Moody says the school provides more than an education.
MOODY: Our hope is that the school is the hub of the district. And I think for rural communities, especially, you see that schools do become the hub.
MEHTA: So to see what he means, we took a tour of Mill Stream Elementary, from arrival until dismissal at 2:15, to see the role federal dollars play in a single school day. After breakfast, we head to a kindergarten classroom near the back of the school.
WELCH: What do you think he says?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #3: Go.
WELCH: That's going to have a long I sound because we see this E here at the end. It's going to...
MEHTA: Our tour guide, Barbara Welch, wears a lot of hats, but her day often includes giving extra support to students in the classroom.
WELCH: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #3: Go. Nice. Go.
MEHTA: That's the kind of work Title I makes possible because Welch's salary is entirely paid for by that grant. In fact, 74 positions in the district are funded by federal dollars. Like the teaching assistant in the hallway, right outside the kindergarten classroom, working with a student on math, one on one.
WELCH: You're going to see here in the hallway, this is a kindergartener who has been identified as just needing a little bit more support.
UNIDENTIFIED TEACHING ASSISTANT: How many do we have now?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #4: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
UNIDENTIFIED TEACHING ASSISTANT: Nine.
WELCH: And with that little extra support, we're in hopes that we can kind of close the little bit of gap that we see.
MEHTA: Go up the stairs, at the end of that hallway, where a licensed counselor sees dozens of students each week, including fifth-grader Rowen (ph).
ROWEN: I come in here because sometimes I need a counselor because of something that I'm struggling with.
MEHTA: Rowen's been getting counseling for two years, so we're not using his full name because he's a minor and because of student privacy laws related to mental health.
ROWEN: Kids having a counselor is good because they have someone to talk to them, and what's bugging them in life. And...
MEHTA: But the service will soon be limited because the Trump administration has announced cuts to school mental health grants.
Right next door to counseling, Rowen also gets special education support, which is also made possible largely because of another stream of federal money.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #5: OK, let's start reading.
UNIDENTIFIED READING INTERVENTIONIST: OK (laughter).
MEHTA: Before lunchtime, we head downstairs and around a corner, where two reading interventionists are at work with first-graders who get pulled out of class for intensive reading and writing instruction.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #5: Cow and sheep looked in the pig pen.
UNIDENTIFIED READING INTERVENTIONIST: Nice job. That's a big word for us.
ROXANNE DAVIS: Say saw without the sss.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #6: Aw.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #6: Aw.
DAVIS: On.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #6: On. Fawn was...
MEHTA: Reading interventionist Roxanne Davis says these are some of the first-graders struggling most with reading.
DAVIS: This is the most important time for them. If they don't read now, they will always have difficulty. We give them a chance to come out of that hole.
MEHTA: That approach of concentrating Title I dollars on younger students seems to be working because data from the last three years shows that by the time Mill Stream students get to third grade, they don't need the extra academic support.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #6: Hid-den. Hidden.
DAVIS: You are rocking it.
MEHTA: Much of the staff across the district - interventionists, teaching assistants, licensed counselors, meal coordinators - all these jobs are made possible by federal dollars. And Roxanne Davis says everyone at Mill Stream is worried what could happen if those jobs were affected by cuts.
DAVIS: They're very, very nervous about it. If we were not here, those kids that we work with would not be where they are. Without the funding, the program would be lost, and those kids would be lost.
MEHTA: Superintendent Jonathan Moody says he could try to raise the money locally, but that's really hard in a community struggling with poverty. So, for now, he says he has no choice but to plan as if federal funds will keep flowing.
MOODY: And I think cooler heads will prevail, but I'm an optimist. I'm an educator.
MEHTA: For the time being, the kids here are still receiving these services. They seem blissfully unaware that they're at the center of a legal and political fight.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Aubrey Riley (ph).
MEHTA: Around 2:15, as the school day comes to a close, students rush out the doors of Mill Stream to the playground.
How was school? How was your day today?
MIA MARTIN: Good.
MEHTA: But second-grader Mia Martin isn't eager to leave just yet. School is kind of her whole world.
MIA: Basically home for me.
MEHTA: What do you mean? Is school home for you?
MIA: Pretty much. If I had a bedroom here, it would probably be the office.
MEHTA: She says her favorite part of the day was sitting down to do what she loves most.
MIA: Reading "Green Eggs And Ham." My favorite book.
MEHTA: Jonaki Mehta, NPR News, Skowhegan, Maine.
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