Project 2025 was written as a plan. In 2026 it is a record of what is being done. This page tracks the pieces that reach into a Montessori classroom, and it names them plainly, because a field that teaches children to observe should be able to observe what is happening to it.
We are a nonprofit, and this is education, not endorsement. We name policies and their effects on children and educators. We do not tell anyone how to vote. The point is not a party. The point is what happens to the child in the prepared environment when the supports around that child are pulled away.
This tracker is alive. We update it as events move. Last updated October 2026.
The Department of Education is being taken apart
What the plan proposed. Close the U.S. Department of Education and send its work back to the states or out to other agencies.
What is actually happening. A March 2025 executive order ordered the department closed. Roughly half its staff were cut in a reduction in force. The Supreme Court cleared the layoffs in a six to three decision in July 2025. Through late 2025 and into 2026, seven major offices began moving to other agencies, including the offices that oversee core K through 12 funding, students with disabilities, and civil rights.
In September 2026 the moves stopped being on paper. On September 10, more than a hundred special education staff began reporting to a Health and Human Services building, and civil rights staff began reporting to the Justice Department. The department has now signed fourteen agreements handing its programs to other agencies. But a September 2026 investigation found the department has not actually been eliminated. Eighteen months of cuts have made it cost more and work worse, not less, and an earlier audit found up to thirty eight million dollars spent paying laid off staff not to work. In September, members of Congress from both parties moved to slow the shutdown, including a bipartisan Senate effort in July to reverse more than a quarter of the transfers and a push to bar the use of funds to close the department at all.
What it means for Montessori. Public Montessori exists inside public education. It draws on the same federal funding streams, the same civil rights enforcement, and the same data systems that are now being scattered or shut down. When the agency that holds the money and the rules is hollowed out, the schools serving the children with the least are the first to feel it.
What you can do. Learn which federal streams your school touches, Title I among them, and watch them. Tell the families in your community in plain language what is changing. Silence protects the change.
Special education left the building
What the plan proposed. Move special education and disability rights out of the Department of Education.
What is actually happening. On June 16, 2026, administration of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was moved to the Department of Health and Human Services, and civil rights enforcement was moved to the Department of Justice. Several federal grants that train teachers of students with disabilities, including teachers of children with visual and hearing impairments, were discontinued. On September 10, 2026, the special education staff physically moved into a health agency building, though the law itself still names the Department of Education as the agency responsible, which is one reason a lawsuit joined by disability rights groups is still working its way through the courts.
What it means for Montessori. The method was built in partnership with disabled children. A child's right to a free and appropriate education does not disappear on paper, but moving it to a health agency, away from the people who understand education, makes that right harder to claim and harder to enforce. Inclusion becomes something each school has to hold on its own.
What you can do. Read our tool on disability inclusion in your Montessori community. Know your state's protections, which do not vanish when federal enforcement thins. Do not quietly counsel disabled children out. That is the exact pressure this moment creates, and refusing it is the work.
Title IX protections for LGBTQIA+ students were rolled back
What the plan proposed. Remove gender identity from federal civil rights protection in schools.
What is actually happening. In April 2026 the Office for Civil Rights rescinded gender identity agreements at six school districts and a college, ending requirements for pronoun training and for letting students use restrooms that match who they are. Through the fall of 2026 the office kept opening and pressing investigations against districts, with around eighteen active at once, so the pressure is steady even without a new headline. The courts have not settled the question. Rulings on transgender students in 2026 have gone different ways in different places, which means what protects a child still depends heavily on which state and which court they are in.
What it means for Montessori. Federal cover for affirming trans and nonbinary children is being withdrawn. What a child needs to feel safe and known did not change. What changed is that the law now looks away, which puts the weight back on the adults in the room.
What you can do. Read our tool on LGBTQIA+ inclusion when the law will not hold it. Check your state and local protections. Keep your community affirming as a matter of practice, not of federal permission.
Immigration enforcement reached the schoolhouse door
What the plan proposed. End the policy that kept immigration enforcement away from schools, churches, and hospitals.
What is actually happening. In January 2025 the sensitive locations policy was rescinded. Agents may now enter the public areas of a school, though private areas still require a judicial warrant or a staff member's permission. Districts have reported drops in attendance where enforcement is active, and reporting in 2026 describes agents moving closer to school grounds. In cities where enforcement surged in the fall of 2026, some schools saw sharp attendance drops in the days after an operation, with roughly one in five students absent in one North Carolina district. There was one piece of good news. On September 21, 2026, a federal judge blocked a rule that would have required immigration status checks to use federally funded programs, including Head Start and health clinics, because the government skipped the required public comment step.
What it means for Montessori. A prepared environment is supposed to be a place of safety. A child who is afraid cannot do the work of childhood. Families are keeping children home. Educators without status are carrying fear to work.
What you can do. See our Survival Notes and the ICE support material. Know the difference between public and private space and the warrant requirement. Have a plan before you need one, and make sure families know their rights regardless of status.
Head Start survived the axe but is being starved
What the plan proposed. Eliminate Head Start.
What is actually happening. After public backlash, Head Start was not eliminated. It was funded at 12.4 billion dollars for fiscal year 2026, a small nominal increase that is a real cut once rising costs are counted. Five of its ten regional offices were closed and about a hundred central staff were let go, with payments and grant renewals delayed. Related early childhood grants were targeted for elimination. In August 2026 the health agency proposed rewriting the rules that Head Start programs run by, cutting them down to a much shorter list. The proposal would remove the current requirement that programs actively seek out and enroll children with disabilities. The public comment window ran through early October 2026. This is the piece to watch most closely, because it changes the everyday rules for the youngest children, including the ones a Montessori program serves.
What it means for Montessori. Public and community early childhood programs, including public Montessori for the youngest children, lean on this scaffolding. Starving a program slowly is still ending it, just quietly enough to avoid the headline.
What you can do. Name the slow cut for what it is. Support the families who lose care when a program closes or a payment is late.
The threat aimed at nonprofits like us
What the plan and its allies proposed. Give the executive branch the power to strip the tax exempt status of nonprofits it dislikes.
What is actually happening. A bill in the lineage of H.R. 9495 and H.R. 6408 would let the Treasury Secretary unilaterally revoke the tax exempt status of any group it labels a terrorist supporting organization. It has passed the House but not the Senate. A March 2025 executive order raised concerns about targeting groups for an "illegal purpose." In the fall of 2026 the pressure shifted from a bill in Congress to the Treasury itself, with reports that officials were reviewing the tax exempt status of specific named groups they disagree with, and senators writing to demand answers. The reassurance worth holding onto stands. No one can revoke a nonprofit's status with the stroke of a pen today. A 1998 law still bars the president from ordering the tax agency to audit or strip a specific group, the normal process still applies, and the effort is opposed by groups across the spectrum, from the ACLU to Oxfam.
What it means for Montessori. This is the environment we organize in. It is meant to make groups like ours quieter. We will not be quieter. We will be precise. See our tool on what happens when "anti-fascist" becomes "terrorist".
What you can do. If you run an organization, keep your advocacy about issues and policies, document your compliance, and do not let the fear do the silencing for them.
Where we stand
We are a 501(c)(3), and everything here is issue education, which is exactly what a nonprofit is allowed and expected to do. We take positions on policies that shape children's lives. We do not endorse or oppose any candidate or party. Naming a plan by its name is not partisanship. It is literacy.
If you take one thing from this page, take this. None of these changes touch what the work requires of you in the room with the child. The federal supports can be pulled away and the responsibility stays exactly where it always was, with the adults who chose this field. That is the hard part and it is also the whole point.
Have something to add or correct? Tell us. This tracker is only as good as the field that keeps it honest.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Education closure and staff cuts: Washington Informer, Federal News Network
- Special education moved to HHS, civil rights to DOJ: The Arc, MABE
- Title IX rollback: K-12 Dive
- Sensitive locations rescission and schools: NILC, Chalkbeat
- Head Start funding and office closures: Center for American Progress, EdSource
- Threat to nonprofit tax exempt status: ICNL, Nonprofit Quarterly
October 2026 update sources
- Department of Education dismantling in September 2026, staff moves and cost findings: NPR, Government Executive
- Special education staff physically moved to HHS, litigation ongoing: NPR, The Arc
- Immigration status check rule blocked, Head Start and clinics: Wisconsin Watch
- Head Start deregulation proposal (comment period closed early October 2026): Federal Register, First Five Years Fund
- Treasury review of nonprofit tax exempt status and Senate pushback: Senate Finance Committee, Husch Blackwell