Last week we reported on a Trump administration pause of nearly 7-billion-dollar in federal education funding nationwide.  It's funding already appropriated by Congress back in March.

It's the pause that caused Governor Josh Shapiro to join some two dozen other states in a lawsuit over the funding.  The Trump administration has now said it will release 1.4-billion of that delayed funding, but that leaves school district still wondering about their share of the rest of the money.

United Way of Erie County and its Community Schools model hopes to fill any funding gaps so that programs and supports won't be lost, but they have funding concerns of their own.

Right now, United Way of Erie County is in year five of a full service Community Schools Department of Education grant.  It's funding they've used for vital student case management.  They aren't optimistic that if they applied again, the funding would be renewed. "You know there's just a lot of uncertainty right now and we have to kind of react when we see what actually plays out," said Mike Jaruszewicz, Executive Vice President at United Way of Erie County.

And as the local United Way works toward its mission to break down barriers to education -- things like hunger, clothing needs, and social and emotional health --it's not just direct education funding that they're worried about losing.  That's because the local Community Schools model brings other social programs into the schools to help in their mission. "Because if other community organizations that we've traditionally relied on to bring those supports in are seeing a reduction in their budgets and staffing and services, the need's not going away, if anything we need more support and that's something that we're going to have to work through," Jaruszewicz said.

The Community Schools program here launched in 2017.  It now has 17 community schools directors in all of Erie's Public Schools and in the Union City, Girard and Iroquois school districts as well. As federal funding pull-backs threaten to impact school districts, United Way hopes to adapt and keep making a difference, because in the trenches, they have data to know what kids need to succeed.  "Because we have that data driven process and we have needs assessments for each of the schools where we know what the gaps are, we can work to fill whatever is possible given the resources that we have," Jaruszewicz said.

United Way of Erie County is hosting a two day Community Schools conference at Gannon University starting tomorrow.  Some 20 United Way organizations from all over the U.S. and global representatives will be here to learn from Erie's Community Schools model. They all grappling with the need to adapt in times of uncertainty.