The U.S. Department of Education will lay off all employees at its Dallas office, NBC News reported.
The Dallas office is just one of the regional offices getting eliminated as part of the national cuts. Other affected offices include San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland, according to NBC.
The Education Department announced plans Tuesday to lay off over 1,300 of its more than 4,000 employees as part of a reorganization that’s seen as a prelude to President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the agency.
Even before the layoffs, the Education Department was among the smallest Cabinet-level agencies. Its workforce included 3,100 people in Washington and an additional 1,100 at regional offices across the country, according to a department website.
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It was not immediately clear how many of those regional employees worked out of the Dallas office.
Related:What does the U.S. Department of Education do for Texas students?
The layoffs are part of a dramatic downsizing of the federal government directed by Trump. Thousands of jobs are expected to be cut across the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration and other agencies.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon told employees to brace for profound cuts in a memo issued March 3, the day she was confirmed by the Senate. She said it was the department’s “final mission” to eliminate bureaucratic bloat and turn over the agency’s authority to states.
Trump campaigned on a promise to close the department, saying it had been overtaken by “radicals, zealots and Marxists.” At McMahon’s confirmation hearing, she acknowledged only Congress has the power to abolish the agency but said it might be due for cuts and a reorganization.
There are concerns the administration’s agenda has pushed aside some of the agency’s most fundamental work, including the enforcement of civil rights for students with disabilities and the management of $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.
The department sent an email to employees Tuesday telling them its Washington headquarters and regional offices would be closed Wednesday, with access forbidden, before reopening Thursday. The only reason given for the closures was unspecified “security reasons.”
