The U.S. Department of Education has frozen billions of dollars in school grants, impacting school districts and after-school programs in Georgia. 

2025 Funds for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, or CLCC grants, are being withheld by the federal government, leaving some Georgia after-school and summer care programs in a state of confusion.

Statewide After-School Network Director Katie Landes said Georgia’s CLCC grant allocation was over $40 million and serves 27,000 students.

“This funding in Georgia, around 60% of the grantees are school districts, and so this is often a primary source of funding for a school district. To operate after-school or summer programming is particularly as important in some of our more rural communities in Georgia,” she said. 

The freeze in funding may or may not be permanent, Landes said, but it is causing confusion for grantees.

“For those sites who may not be able to operate the same way or at all if they don’t have access to funds,” she said. “This could be, it has the potential to be a big surprise for families and to really have some disastrous consequences for a family who are expecting a safe and enriching place for their child to go to after the school day ends while they are at work that they may not have access to.”

This story comes to The Georgia Sun through a reporting partnership with GPB a non-profit newsroom focused on reporting in Georgia.

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Truth doesn’t bend because we dislike it.
Facts don’t vanish when they make us uncomfortable.
Events happen whether we accept them or not.

Good reporting challenges us. The press isn’t choosing sides — it’s relaying what official, verified sources say. Blaming reporters for bad news is like blaming a thermometer for a fever.

Americans have a history of misunderstanding simple things. In the 1980s, A&W rolled out a 1/3-pound burger to compete with McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. It failed because too many people thought 1/3 was smaller than 1/4. If we can botch basic math, we can certainly misread the news.

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Sarah Kallis | GPB

Sarah Kallis is the Politics Reporter at GPB. She is also the capitol correspondent for GPB's Lawmakers.