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WASHINGTON — School was out on Thursday, so D.C. parents decided it was time for a field trip to Capitol Hill.
There, they lobbied against Congress’ temporary government funding bill that could slash the city’s budget by more than $1 billion and leave public schools vulnerable to cuts.
Parents mobilized one another to call members of Congress, show up at senators’ offices and lobby Senate staffers who have children in D.C. public schools. They coordinated their actions through PTAs, group chats and email listservs, while also urging family members outside of the district to contact their members of Congress.
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One text in a group chat of D.C. parents noted that a Senate Republican staffer had children at their school, adding that there was a movement to corner her. Another parent told NBC News that parents have been working to figure out which Capitol Hill staffers with children in public schools could be reached.
Some parents have been leveraging relationships with people who may hold sway on the Hill.
“Parents have described staffers who they are either personal friends with or former colleagues that they have reached out to personally,” Emma Kelly, a D.C. public schools parent, said.
The city’s fiscal year 2025 budget was approved last year, increasing the budget by more than $1 billion. But the funding bill being considered by Congress would force the city to revert back to fiscal 2024 budget levels, reducing the city’s spending by $1.1 billion in six months, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said this week.
Previous temporary government funding bills, known as continuing resolutions, have had provisions allowing D.C. to continue spending funds in line with the city’s current fiscal year budget, rather than the previous one. Such a provision was excluded from this week’s bill.
As parents protested at her colleagues’ offices, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters that she would speak with Bowser on Thursday.
“I do not support this restriction on the District of Columbia’s ability to use its own funding,” said Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. She added, however, that she still plans to vote for the bill.
Parents have been focusing on outreach to Republicans and moderate Democrats, emphasizing to members of Congress that their staffers are often D.C. residents whose kids may attend the city’s public schools.
Multiple parents told NBC News that their lobbying of other parents took place privately through text messages and interactions in schools and neighborhoods, nervous that their employers would look negatively on activism during a new presidential administration.
One woman who has a child in D.C. public schools told NBC News that she had spoken with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Wednesday about the bill’s impact on D.C.’s budget. Murkowski seemed receptive and said that her staffers remind her frequently that they are all D.C. residents, the woman said.
D.C. does not have voting members of Congress, so parents and children roamed the floors of the Hart Senate office building on Thursday, urging Senate staffers to protect the city’s funding.
“It was important for me to go to Senate Hart, largely because I’ve been watching the educators around me continue to give their all to raising future generations,” said 16-year-old Erica Floyd, who attends a D.C. public high school and visited a Senate office building to try to talk to senators. “Their perseverance, dedication and support for students and their education inspired me to do my part and advocate for my peers’ education and my own.”
Sixth graders Leo Benevelli, Jake Kaplan and Jake Zelin visited Sen. Jon Ossoff’s office with their moms after he said he was assessing the bill. Ossoff, a Democrat from Georgia, is up for re-election in 2026.
“I really don’t think this is what the Founding Fathers of our country would have wanted, and our country is built by teachers and schools,” Benevelli said.
Several of the advocates who visited Capitol Hill on Thursday invoked their upbringing as they brought their cases to Senate staffers.
Douglas McRae was born and raised in Mississippi and now lives in D.C. with his 4-year-old son, Luca, who is in the city’s pre-K program. The two visited Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s office on Thursday with other advocates, urging the staff for the Mississippi Republican to ensure that the city’s budget remained in tact.
McRae has asked his parents and Luca’s aunt and uncles in Mississippi to contact their members of Congress.
“I’ve told them to reach out and call as well to make sure that people in Mississippi are not OK with this,” he said.
It’s a tactic used by other D.C. families, too, who worry that their voices won’t be heard without a voting member of Congress. The city has a delegate and two shadow senators, but they cannot vote on legislation.
“I’ve asked my family and my friends who live in states with voting senators to please advocate on our behalf,” said Caitlin Rogger, whose 8- and 10-year-old children are in D.C. elementary schools. “The Senate can turn this around, but D.C. doesn’t have a senator who can vote, so there’s no one beholden to my neighbors and me for this decision.”
Ashley Smith Thomson visited senators’ offices Thursday, one day after her latest chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. She is on medical leave, which is putting a strain on her finances and has her worried about what potential spending cuts could mean for child care in D.C.
“If it goes away, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my daughter while I’m recovering from a double mastectomy,” said Smith Thomson, whose child is in first grade.
It’s unclear exactly what programs would face funding cuts if the bill goes through, but the mayor has laid out that some of the top areas that the city spends money on are public education, public safety and Health and Human Services.
“There’s no way to cut that kind of money in the time that we would have in this fiscal year not to affect police or not to affect teachers and not to affect some of the basic government services that allow us to keep our city clean, safe and beautiful,” Bowser told reporters Monday.
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the mayor said that her office is “hopeful that our partners in Congress will get it fixed this week.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who chairs the Appropriations Committee and introduced the bill this month, did not respond to a request for comment about the bill’s impact on D.C.’s funding.
The House voted on Tuesday to pass a six-month funding bill that mostly maintains similar funding levels from 2024. The Senate has not yet voted on the bill, but Democrats have said they will reject it. The government faces a Friday night deadline to avoid a shutdown.
Megan Lebowitz is a politics reporter for NBC News.
Sarah Fitzpatrick is a senior investigative producer and story editor for NBC News. She previously worked for CBS News and “60 Minutes.”
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