When Rebecca, a 48-year-old mother from Michigan, needed help for her disabled son, she turned to the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.
Rebecca's 13-year-old adopted son had foetal alcohol syndrome, ADHD, and other mental health diagnoses that required specialised educational support. His symptoms could include aggression towards peers, faculty or objects, and he received suspensions last fall following outbursts.
Rebecca said the school district isolated her son from his peers for months, with only special education teachers and limited faculty for contact.
In October 2024, Rebecca filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights alleging the school violated federal disability law and her son had been "discriminated against and denied a free appropriate public education". She alleged the school only allowed him to "attend school for two hours per school day and in a 1:1 segregated setting". Hours were gradually added back, Rebecca said, but he remained isolated. The school district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Though Rebecca had a private lawyer and an education advocate, an OCR lawyer in the Cleveland office was facilitating mediation with the school district as soon as April.
But before that could happen, the Trump administration fired the Cleveland office's entire staff, including the attorney helping Rebecca's son, throwing her case – and others like it – into limbo.
"I don't have any other option for this kid," said Rebecca, who asked the BBC to withhold her last name and her son's name to protect his privacy. "They're playing politics with my little boy. And I don't think that's fair."
The sudden firings, and ensuing confusion, were precursors of President Donald Trump's next big move: to try and dismantle the Department of Education entirely.
On Thursday, he signed an executive order that directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin to "facilitate the closure" of the department. Congress, not the president, actually holds the power to dismantle a federal agency, and the order will likely spark legal challenges.
But the move has left many Americans like Rebecca uncertain about their children's future.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told media on Thursday that while the department will not be shut down completely, what will remain will be much smaller, and will focus on "critical functions," such as federal student loans.
OCR, she said, will be greatly reduced in "scale and the size".
Cuts have already begun: On 11 March, the Trump administration made drastic cuts to the department using a process known as a reduction in force, halving its staff.
McMahon said the downsizing showed a "commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers."
Although the Department of Education has little oversight over the day to day operations of most schools in the US, it plays a key role in enforcing federal education guidelines and policies.
The Office of Civil Rights was one of the hardest hit divisions in that first round of firings. The administration shuttered 7 of the 12 regional offices, including major metropolitan areas like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.
This month, as Rebecca and her husband tried to figure out what the changes at the department meant for their son's case, the entire staff at OCR's Cleveland office received an email that their unit was "being abolished" – along with their positions.
The news left one Cleveland attorney who works on disability cases with a "complete feeling of desperation."
The attorney worried not only about the individual cases still underway, they told the BBC.
"The effect of each individual case is sometimes much bigger, in terms of educating the school and making good for the others in the district," said the attorney, who requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from the administration.
Parents and OCR attorneys had long been frustrated with the agency's growing backlog and diminishing staff. They fear new cuts will make it impossible for the already overwhelmed division to handle the tens of thousands of complaints it receives each year.
Tasked with making sure schools are following America's civil rights laws, the OCR's job is to help ensure that students are not discriminated against because of their disability, sex, race or religion. Remedies the office helps institute could be as straightforward as adding accessibility features to school buildings or seating a near-sighted child at the front of the class. But the office also tackles complex cases involving discrimination or bullying, as well as sexual harassment and assault.
Before his executive order, there were already signs that the office's mission was changing.
OCR staff had received guidance for the office to prioritise cases involving antisemitisim, the AP reported. Craig Trainor, the department's acting assistant secretary for civil rights, has said they will take on cases involving transgender athletes at universities in order to combat "radical transgender ideology".
On 14 March, the Department of Education said it had launched investigations into more than 50 universities as part of the administration's move to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices, which it views as exclusionary.
Staffers who remained in their jobs said the Department of Education's new leadership had provided little to no guidance about how thousands of pending cases, including Rebecca's, would be reassigned. They also worried that cases involving racial minorities, or people with disabilities, will not receive the appropriate attention.
The office received a record 22,687 complaints in fiscal year 2024, according to OCR's annual report. Headcount had declined even as cases increased over the years. In 1981, OCR had 1,100 full time employees. By 2024, it was down to 588.
"We were already so incredibly flooded with cases," the Cleveland attorney said. "I was never proud of our processing time."
With the new cuts, they said, "this work will not be able to be done".
But parents and educators say they will not let the Department of Education be shut down without a fight. Nikki Carter, a mother and disability advocate in Alabama, is one of two plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, which is suing the Department of Education, McMahon, and Trainor over the mass job cuts.
The lawsuit alleges that McMahon's actions have stalled Ms Carter's racial discrimination case that was being handled by the OCR and she "has received no indication that the investigation has resumed".
"There was a lack of communication throughout the entirety of the process," Ms Carter told the BBC. "When the Trump administration came in, it made that situation even worse and even more difficult."
Despite her frustrations with OCR, she believed the office was still necessary to help victims of racial discrimination. She hoped the lawsuit would not only restore the office, but improve it.
"Children, family, as well as advocates, they don't get due process," Ms Carter said. "They are being denied just basic federal educational rights. And so when you can't get that on the local and state level, the only hope that we have is to turn to the federal government.
"We do need OCR to go back to work," she said. "And we also need OCR to be accountable for their actions – or lack thereof."
Meanwhile, Rebecca has transferred her son to a district school for students with emotional impairments. But she still wants OCR to negotiate special tutoring for her son, and to educate the district staff about how to help students like him. She recently learned her son's case would transfer to the still-operating Denver office, but has received no other updates.
"He was treated so poorly and differently because of the way his brain was structured," she said. "I want to see somebody held accountable for the way he was treated."
The judge has given the government until Friday to provide an update from someone directly involved in the discussions.
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