Educators from the Bay Area and beyond protested cuts to the Department of Education (ED) on May 17. The protest, which was held at the Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco, produced a turnout in the hundreds.

This comes after an executive order from Trump attempting to eliminate the ED was blocked by a judge. His administration has proposed laying off nearly half of the department’s workforce, and the White House’s 2026 budget proposal would cut its funding by more than $10 billion.

Linda, a retired elementary school teacher who declined to share her last name, showed up to support the protest.

“Just having the Department of Education destroyed just seems ridiculous and impossible,” she said. “I just hate seeing everything dismantled.”

Linda has seen how a lack of funding affects educators. She spoke of a friend of hers who was an assistant for special education teachers.

“It’s hard to teach when you have situations where you just need assistance and it’s not there,” she said. “Just having the support financially and with staffing is really important.”

Violeta Wenger, a counselor at Hartnell College, came all the way up from Salinas to take part in the protest.

“Some very key programs are aimed to be defunded, so that affects students that need special assistance, students who are underrepresented,” she said.

Nathalie Hrizi, the Vice President of Substitutes for United Educators of San Francisco, spoke about her concerns with the proposed cuts to the ED.

“I don’t want to get into too much teacher speak, but we’ve had the experience that more and more of our students are qualifying for special education services,” she said. “Even at our bargaining table, we’re having to negotiate new ways of making sure their needs are met. To hear that the federal government is just not going to fund sections of those services to meet those needs is horrifying.

While Hrizi is an educator within public schools, she is well aware of some of the ways which the proposed cuts will affect colleges.

“I do know that it will affect some of the Title IX funding that goes to universities to ensure that sexual harassment and assault is properly dealt with, that complaints are investigated,” “It will also decrease a lot of funding that ensures that students from poorer communities can be at our universities and colleges, so that will have a disastrous effect on those who are seeking an education who may not be able to afford it for whatever reason.

Derek Allen, a community member who came to support the protest, represented Stop AI. Although he is not an educator himself, the group which he represents has multiple members who are.

“Something that really isn’t spoken enough about is how they’re trying to replace human teachers with AI,” said Allen. He gave an example, Unbound Academy in Arizona, a school opening in fall 2025 which will replace teachers with artificial intelligence.

Allen said that AI is “kind of corrupting the city government,” referring to San Francisco. He noticed the local promotion of Waymo’s autonomous cars while public transportation faced funding cuts, and believes that the replacement of teachers with AI in the city is not far off.

Fiscal year 2026 begins at the federal level on Oct. 1, regardless of whether or not a budget is implemented. The cuts to the ED are so far just proposals, so there is still time for change.