On Board Online • September 1, 2025
By Alan Wechsler
Special Correspondent
At NYSSBA's Leadership in Education Event in early August, attendees heard from an education finance expert in her first appearance at an in-person NYSSBA event: Christina Coughlin, deputy commissioner and chief financial officer at the State Education Department (SED).
Recalling that she started her job one day before Sept. 11, 2001, she said: "My career has doomed me to interesting times."
That's still true, Coughlin said. She described financial challenges that face the state's public education system despite record support from the state Legislature, including the risk of losing certain forms of federal funding.
Although federal funding accounts for only about 5% of public education spending in New York State, reductions on any scale can affect districts' ability to serve their students, she said.
Coughlin said changes at the federal level potentially could hit New York "to the tune of 3 to 5 billion dollars" in the next few years.
While that's a lot of money, "it's not a five-alarm fire," Coughlin said.
"For this coming year, we have state aid that looks really nice, particularly if you're on formula," she said. "We have continuing revenues from the feds. But I would caution a little bit of conservatism as you're thinking into what you're building into base budgets now. You're going to have to pay for it next year. We don't know what's going to happen."
She suggested that school boards avoid big ticket items in budget planning, if they can be put off. "We're the family that doesn't go on the European vacation this year."
In a wide-ranging conversation that was moderated by NYSSBA consultant Jay Worona, Coughlin was joined by two SED colleagues: Jason Harmon, deputy commissioner for performance improvement and management services; and Daniel Morton-Bentley, counsel and deputy commissioner for legal affairs.
This summer, $400 million in federal education funding for afterschool programs and other programs in New York State was withheld by the U.S. Department of Education before being released.
Worona asked Morton-Bentley if that kind of withholding could happen again.
"There's always a risk," said Morton-Bentley.
Worona noted that school officials are getting conflicting information from federal and state authorities about what the law requires them to do or prevents them from doing, e.g., the rights of transgender students and how accommodating school officials should be when agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement show up at schools.
"Who are they supposed to follow?" Worona asked. "How are they supposed to watch this ping-pong game? What are they supposed to do as individuals who are required to follow the law?"
"Unfortunately, I feel like I have to give one of my most hated answers: it depends," Morton-Bentley replied. "You really have to take each of these on a situation-by-situation basis."
In some cases, directives from the White House lack legal authority, Morton-Bentley said, such as those involving curriculum. Local school boards retain control of many decisions affecting curriculum. "We have a strong tradition of these being local operations," he said.
Undocumented students present other concerns. What if ICE agents demand to enter a school to make an arrest or conduct a "welfare check" on a student? If agents have a court order called a judicial warrant, school officials have a legal obligation to comply, he said. But what if ICE agents only have an administrative warrant from their agency, or no paperwork at all?
Morton-Bentley noted refusing to cooperate involves more risk since President Trump reversed a Biden administration policy and authorized ICE to conduct arrests in schools, churches and courthouses. The recent prosecution of a Wisconsin judge after allegedly obstructing an ICE attempt to make an arrest in her courtroom cannot be ignored, Morton-Bentley said.
"It's a conversation you need to have with your school attorney," he said. "You may have to make a choice - if they're like, I'm here to take a student away, maybe that is a risk you're willing to take. The immigration issue in particular forces some horrible dilemmas for schools."
Another potentially confusing issue is the idea of parents opting their kids out of a class covering a topic or using material that they believe to be at odds with the religious beliefs that they are trying to instill in their child. Worona, who recently retired as NYSSBA's general counsel and deputy executive director, cited two cases from the 1980s in which courts ruled against this idea. In those cases, parents were told that their options were either to send their kids to a private school or homeschool them.
But the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor has upended that logic. This summer, the court ruled in favor of Maryland parents who objected to elementary school discussion of books that had LGBTQ+ characters.
"It's totally new territory," Morton-Bentley said. "It's not a great decision in terms of providing guidance to the field. Determining how it's going to play out is a complete mess."
He added, "If you get a request (from a parent to give their child an alternate activity based on a religious objection), you're going to have to entertain it." But there could be room for school officials to claim that the lesson or book promotes broader values of dignity and respect, and has no religious content. It is also possible for a school to determine that the request cannot be fulfilled because it is not based on a bona fide religious conviction.
Worona brought up the new "bell-to-bell" cellphone ban in schools. Harmon said the ban presents an opportunity to have conversations about the use of technology inside school walls, which dovetails with the Board of Regents' desire to have schools help students improve their digital and media literacy. "The appropriate response to misuse is not disuse, but right use," he said.