On January 23, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) to expand educational
freedom and opportunity for families. The EO Section 7 directs the Secretary of the Interior
(Secretary) within 90 days to review any available mechanisms under which families of students
eligible to attend Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools may use their Federal funding for
educational options of their choice, including private, faith-based, or public charter schools. EO
Section 7 also directs the Secretary to submit a plan to the President describing such mechanisms
and the steps necessary to implement them for the 2025-26 school year.
To meet the deadline set by the President in the EO, BIE is expediting the formal Tribal
consultation process to provide Tribes and critical Indian education stakeholders the meaningful
and timely opportunity to review and comment on the EO, generally, and possible authorities
available to the BIE. Rather than the usual 30-day notification period, BIE is providing a twoweek,
14-day notification period that still provides the necessary announcement for meaningful
engagement while addressing the timeline set forth in the EO.
Consultation will be conducted to seek input from Tribes and stakeholders on the EO and related
topics including:
- any available mechanisms that could provide families of eligible students use of Federal
funding for educational options of their choice including how any such mechanisms will
be funded; - to the extent that there exist any such mechanisms to implement in the 2025-26 school
year, the eligibility criteria for students in the plan referenced in the EO; - educational options near existing BIE-funded schools that could provide potentially
eligible students local flexibility to attend a non-BIE school, such as private, faith-based,
or public charter schools.
The language of the Executive Order is located at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidentialactions/2025/01/expanding-educat…. The BIE recommends reviewing the language prior to attending a consultation session or submitting written comments for providing meaningful feedback.
If you would like to provide written input, please either email your comments to consultationcomments@bie.eduor mail to Ms. Juanita Mendoza, 1849 C Street, NW, MS 3609, Washington DC 20240. If you have any questions regarding the Tribal consultations, you may contact Ms. Juanita Mendoza by phone at (202) 208-3559 or by email at juanita.mendoza@bie.edu.
