The federal government shutdown may have had little direct impact on K-12 schools around the country as of last week, but a handful of public and private school students in the Washington area were an unfortunate exception.
These students鈥攔oughly 40 in all鈥攁re part of a national program called Project search, which helps prepare students with disabilities for the workforce. The program, which is operated by a nonprofit organization in Cincinnati, helps students and young adults with disabilities gain career experience and workplace skills through a blend of classroom instructionand on-the-job training. The interns, who are typically in their final year of eligibility for special education services, spend a year at a range of job sites, including hospitals, banks, and universities.
In the Washington area, the interns are often placed at federal agencies, including the Education Department.
But, thanks to the shutdown, the interns can鈥檛 go to their job sites.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e not allowed in the federal buildings,鈥� said Rebecca Salon, the manager of the state office of disability administration at the District of Columbia鈥檚 department on disability services, which partners with Project search. And many of the federal employees who supervise the interns are furloughed, she added.
The program has worked out alternate arrangements鈥攖he Smithsonian interns are helping out in a nearby office, for example.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e managing, but the number one question from all of them is, 鈥榃hen do we get back to our real jobs?鈥欌�� said Lu Merrick, the director of the post high school program at the Ivy Mount School in Rockville, Md., which participates in the program. 鈥攁lyson klein
Cameron French literally laid down the law.
鈥淚nterviews cannot be conducted with employees at this time, the excepted employee list is not public, and access to the [department] building is not allowed for this purpose,鈥� Mr. French said via email.
When the government says 鈥渟hutdown,鈥� it means it. Employees can鈥檛 take paid leave, can鈥檛 check their work email, or listen to work voice mail.
Closed Up Tight
The Office of Personnel Management advises the rest of the executive branch on employee conduct during a shutdown, although it delegates some guidelines, like those regarding media contact, to individual departments. (Mr.French clarified that the department cannot ask an employee to be an interviewed, but opm rules don鈥檛 explicitly forbid media contact.)
Even though Mr. Hicks can鈥檛 do any formal work with the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge that his office oversees, he鈥檚 spent some of his free time reading over the proposals publicly available online.
鈥淚 haven鈥檛 been instructed not to go to the ed website,鈥� Mr. Hicks said.
Indeed, for employees not exhausted from worrying about their family鈥檚 financial straits, there鈥檚 the looming problem of the work that has to be done once the shutdown ends. After all, someone has to process district Race to the Top applications, which were due Oct. 2, shutdown or otherwise. And then there鈥檚 the multitude of grant aplications, civil rights complaints, waiver claims, research experiments, and all the other functions of the department.
鈥淚 think the big damage is the psychological damage,鈥� the department source said. 鈥淓verybody there works their tails off, and really believe in what they鈥檙e doing, helping out the nation鈥檚 children. And just the fact that we鈥檝e all been taken away from this thing we love doing, I think that鈥檚 probably had a real morale effect on everybody.鈥�
Mr. Hicks echoes that sentiment.
鈥淚 think most of us didn鈥檛 think this was going to actually happen,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut of course we also didn鈥檛 think that sequestration would happen,鈥� he added, referring to the across-the-board funding cuts that have slammed all federal agencies.
Frustrated Workers
Amid the shutdown, Congress has passed some piecemeal bills seeking to alleviate some pain for federal employees, such as ensuring pay to military members. On Oct. 5, the House approved legislation authorizing back pay for the 鈥渘onessential鈥� federal workers, a measure President Barack Obama supports.
If anyone thinks that employees are getting back pay for nothing, they should probably ease their stance. The work is going to get done, the employees say, but now there鈥檚 less time to do it, and that time has been diminished because of the congressional quagmire.
鈥淓veryone I know at the department鈥攁nd I have colleagues at other agencies鈥攋ust wants to get back to work,鈥� Mr. Hicks said. 鈥淲e work in this profession because we want to make a difference, and it鈥檚 very frustrating not being able to make a difference right now.鈥�
