U.S. Education Department offices to be closed on Wednesday for ‘security reasons’

The U.S. Department of Education building stands in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. (Erin Scott/Bloomberg)

President Donald Trump’s administration is closing all U.S. Department of Education offices in the Washington area from Tuesday evening through Wednesday for “security reasons,” according to an internal announcement seen by Reuters.

The highly unusual move follows Trump’s vow to eliminate the Education Department, part of his plan to devolve more responsibility for education to the states. The memo said no staff would be allowed inside the Education Department building from 6 p.m. on Tuesday. The memo said offices would reopen on Thursday.

An Education Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the nature of the security issues prompting the closures.

This is not the first time the Trump administration has abruptly ordered an agency to close its doors to employees.

Similar instructions were given to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides aid to the world’s needy, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans from unscrupulous lenders.

Both agencies' headquarters were then shuttered as part of Trump’s efforts to shrink the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy. Trump’s Republican Party views USAID as pursuing a liberal agenda, and the CFPB as an example of government overreach by the Democratic Obama administration.

A reporter for Semafor, a global media platform, said half of the Education Department workforce is expected to be eliminated. The reporter said on the social media platform X that “reduction in force” notices for the department are expected to go out Tuesday evening.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

The department, which was created in 1980, employs about 4,000 people.