Department of “Clap-Outs” emotional education celebrate deceased federal employees

Dozens of employees of the emotional ministry of education participated in a last “tap” in Washington, DC, after losing jobs in the middle of the restructuring of the Trump Administration Agency.

The administration has reduced approximately 50% of the department’s workforce as part of President Donald Trump and the strategy of the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to abolish the Department and send educational decisions to the States.

The officials who came out, who were terminated, retired or to be voluntarily bought, each received about 30 minutes to recover their personal effects this week – before leaving the building to applaudi colleagues who shouted “Thank you!” Outside Washington offices, DC

The last chief of education, the former secretary of education, Miguel Cardona, visited his former office to celebrate the employees affected by the reshuffle of the workforce.

Applause, shaking hands and encouraging them, Cardona told civil servants: “Thank you for your service.”

“These officials who are coming out at the moment deserve a thank you. They deserve respect. They worked hard – not only during the time I was secretary, but before that,” Cardona, wearing ordinary clothes, to journalists in a brief statement outside the agency’s headquarters.

“I am here, for the staff here to thank you,” he added.

Deneen Ripley shook the hand of Cardona and told him that all his transport division had been eliminated. Ripley worked in the department for 30 years and said she was taking early retirement now.

“It looks like a death,” Ripley told ABC News. “It looks like a bad divorce, it seems heartbreaking.”

Despite the massive overhaul and nearly 2,000 lost employees, McMahon stressed that the Ministry of Education will continue to administer its statutory functions on which students from disadvantaged horizons count, including subsidies, formula financing and loans.

“The president clearly indicated today that no funding would stop for these [programs]”McMahon told ABC News, the main policy correspondent Rachel Scott after signing the executive order of Trump last week, who ordered McMahon to use all the necessary steps authorized by law to abolish the agency it was used to lead.

“I think it is his hope that even more funding could go to the United States. There will be more opportunities for this. And, you know, he means what he says. And therefore there will be no financing or reduction of financing,” she added.

A “snatched” dream work

Washington, DC, originally Leondra Richardson and a host of emotional colleagues across the department left the headquarters of the agency almost smashed for the last time on Friday.

“It was a dream work,” Richardson told ABC News. “And this dream was torn off by the new administration.”

Richardson said that his entire office, the Data Director’s office, had been withdrawn earlier this month by the “strength reduction” implemented on March 11.

Sydney Leiher, an intermediate level career official, said that she felt forced to go out and do not know what is the next step for her. After leaving its personal effects, including a Beach Volley and Sack of Trader Joe beach, Leiher stressed that the reforms are not only unjustified but also unpopular.

“It’s really emotional,” said Leiher, holding tears. “I feel bad for everyone in the chief information office who must, like, bring together all our laptops and equipment – as, they do not want to do it either.

“It’s just a really sad day. But seeing the support here of all the other members of the ED ministry, then also, like other federal agencies, then the public shows me that, as people do not want it, and as, it is not popular, and that should not happen,” added Leiher.

Richardson and Leiher both worked in the same division, the Ocdo, which was closed. Without the office, Richardson said that there would be no one left at the federal level to collect data to show improvements or delays from students.

The Trump administration said it made discounts to rid the government of bureaucratic bloating, but Richardson told ABC News that his work was not based on policies or bureaucratic. Leiher, an analyst who worked on automatic learning of artificial intelligence, told ABC News that she had taken this job after her return from the Peace Corps. She added that the work of the public service should not concern the policy.

“I believe in the public service,” said Leiher. “I believe in a non -partisan public service. We are important, we count.”

Meanwhile, outgoing officials such as Dr. Jason Cottrell, data coordinator at the post -secondary education office, the department’s largest subsidy division, said that he thought that students were endangered while the Ministry of Education was reduced.

“Our nation students will suffer,” said Cottrell. “I think of doctoral students who, you know, to try to do cancer research or, you know, to learn or anything, and without the funds to support them, they will – it will be difficult for them to succeed without these funds, and we are not going to acquire this knowledge that we need.”

The farewell ceremony in the department came while “tapping” should continue across the country next week in regional offices in places such as Cleveland, Dallas and San Francisco. But these moments struck particularly near their home for Richardson, who detailed how she overcome a pregnancy among adolescent girls while growing east of the river in the southeast quadrant of the city.

She said it was so close but so “far” from the federal government.

“I hate that I cannot be a voice or an inspiration for the young girls who grew in the south-east of DC that I wanted to inspire,” said Richardson, adding that she “wanted to give a chance, you know, show that there is another way and you can the future.”

“You can have a big impact and a big difference in the country from where we are,” she said.

Alex Ederson of ABC News contributed to this report