On Day 41 of the shutdown, a bipartisan group of Senators announced a deal to fund the government through January 30—while Head Start preschools began to close after November 1 federal grant payments failed to arrive and 1 in 8 Americans faced disruption from the ongoing SNAP litigation. The funding deal still faced procedural hurdles in both chambers and did not include the ACA premium tax credit extension Democrats had sought.

Thirty-three days into the shutdown, Congress continued to fail on continuing resolution votes while Head Start preschools began to close after November 1 federal grant payments did not arrive—and courts stepped in to force continued SNAP disbursements to recipients in several states. Both chambers introduced bills to address the downstream harms of the shutdown, though none advanced.

The government shutdown continued into its fourth week, with furloughed and excepted employees missing their first complete paychecks and the Senate taking its 11th and 12th failed procedural votes on the GOP-backed continuing resolution. The week also brought the withdrawal of Kevin O'Farrell's nomination to lead the Department's Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, following upheaval in that office and a job promotion in Florida.

With the government shutdown entering its third week—at 19 days, the third-longest in U.S. history—the Senate continued to fail on procedural votes to advance a continuing resolution as the federal judiciary announced its funding would be exhausted by October 20. The longest shutdown on record (35 days, 2018–19) remained ahead as negotiations stalled.

The new Continuing Resolution has paused all federal agency RIFs government-wide and requires reinstatement, with back pay, for employees separated during the shutdown period. All RIF actions taken between October 1 and November 12, 2025 are invalid, and no agency may initiate or implement a RIF through January 30, 2026.

As the government shutdown stretched on, the Senate confirmed four key Department of Education nominees—including the new Assistant Secretaries for Elementary and Secondary Education, Civil Rights, Legislation, and Postsecondary Education—all by a party-line vote of 51–47. The nominees will be sworn in once the government reopens, while the Senate's 11th and 12th procedural votes on continuing resolutions again failed to advance.

The government shutdown began after the Senate took six failed votes on two competing continuing resolutions—the Republican H.R. 5371 and the Democratic S. 2882—with negotiations at an apparent standstill through the week. With the shutdown in its sixth day and Representative Jeffries challenging Speaker Johnson to a debate, the path to reopening the government remained entirely unclear.

With Congress largely out of session in the final week of the fiscal year, the shutdown calculus was complicated by the President cancelling a budget negotiation meeting with Democrats and the Supreme Court temporarily allowing the administration to impound $4 billion in previously appropriated foreign aid—weakening Congress's constitutional power of the purse heading into the final days before October 1. Both chambers held only pro forma sessions; no long-term spending action was taken.

During the final full week of the fiscal year, the House passed a short-term continuing resolution but the Senate rejected it 44–48—and separately failed to advance the Democratic alternative—making a government shutdown at the October 1 deadline highly likely. The Senate also spent time on the National Defense Authorization Act and crime legislation related to the District of Columbia, as negotiations on a CR continued without resolution.

With only two and a half weeks remaining in the fiscal year, both chambers turned to appropriations—with House and Senate Appropriations Committees reporting their FY2026 Labor, HHS, and Education spending bills—though a government shutdown at October 1 appeared increasingly likely given the compressed legislative timeline. Education-related provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act also advanced, including limitations on federal research grants to institutions with certain foreign partnerships.

Former U.S. Department of Education attorneys Emily Merolli, Jill Siegelbaum, and Josie Eskow Skinner have launched Sligo Law Group, PLLC, a boutique federal education law firm designed to fill the expertise gap created by sweeping layoffs at the Department's Office of General Counsel. The firm advises K–12 agencies, higher education institutions, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations on federal education law, grants compliance, civil rights, and employment matters.

On July 4, 2025, the President signed H.R. 1—the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"—into law, enacting sweeping changes across nearly every area of domestic federal policy, including K–12 and higher education. Sligo Law Group has prepared a breakdown of the Act's most consequential education provisions for organizations working to understand and navigate its impacts.

On July 10, 2025, the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services announced new legal interpretations that reverse over 20 years of guidance, classifying adult education, postsecondary CTE, and a broad array of HHS programs—including Head Start—as "federal public benefits" subject to PRWORA immigration-status eligibility and verification requirements. ED's interpretive rule explicitly states that Plyler v. Doe does not extend to adult or postsecondary education programs, with immediate operational implications for grantees under WIOA Title II and the Perkins Act.

In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a Maryland school district's refusal to allow religious families to opt their children out of LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum materials substantially burdened their free exercise rights and triggered strict constitutional scrutiny—a meaningful departure from the longstanding Employment Division v. Smith framework. The decision raises the legal bar for school policies that incidentally burden religious beliefs, even neutral and generally applicable ones, and increases litigation exposure for districts and educational agencies that deny religious accommodation requests.