Education Week

Civil rights staff laid off by the U.S. Department of Education will begin returning to work in September, the department told a federal judge this week. Roughly 25 employees from its office for civil rights are slated to return starting Sept. 8, in the first wave of reinstatements set to run through early November, department leaders revealed in a filing submitted to a Massachusetts federal court on Tuesday. The reinstatement schedule comes two months after U.S. District Judge Myong Joun told the agency to bring the staff back—and days after he said the department wasn’t complying with that directive. It’s the first time the Education Department—which has been under court orders since May to reinstate workers—has said it will actually bring any back. The Tuesday court filing was in response to Joun’s June order to restore the hundreds of Office of Civil Rights positions it slashed during a massive reduction in force earlier this year.