Education advocates in Chicago filed two lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Education this week, arguing that students returning from Christmas vacation will be left without crucial resources such as afterschool programs.

One of the lawsuits was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by the American Federation of Teachers and the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. The other was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago by Afterschool for Children and Teens Now (ACT Now) and Metropolitan Family Services.

One of the main allegations in the lawsuits is that the federal government is pulling grant money in the middle of the academic year.

News of the cuts apparently came only a week before winter break — leaving 32 schools across Illinois scrambling to figure out how to staff and pay for STEM and robotics classes, financial literacy programs, and workforce development training.

Other impacted activities include after-school tutoring, high school clubs, and enrichment learning programs for younger children.

Approximately 19,000 students will lose access to the programs when they return to school after New Year's.

Several staff members could also be laid off.

School administrators were shocked because the withdrawal of the funding wipes $60 million in already-allocated funding off the table. The schools were only two years into what were supposed to be five-year grants.

Attorneys allege the "last-minute loss" of funding is unlawful. They said schools around the country will feel "immediate and irreparable harm."

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education responded right away when asked for an explanation Tuesday morning. Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the DOE, blamed the halt in funding on a conflict with the priorities of the Trump administration:

"The Trump Administration is no longer allowing taxpayer dollars to go out the door on autopilot – we are evaluating every federal grant to ensure they are in line with the Administration's policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education. The Department non-continued grants that do not align with the Administration's priorities. Many of these use overt race preferences or perpetuate divisive concepts and stereotypes, which no student should be exposed to."

ACT Now took issue with the Department of Education's characterization of the programs.

"We completely disagree with the idea that this is race-based. These are local solutions to local problems, and so they're responding to whoever the kids are," said ACT Now executive director Susan Stanton. "We are already losing services. We're already losing staff. Students are going to come back to the classroom right after the holidays, and they're going to have lost things that they're depending on daily."

The lawsuits argued that "perceived" misalignment with the president's priorities is not a legal reason to discontinue a grant.