This story is syndicated from The Pitch, the newspaper of Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, MD. The original version of the story ran here.
The federal government employs millions all over the world, workers who oversee the programs and policies that impact the country’s status at home and abroad. No matter the administration, many of these civilians’ jobs were once considered secure and outside of politics. Now, their work and careers are threatened by each new ultimatum from the Department of Governmental Efficiency.
This is the new reality for many parents with students enrolled here at Walter Johnson High School in North Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb a short drive away from Washington, D.C. As April closes and Trump approaches the milestone of his first hundred days in office, local families continue to brace themselves for firings in the federal government.
Among Trump’s many campaign promises to change federal law and standards — like ending birthright citizenship and cutting off funding for the Ukrainian War — was a guarantee to amend bureaucracy and “drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” One of his first acts was to create DOGE, an unofficial federal department instructed to “maximize governmental efficiency and productivity” — its acronym, a nod to a popular dog meme.
Since then, the advisory body, led by the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, has remained extremely active. This week, Musk announced that he’d “significantly” cut back on his time working with DOGE — but the effects of the unofficial department look to be long-lasting, and the department will continue its work, he said.
Certain federal agencies continued remote work after the pandemic. As a result, physical offices were downsized and families relocated to outside of Washington, D.C.
Montgomery County, Maryland, and WJ’s territory have long served as prime real estate for federal personnel looking to settle down. According to the Montgomery County, 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, the single largest employer in the county is the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the Bethesda-based National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
On Jan. 28, all federal employees received an email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offering them two choices: resign now and receive their regular salary until September, or return to physical offices, with the continued risk of termination in the future. The email was aptly titled “A Fork in the Road,” and many WJ families had to discuss their next steps.
“My mom’s work is a mess,” senior Marianne Carr said. “She works at Walter Reed as a pediatrician. When that email came out, tons of people from her work just resigned. They already had an issue staffing-wise — they’re already understaffed all the time — so that was unfortunate.”
To further shrink the size of the government, Trump instituted a hiring freeze on Jan. 20. This included intern hiring and hiring for summer programs that had previously been available to high school and college students. Few if any of the vacancies caused by the deferred resignation program have been filled, so the remaining employees have taken on a heavier workload to perform the functions expected of their departments.
“My mom definitely has less time to interact with me. She’s been working a bit later. I have to help her around the house and that takes time away from the time I need for homework,” junior Lorena Trevino said.
In a recent informal survey of 56 WJ students whose parents work for the government, over 70% said that their parents had been impacted by President Trump’s executive orders. Over 10,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human services were dismissed in late March and entire agencies like USAID, which administers international humanitarian aid on behalf of the government, have been gutted or shut down.
“My mom has been so insanely stressed because she works in the Department of Health and she’s had to fire people that don’t deserve to be fired because of these orders,” an anonymous student told The Pitch.
The threat of termination hangs heavily over many families. In an email sent on Feb. 22, the federal Office of Personnel Management instructed every federal employee to respond and describe five things they had accomplished the previous week. Musk tweeted later that a failure to send the email would be “taken as resignation.”
Despite this warning, several federal agencies, including the State Department and the Pentagon, instructed their workers not to respond. Similar ultimatums continue, and it’s unknown exactly how many employees are actually responding.
Workers are challenging the actions of DOGE, and there are countless active lawsuits working their way through the courts. However, the cuts don’t appear to be stopping anytime soon. As federal employees and WJ parents work to fill the gaps, the future remains uncertain.
This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced cuts to the State Department amounting to as much as half of its budget, with an aim to target human rights work specifically. Rubio called the department “bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission.”
“It’s fully undeserved, and disgusting and stressing everyone out,” the anonymous student said of federal cuts. “It’s not efficient — and no one’s getting work done.”