WASHINGTON >> The U.S. Department of Education said today it would lay off nearly half its staff, as government agencies scrambled to meet President Donald Trump’s Thursday deadline for them to submit plans for a second round of mass layoffs.

Affected education employees will be placed on administrative leave starting on March 21, the department said in a news release announcing the firings. The terminations are part of the department’s “final mission,” the release said, alluding to Trump’s repeated campaign vow to eliminate the department.

In a statement, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the reductions would ensure more efficiency and accountability.

“This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system,” she said.

The union representing more than 2,800 education department workers said it would fight the “draconian cuts.”

“What is clear from the past weeks of mass firings, chaos, and unchecked unprofessionalism is that this regime has no respect for the thousands of workers who have dedicated their careers to serve their fellow Americans,” said Sheria Smith, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.

(U.S. Sen.Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) criticized the administration’s move to cut half of DOE’s workforce. “Over a third of kids in America lack basic reading skills and Donald Trump’s response is to gut the Department of Education and our public schools,” Schatz said in a news release. “Clearly our education system needs fixing so that every child in America can get the world-class education they deserve. But the solution is not to pull funding and resources from local schools and tell families to figure it out themselves.

(“People voted for Donald Trump to lower costs and make life more affordable – not to crush their children’s futures. Worse, the so-called ‘savings’ from this absurd move will be shoveled straight into the pockets of billionaires. Thanks to Trump, billionaires get ahead while children fall behind,” he said.)

Other federal agencies have turned to early retirement programs to fulfill Trump’s mandate, offering lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to workers who agree to leave their jobs. Among these are the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Food and Drug Administration.

The buyout offers, combined with another program that eases eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being embraced as a lower-friction way to help meet the Thursday deadline, human resources specialists at several federal agencies told Reuters.

The Trump administration has been grappling with myriad lawsuits after it fired thousands of probationary workers in a first wave of mass layoffs and dismantled entire departments like the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. humanitarian aid agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans against unscrupulous lenders.

All U.S. government agencies have been ordered to come up with large-scale layoff plans by Thursday as part of Trump’s unprecedented campaign to overhaul the government. One of his top advisers, the world’s richest person Elon Musk, is leading that effort with his Department of Government Efficiency.

The General Services Administration, which manages the government’s property portfolio, is also seeking approval to offer the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already offered bonuses of up to $50,000, Reuters reported.

Human resources and public governance experts said the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal challenges. It also requires workers who have accepted the offer to repay the money if they take another government job within five years.

“If your strategy is to get as many people out the door voluntarily, that reduces the risk of court orders and opposition to you in the long run,” said Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan.

Only a couple of agencies have telegraphed via media leaks how many employees they plan to cut in the second phase of layoffs. These include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 staff.

Despite the looming deadline, no agency has yet submitted its job-cutting plan to OPM, the government’s human resources department that is collating the data, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. OPM declined to comment.

OPM itself has offered lump-sum payments to about 650 of its employees, according to another person with knowledge of the matter. Employees were given until Wednesday to respond.

At the General Services Administration, employees were informed on Monday that OPM had greenlit a plan to offer an early retirement program to all eligible employees.

“I encourage each of you to consider your options as we move forward,” GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian wrote in an email seen by Reuters. “The new GSA will be slimmer, more efficient and laser-focused on efficiency and high-value outcomes.”

On March 10, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent an email to all its 19,000 employees announcing a Friday deadline to opt into a Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment, or VSIP. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

“There will be no extensions,” states the email, reviewed by Reuters and signed by Tania Tse, director of the FDA’s Office of Human Capital Management.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its prior VSIP offer by adding that workers accepting it would get two months of full pay in addition to the bonus, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters.

Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union which represents 110,000 government workers, said the Trump administration was using “a legitimate program to further damage the capabilities of agencies to complete their mission.”

OPM declined to respond to Lenkart’s comments.

Star-Advertiser staff contributed to this report.