WASHINGTON —

Students are starting a new school year for the first time since the Trump administration began downsizing the U.S. Department of Education. The return to the classroom follows a busy summer for the agency.

In July, the Supreme Court paved the way for the Education Department to move forward with roughly 1,400 layoffs.

Lindsey Burke, deputy chief of staff for policy and programs at the Education Department, said in an interview on Wednesday that staffing levels are now "about half of what we were at in January," when President Donald Trump took office.

"I don't have exact numbers off the top of my head to give you, but we are operating, I think, much more efficiently," Burke said.

Burke pointed to a new inter-agency partnership between the Education Department and the Lab

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