As Colorado school districts wait to hear about the fate of $80 million in federal funds that the Trump administration unexpectedly put on hold last week, school officials are reluctant to lay off staff or cancel programs. But with the start of the new school year only six weeks away, time is running out.

The funds, which school officials had expected to receive on July 1, were set to be used for after-school programs, teacher training, migrant education and English-language learning, among other initiatives. States learned the funds would be withheld with just one day of notice, leaving districts scrambling to fund programs they were already committed to offering and pay staff whom they had already hired.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis led a roundtable Wednesday with superintendents, teachers and education nonprofit leaders at West High School in Denver, where he blasted the withholding of funds as “harmful and opaque.”

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“These are very difficult decisions that districts now have to make, and it has to happen in the next couple of weeks,” Polis said.

The federal Department of Education has not provided a timeline on the funds, which in a notice to states it said are under review. The funds total $6.8 billion nationwide and were already approved by Congress. Colorado’s share of that withheld money was originally estimated at $70 million, but Polis said an updated estimate is $80 million.

If the federal funds are not restored, Jefferson County Public Schools will lose out on $3.3 million it had already allocated. That would result in cuts to staff and programs meant for coaching new teachers, supporting English language learners, lowering truancy rates and conducting family outreach.

One of the district’s services that would need to be scaled back is a program that sends staff across Jefferson County in a refurbished bus to meet with parents, hand out resource flyers and sign up kids who are recent immigrants for support services.

“We’re very worried about how to run our programs without that funding,” said Tracy Dorland, Jefferson County Public Schools superintendent. “This has an impact not only on our students, which is the most important impact, but also on our workforce.”

With potential layoffs looming, Melissa Gibson, the executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, said superintendents and principals are having to make tough choices in the coming weeks.

“Every district leader is approaching this with students at the center and trying to mitigate the damage as much as possible,” Gibson said. “Every school community invests in them in different ways, but this is challenging.”

Both of Colorado’s U.S. senators, along with the state’s four Democrats in the House, sent a joint letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon “demanding answers on the stalled education funds,” according to a Tuesday announcement.

“School districts throughout Colorado are depending on these funds to deliver critical services to students across the state,” the letter said. “The delay and uncertainty around the distribution of this funding have made it incredibly difficult for school districts to plan and hire staff for the next school year.”

During the roundtable, Polis declined to specify if Colorado plans to sue over the withheld funds, but he said the state is “exploring all available options” to get the funding restored.

“We are being very aggressive, to fight for these funds and for the schools,” Polis said.