Westport school officials fear the town’s poorest students could suffer if federal funding cuts they suspect are coming down the pike come to pass.

“We’re not mildly concerned,” superintendent Thomas Aubin said Thursday. “We’re very, very concerned about this. This is real money.”

Aubin was informed by the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents earlier this year that Westport, as well as other cities and towns across the Commonwealth, could lose 25 percent of its federal Title I, II and IV-A funding under reductions expected to be put in place by the Trump administration. The district received about $440,000 in federal Title funds this school year and if the cuts go through as predicted, Westport would lose approximately $110,000 this coming year.

Aubin said he has shared the news with the town manager, finance committee and select board members, and added that the proposed budget district officials submitted to the town does not account for that potential $110,000 loss.

If the district does lose it, he said, "where are we going to get it?"

Title I programs aim to increase student and staff achievement and benefit districts with high percentages of low income students, while Titles II and IV provide funding to improve the quality and effectiveness of teachers, and increase student achievement.

Previously, only Westport Elementary School was supported under Title I. But for several years the entirety of the district has been under Title I as the population of poorer families here has increased. Currently, of 1,550 total students across the district, Aubin said 65 to 70 percent receive free or reduced price meals. At the middle high school, some 700 students out of a population of 900 receive them.

While the district receives state funding for its free and reduced lunch program and thus does not rely directly on federal funds to help cover its costs, Aubin and district business manager Michelle Rapoza said this week that they are still worried about Westport's future ability to provide healthy meals to students who might not otherwise be able to afford them.

That is in large part because one of the district's food initiatives, Farm to Table, is supported under United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grants that are also threatened. This past week, the USDA slashed two programs that provided $1 billion nationwide to schools and food banks, including the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program.

Rapoza said the district's USDA funding enabled local officials to work with local producers, including Meatworks on State Road, and under the program the district has also worked with Orr's Farm, Noquochoke Orchards and other local producers to provide locally raised and grown food.

"What this does is it makes it more difficult to provide healthy meals," Aubin said. Food service workers "have worked tremendously hard to put out high quality food for our kids. The farm to school program has played a role in that; if the USDA cuts are coming down, it's going to impact that."

Aubin said he still doesn't know what Westport stands to lose under its Title I, II and IV funding, but said he is not optimistic given recent changes within the federal Department of Education.

More than 1,300 education department employees received word Tuesday they were losing their jobs and their terminations, as well as the departure of 572 employees who accepted contract buyouts, have reduced the department's work force to 2,183, down from 4,133 when the Trump administration took power.