President Donald Trump is directing his education secretary to move forward with dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, a step that advocates say would have serious implications for students with disabilities.

Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states.” She is to do so while “ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely,” the order states.

“If you look at the Pell grants, supposed to be a very good program, and Title I funding and resources for children with special disabilities and special needs, they’re going to be preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them,” Trump said before signing the executive order. “But beyond these core necessities, my administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department.”

The Education Department was established by Congress and federal lawmakers would need to act in order to close the agency, but the administration is moving swiftly to weaken it.

The order comes little more than a week after the Education Department said it was cutting its workforce nearly in half in what McMahon described as a “first step” to shut down the agency. A significant number of the layoffs targeted the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, prompting major concerns about how the federal government will ensure that schools uphold disability rights and limiting recourse for students.

Advocates have warned that shuttering the Education Department could have an outsized impact on the nation’s 7.5 million special education students. The agency distributes billions in funding to states every year and oversees everything from early intervention for young children with disabilities to vocational rehabilitation in addition to ensuring that the civil rights of students with disabilities are protected.

“If the secretary moves forward to try to dismantle ED, every child with a disability stands to be harmed when federal funding is separated from key federal requirements, when federal oversight of discrimination in education is obliterated, and when investments in education research, technical assistance/training and data collection and transparency in outcomes for children no longer exist,” said Denise S. Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, or COPAA, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of students with disabilities and their families. “There are many ways to change a structure, but the only way that can be successful is through careful planning. No evidence of that has been presented.”

McMahon has suggested that oversight of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act be moved to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights be sent to the Department of Justice. However, the education secretary could not say what IDEA stands for and was short on specifics when asked who would enforce the special education law if the department is abolished.

“Dismantling the U.S. Department of Education is more than a policy shift — it will reverse five decades of progress for students with disabilities,” said Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of the United States and a former deputy assistant secretary in the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. “While the right to a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities will remain under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, states will struggle to deliver on its promise without federal technical assistance, oversight and enforcement.”

Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the agency over the mass firings last week and the executive order is expected to be challenged in court as well.