Trump admin stops grant funding for school mental health : NPR

The Trump administration says it will stop paying out $1 billion in federal grants that school districts across the country have been using to hire mental health professionals, including counselors and social workers.

The U.S. Department of Education is telling impacted districts that the Biden administration, in awarding the grants, violated “the letter or purpose of Federal civil rights law.”

The grants were part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – a bill passed in the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which a teen gunman killed 19 elementary school students, two adults and injured 17 people. The bill, among other things, poured federal dollars into schools to address rising concerns about a student mental health crisis.

Those dollars helped Superintendent Derek Fialkiewicz, in Corbett, Ore., more than triple the number of school mental health professionals in his largely rural district of 1,100 students east of Portland. Before the grants, Fialkiewicz says his district had just two counselors, “and we realized, that’s just not sustainable for our students and especially coming out of COVID.”

In early 2023, thanks to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the district received a federal grant that fully covered the salaries and benefits of five new, trained social workers.

“It’s been amazing,” says Fialkiewicz of the difference that federal money – and the social workers it paid for – have made in his school community.

He says he was shocked when he heard the Trump administration was putting an end to this federal support. Just Tuesday, a U.S. Department of Education employee who oversees their grant had given his district the go-ahead to add a telehealth texting service for students. An hour later, Fialkiewicz says, he got an email that the grant would be discontinued.

Republicans supported these mental health grants

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and the mental health funding that accompanied it, enjoyed considerable Republican support even in the years after it passed.

“Too often, adolescents with untreated mental health conditions become the very same perpetrators who commit acts of violence,” wrote three of the law’s Republican supporters – Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina – in a 2024 opinion piece. Our law was designed to ensure that teachers and administrators have the necessary tools to identify students in mental health crises and connect them with appropriate care before it’s too late. Last month, there was a warning issued by the department stating that K-12 schools’ federal funding could be revoked if they do not cease all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programming and teaching that is deemed discriminatory.

In response to a query from NPR regarding the reasons behind the department’s belief that the mental health grants were not in line with Trump’s anti-DEI policy, the department shared excerpts from grant applications. One grantee mentioned in their application that school counselors needed to be trained in recognizing and challenging systemic injustices, promoting anti-racism, and addressing the prevalence of white supremacy to effectively support diverse communities.

The original federal request for grant applications had emphasized the importance of increasing school-based mental health services providers in underserved districts, diversifying the pool of service providers, and ensuring that all providers are trained in inclusive practices.

In an email to Fialkiewicz notifying him of the grant’s termination, the department stated that the initiatives funded by the grant violated federal civil rights laws, contradicted the Department’s commitment to merit, fairness, and excellence in education, jeopardized the well-being of students, or misused federal funds.

When asked about the role of diversity in his district’s grant application, Fialkiewicz confirmed that they had mentioned equitable hiring practices in their application, as required. He emphasized that equitable hiring practices meant selecting the best candidate for the job.

As a result of the grant termination, the social workers hired by Fialkiewicz may face the risk of losing their jobs.