The U.S. Department of Education will stop funding roughly $1 billion in grants that were meant to boost the ranks and training of mental health professionals who work in schools, saying the grant awards made under the Biden administration now conflict with Trump administration priorities.
The multi-year grants will end at the conclusion of their current budget period, some recipients were told in an April 29 letter sent by Murray Bessette from the Education Department’s office of planning, evaluation, and policy development.
The letter told grantees that their awards provide “funding for programs that reflect the prior Administration’s priorities and policy preferences and conflict with those of the current Administration.”
The awards could “violate the letter or purpose of Federal civil rights law; conflict with the Department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education; undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help; or constitute an inappropriate use of federal funds,” the letter reads.
The funds were authorized by Congress in the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which passed after 19 students and two teachers lost their lives in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
“This is a short-sighted, poor decision,” said Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach, director of policy and advocacy for the National Association of School Psychologists.
Awards made under two grants—the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program and the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program—were affected by the notices. Those grants supported 260 recipients in 49 states, helping them prepare more than 14,000 mental health professionals to work in K-12 schools, according to Mary Wall, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of K-12 education at the Education Department under President Joe Biden.
Much of the money under the multi-year grants had already gone out by the end of the prior administration, Wall said.
“I think it is a foul disregard for a commitment to school safety,” Wall said. “Caring for students’ mental health has a direct impact on whether or not there is increased levels of violence in our schools. So taking resources like this away midstream has really devastating effects for average American schools and families.”
The Colorado Department of Education was awarded a five-year grant in October 2024 to help districts recruit and retain mental health professionals, and it anticipated receiving $1.5 million annually over the life of the grant, said spokesperson Jeremy Meyer.
Now, the award will stop after Dec. 31, he said. No funds had yet gone out to school districts because the department was in the early implementation phase for the grant.
“We are deeply disappointed by this decision,” Meyer said. “Addressing the mental health needs of students remains one of the most urgent priorities identified by school and district leaders throughout Colorado.”
The Education Department “plans to re-envision and re-compete its mental health program funds to more effectively support students’ behavioral health needs,” Brandy Brown, deputy assistant secretary for K-12 education in the Education Department’s office of legislation and congressional affairs, wrote in an email obtained by Education Week.
Brown said in the email that the non-renewals affect about $1 billion in awards.
With the department shedding nearly half its staff since January, Wall doesn’t believe the agency has the capacity to issue new requests for proposals and make new awards, particularly on a short timeline. She also questioned the legality of changing the requirements of the program while it was underway.
Trump administration cites ‘race-based actions’ for decision not to continue grants
The cuts to these grants represent only the latest round of grants or contracts the Education Department has stopped since the start of the Trump administration, often claiming that the spending prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion, which Trump has set out to eliminate.
Madi Biederman, a spokesperson for the department, defended the decision to discontinue funding, saying in a statement that “under the deeply flawed priorities of the Biden Administration, grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help.”
“We owe it to American families to ensure that taxpayer dollars are supporting evidence-based practices that are truly focused on improving students’ mental health,” she continued.
Because of research showing that students can do better when they see professionals—like educators and mental health specialists—who reflect their community, the Biden administration built a focus on diversifying the pipeline of mental health professionals into the grant competition, Wall said. Applicants could choose to address with their funding, and the department defined “diversity” expansively, she said.
“It’s a bit baffling that they say they want to return to a focus on merit and qualifications and effectiveness, when that is what these grants are doing,” said Strobach of the National Association of School Psychologists. “They are supporting the training and the hiring and retention of fully prepared, fully qualified people, and they are there to serve all students.”
Schools in recent years have stepped up their focus on student mental health
The Biden administration placed a greater focus on youth mental health as mental health problems reached crisis levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act funding, the administration poured a historic amount of funding into helping schools recover from the pandemic, which districts used in part to boost mental health services.
Students from low-income backgrounds, students of color, and students with disabilities have been most affected by mental health struggles, said Nancy Duschesneau, senior P-12 research associate for EdTrust, an organization that advocates for students from low-income backgrounds. Pulling back money when students are still struggling with their mental health is troubling, she said.
“We talk a lot about caring about creating safe schools, and I think the Trump administration also cares about that, and yet, pulling back this funding will actually harm school safety,” Duschesneau said, “because we know that creating a safe school requires creating a positive school climate, making sure that students have mental health resources, as well as supports for their social and emotional development.”
