{"id":329146,"date":"2025-12-04T02:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T02:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/329146\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T02:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T02:13:17","slug":"funding-ends-for-school-mental-health-projects-after-a-roller-coaster-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/329146\/","title":{"rendered":"Funding Ends for School Mental Health Projects After a ‘Roller Coaster’ Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ian Levy secured a $3.3 million federal grant last fall<\/a>, he expected to have five years to train 30 new school counselors who would go on to work in high-need New Jersey school districts.<\/p>\n

By the end, he thought he\u2019d have a group of counselors working in schools across the state where he could send future counselor trainees for hands-on training.<\/p>\n

But less than a year into the project, Levy is preparing to wind down much of the work to boost the number of counselors and the profession\u2019s diversity. Instead of lasting five years, the funding for the initiative will end after one, on Dec. 31, after the Trump administration pulled the plug earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The first 10 trainees are completing a year of coursework and were preparing to start working in schools next semester to gain on-the-job experience. Now, whether they\u2019ll be able to do that without the financial assistance from the grant is in doubt, not to mention Levy\u2019s ability to train two more groups of 10 future counselors each over the next four years. (The grant was to fully cover trainees\u2019 tuition.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe grant funding would have ended in five years, but the work of the grant would have lived well beyond the period, in that there would be folks carrying out the mission, and then they would multiply over time,\u201d said Levy, an assistant professor of school counseling at Rutgers University Graduate School of Education.<\/p>\n

The funding for the Rutgers initiative came from a $1 billion infusion in school mental health services that Congress passed in 2022 following the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas<\/a>. It enabled more than 300 projects across the country, allowing schools to hire mental health professionals and universities to train future mental health professionals to work in schools. Recipients of the funding had five years to do their work.<\/p>\n

But Levy and his Rutgers University colleagues were among 223 grantees who received a letter from the U.S. Department of Education in late April<\/a>, three months into the new Trump administration, saying their grant-funded work reflected Biden administration priorities and was \u201cinconsistent\u201d with \u201cthe best interest of the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding would end Dec. 31, the notice advised<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The news came as a disappointing surprise to the Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative, which had recently begun the third year of its five-year grant. The organization has been working with nine rural and suburban school districts in north-central Kentucky to hire school counselors and support them so they\u2019ll stay in the profession.<\/p>\n

The newly hired counselors \u201creally became our mental health special forces in our districts, and then to be told that it\u2019s not in the best interest of our government to fund it was very frustrating,\u201d said Jason Adkins, the cooperative\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n

Since the April notices, grant recipients on the chopping block have scrambled to preserve their funding. More than 80% filed appeals with the Education Department, urging the agency to reconsider the terminations. Some asked members of Congress for help<\/a>. The grant terminations have been the subject<\/a> of at least four legal challenges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some grantees held out hope that they could win back some funding when the Trump administration launched a redesigned competition for the remaining mental health funds<\/a> in late September.<\/p>\n

In the end, few, if any, appeals to the Education Department appear to have been successful. But one lawsuit resulted in a judge\u2019s order that has preserved funding for 49 grantees<\/a>\u2014for now, at least, as the Trump administration has pledged to appeal.<\/p>\n

That leaves up to 174 initiatives to boost the availability of in-school mental health services and the ranks of hard-to-recruit school mental health professionals facing the end of their funding in a few weeks.<\/p>\n

The Education Department terminated the grants because the Biden administration awarded them under \u201cdeeply flawed priorities\u201d and grantees were using the funds to \u201cimplement race-based actions like recruiting quotas,\u201d a spokesperson said earlier this year. (The Biden administration required applicants to show how their initiatives would boost the diversity of school-based mental health professionals and the number who come from the communities they\u2019re serving.)<\/p>\n

Terminating multiyear grants before the end of the grant period has been rare until this year under the Trump administration<\/a>. Administration lawyers have argued in court<\/a> that grantees shouldn\u2019t have relied on their funding continuing from one year to the next and that the cancellations were the result of an \u201cindividualized review\u201d that resulted in the termination of two-thirds of the awards.<\/p>\n

The department didn\u2019t answer questions from Education Week about the number of successful appeals nor about how much funding remains available to devote to new grants given that it now must continue funding 49 grantees under the federal court order. But a spokesperson said the agency plans to award those new grants by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Even if grantees manage to preserve their funding or secure new federal funds to continue their work, the disruption itself has done damage, said Sharon Hoover, a former co-director of the National Center for School Mental Health and a professor emeritus of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are certainly questions about whether this has destabilized the school mental health workforce pipeline,\u201d said Hoover, who described the experience for grant recipients since April as a \u201croller coaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience of having grant funding abruptly stopped could influence how potential grantees react to future school mental health funding opportunities from the federal government, Hoover said. And it could discourage prospective school mental health professionals from signing up to participate in federally funded initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s to say that there\u2019s not going to be another executive order discontinuation of grant funds?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Schools saw a chance to make a dent in the need for mental health services<\/p>\n

The $1 billion infusion of federal funds for school mental health services came amid a decadelong decline in students\u2019 mental health<\/a> exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and long-running shortages<\/a> of school counselors, school psychologists, social workers, and other school-based mental health professionals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was transformative about this funding was the amount\u2014it was just the largest investment that we had seen\u2014and the fact that it was so widespread in terms of the number of states and local districts that were able to access the funds and tailor them really for improving their school mental health systems,\u201d Hoover said.<\/p>\n

The funding went to two grant programs\u2014one to help schools hire and retain mental health professionals and the other to train future school counselors, psychologists, social workers, and school-based clinicians. Some 339 entities\u2014a mix of school districts, multidistrict partnerships, state education departments, and universities\u2014received awards.<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, Levy saw the grant he secured as an opportunity to make a dent in a long-running shortage of school counselors.<\/p>\n

The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 1 counselor for every 250 students, but that figure nationwide stood at 376 students per counselor during the 2023-24 school year, according to the association<\/a>. In New Jersey, it was 298 to 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe addition of 30 school counselors over the five-year period, deployed across the state, would have a positive impact on reducing that ratio,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n

The grant also offered the chance to partner with four local districts in need of added mental health services and to train a new generation of school counselors in methods better suited to the diverse student populations they would be serving.<\/p>\n

Much of the school counselor role is focused on working with the entire student population to help students feel connected to and safe at school and prevent serious behavior problems and the need for more intensive mental health services, Levy said. Counselors might work with a class of 9th graders to help them acclimate to high school or with elementary school students on social skills and emotional regulation. They might form connections with community groups to enhance after-school programming.<\/p>\n

These strategies \u201cdon\u2019t sound like counseling, but what they do is they create an ecosystem where students feel heard and supported and seen, and their families are involved and their communities involved,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n

That preventative focus has also been a key priority for the Ohio Valley cooperative in Kentucky. Using its $5.2 million, five-year grant, it\u2019s hired 11 school counselors and paid their salaries, provided them with small retention stipends and tuition assistance, guaranteed they can spend most of their time working directly with students rather than on administrative tasks, and supported their professional development. The counselors have also served as liaisons between school districts and area mental health providers who treat students.<\/p>\n

As the five years drew to a close, the cooperative planned to work with the participating districts to incorporate the counselors into their budgets long term. It\u2019s also taken steps to secure Medicaid reimbursement for services provided by school counselors, as another funding source to sustain their positions.<\/p>\n

But with funding expiring Dec. 31, not every district will be able to keep the newly hired counselors after this school year, said Santina Plottner, the cooperative\u2019s director of school-based mental health services.<\/p>\n

Already, five of the 11 have left the program since the Education Department denied the cooperative\u2019s appeal to reinstate funding in late August. With one counselor hired since then to fill a vacancy, the districts are down to seven new counselors, Plottner said.<\/p>\n

Participating counselors described their grant-funded jobs as a \u201cdream position,\u201d Plottner said. Schools were noticing a reduced need among students for higher-level mental health services because of the counselors\u2019 preventative work, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like the impact has been so large it was really disappointing\u201d to see the funding end years early, Plottner said.<\/p>\n

The Education Department\u2019s letter denying the cooperative\u2019s appeal<\/a> quoted passages from the original grant application mentioning diversity, equity, and inclusion\u2014statements that its \u201chiring practices are intended to promote equitable opportunity,\u201d that the organization\u2019s DEI coordinator would review interview questions, and that counselors would participate in a DEI training offered by Cornell University.<\/p>\n

Adkins said the organization tried to recruit a diverse pool of candidates to reflect the students they\u2019d serve and it made its hires based on merit. In addition, the group later decided against using the Cornell training\u2014something Plottner had noted in a grant progress report for the department.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a really rigorous process and we tried to include that in our appeal, and it seemed as if it had not been considered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump administration is scrubbing initiatives it says promote DEI<\/p>\n

The mental health grants were an early example of the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to eradicate federally funded initiatives from the Education Department and other agencies that it claimed were promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.<\/p>\n

Since discontinuing the mental health awards, the department has done the same for hundreds of other competitive grant awards\u2014for special education projects<\/a>, teacher preparation<\/a>, and more\u2014citing passages in grantees\u2019 applications emphasizing what the administration considers to be DEI.<\/p>\n

In rural Northern California, the McKinleyville Union school district sued the federal agency<\/a> after it denied its appeal<\/a> to reinstate the $7.2 million, five-year award it had secured with two nearby districts just last year.<\/p>\n

In the first year of the grant, the districts have used the money to add a mental health clinician at each school who works with students on campus, so families don\u2019t have to drive miles away to see the nearest specialist, said Julie Giannini-Previde, McKinleyville\u2019s superintendent.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve also added a coach in each district who helps teachers use a tiered support system<\/a> to boost students\u2019 mental health and emotional needs.<\/p>\n

The award prioritized hiring mental health professionals who reflected the districts\u2019 student population, which includes a large number of Native American students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that we have clinicians on campus who kids see themselves in is so important and just means so much,\u201d she said. \u201cThe idea that we wouldn\u2019t do that, it just doesn\u2019t make any sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, McKinleyville still has its award, as it\u2019s one of the 49 grant recipients whose funding has been preserved by a court order. But it\u2019s still far from certain the districts will retain their funding, as the court order is only temporary and the Trump administration plans to appeal.<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, Levy said he and his colleagues are looking into alternative funding sources to keep their initiative going.<\/p>\n

And in Kentucky, the Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative is covering the counselors\u2019 salaries out of its own budget until the end of this school year, said Adkins, the CEO. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s also applied for funding under the Trump administration\u2019s redesigned mental health grant competition\u2014but those grants will provide funding only for school psychologists<\/a>, so the cooperative wouldn\u2019t be able to use it to continue paying for counselors.<\/p>\n

The group included a letter of support from Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in its latest grant application.<\/p>\n

After the previous grant\u2019s termination, Adkins said, \u201cwe hope that his support gets us a fair review of our application.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Ian Levy secured a $3.3 million federal grant last fall, he expected to have five years to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-329146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}