The Balance of Power

Mental Health Funding Cuts in K‑12

Press Release:

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Tong Sues Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion to Stop Men­tal Health Fund­ing Cuts

Preceding Event:

After a school shoot­ing in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 stu­dents and two teach­ers, Con­gress appro­pri­at­ed $1 bil­lion to per­ma­nent­ly bring rough­ly 14,000 men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als into K‑12 schools. Accord­ing to the press release: “Accord­ing to the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of School Psy­chol­o­gists (NASP), grantees served near­ly 775,000 stu­dents and hired near­ly 1,300 school men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als dur­ing the first year of fund­ing. NASP also found a 50% reduc­tion in sui­cide risk at high-need schools, decreas­es in absen­teeism and behav­ioral issues, and increas­es in pos­i­tive stu­dent-staff engage­ment based on data from sam­pled pro­grams.“
On April 29, 2025 the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion made the deci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue pro­gram grants because of con­flicts with the admin­is­tra­tion’s pri­or­i­ties. The Depart­ment iden­ti­fied its new pri­or­i­ties as being “mer­it, fair­ness, and excel­lence in edu­ca­tion.” These new pri­or­i­ties were only com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the grantees in the notices of dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of the grants.

General Overview:

Accord­ing to the press release dat­ed July 1, 2025, “Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong today joined a coali­tion of 16 state attor­neys gen­er­al suing the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion to stop ille­gal cuts to con­gres­sion­al­ly approved fund­ing for men­tal health pro­grams in K‑12 schools.” The law­suit alleges that the actions of the Depart­ment vio­late the Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dures Act (APA) and the Con­sti­tu­tion in not appro­pri­at­ing funds Con­gress had vot­ed on and approved. The goal of the suit is to con­tin­ue the award­ing of the 2 grant pro­grams, “The Depart­ment had award­ed this fund­ing to the nation’s high-need, low-income, and rur­al schools pur­suant to its Men­tal Health Ser­vice Pro­fes­sion­al Demon­stra­tion Grant Pro­gram (MHSP) and its School-Based Men­tal Health Ser­vices Grant Pro­gram (SBMH)”.

Connecticut Nexus:

Grants of more than $3 mil­lion to sup­port social work­ers in Hart­ford, New Britain, Ver­non and Water­bury schools through 2029 have been can­celled because of this new pol­i­cy. From the press release, “Through this pro­gram, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut received a $3.01 mil­lion five-year grant to sup­port 25 grad­u­ate stu­dent social work interns serv­ing near­ly 46,000 stu­dents in Hart­ford, New Britain, Ver­non and Water­bury. On April 29, the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion pro­vid­ed notice to UConn along with oth­er grantees that the fund­ing now con­flict­ed with the Trump Administration’s pri­or­i­ties and would be ter­mi­nat­ed on Decem­ber 31, 2025.”

Case #:

2:25-cv-01228

Case title:

State of Wash­ing­ton et al v. Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion et al

Date of filing:

June 30, 2025

Plaintiffs: 16 states

Defendants:

Court:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE

Status as of Dec. 1, 2025:

OPEN
Last fil­ing: Nov. 24, 2025

Posted in