16 States Sue Dept. of Education over $1B School Mental Health Cuts

Sixteen state attorneys general are suing the U.S. Department of Education over its $1 billion cuts to K-12 mental health grants, intended to help fund services and hire school counselors and psychologists.

Beginning as soon as this fall, many former grant recipients of the axed funding, which was set aside as part of the bipartisan 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, will no longer be able to provide mental health services to students, the suit contends.

Data from the National Association of School Psychologists show that the national ratio of students per school psychologist is already 1,065 to 1 — well above the recommended ratio of 500 to 1. There was already a 5.5% decrease in the number of school psychologists from 2022 to 2023. These cuts will only widen that gap.

The Department of Education previously stated that it “plans to re-envision and re-compete its mental health program funds to more effectively support students’ behavioral health needs.”

“The Department decided not to continue funding these grants beyond the initial award terms. These grants are intended to improve American students’ mental health by funding additional mental health professionals in schools and on campuses,” a spokesperson for the department previously told Behavioral Health Business via email. “Instead, 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.”

The attorneys general assert in their complaint that the department’s “unlawful actions have already caused and will cause immediate and devastating harm,” and will lead to schools having to lay off the same professionals they hired with the previous funding to help bridge the gap in mental health services.

The grants were intended to span a five-year project period, with the Department of Education annually reevaluating to continue each grant’s funding based on the grantee’s performance.

“These funds were promised by Congress in response to a national tragedy, and they’ve been making a difference in students’ lives every day since,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield stated in a release. “Yanking that support midstream undermines programs that are working and leaves schools scrambling.”

Oregon is one of the 16 states suing the department.

The lawsuit claims that the Department of Education’s funding cuts violate the U.S. Constitution’s spending clause and the Administrative Procedure Act because the department failed to provide individualized reasons for the change to former grantees and did not consider their substantial reliance interests.

Court documents also allege the department’s decision to discontinue funding using a vague boilerplate notice to former grant recipients failed to “consider the tremendously harmful impact to children dependent on these mental health services, the educational mission of …schools, and the mental health workforce pipeline, designed to alleviate nationwide shortages.”

The lawsuit was filed June 30 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and has been joined by attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

“The Trump Administration’s Department of Education is attempting to rip away funding and projects that support the mental health and well-being of our students – it’s not only immoral, it’s unlawful,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta stated in a release. “These mental health programs were established by Congress following a wave of tragic and unacceptable school shootings, and they do critical work to ensure students can not only succeed but thrive.”

BHB reached out to the Department of Education for comment on the lawsuit and has yet to receive a response.