By Taylor Knopf
In April, the federal Department of Education canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grant funding that put additional mental health workers and services in schools, including four grants in North Carolina.
The schools were notified by vague, boilerplate letters that said their funding — which was supposed to be doled out over a five-year period — would end this December. The termination letters say that the grants are ultimately not “in the best interest of the Federal Government.”
Recipients of the canceled grants in North Carolina said they appealed the decision and asked the Department of Education to restore their grant funding, but they have not heard back.
As the fall semester fast approaches, school leaders are faced with tough decisions. Those that are several years into their grant funding may have to let employees go who were hired as part of the grant. More recent grant recipients will not be able to fully launch their projects on only one year of funding.
All this means North Carolina students will lose out on much needed mental health services.
These programs helped meet a huge need in North Carolina; the state is far behind the recommended ratios of students per mental health worker. In North Carolina schools, there is an average of one social worker for every 995 students. The recommended ratio is one for every 250.
And the need is only increasing. The latest data shows that nearly 40 percent of high school students report experiencing persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, and 29 percent said they experienced poor mental health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The biannual survey also found that 20 percent of students said they seriously considered attempting suicide, and 10 percent said they attempted it.
These school-based mental health grants came from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was passed in 2022 after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first significant piece of gun violence prevention legislation to make it through Congress in 30 years, included $1 billion for two grant programs that would increase mental health services offered to students while they’re in school.
Cuts in North Carolina
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, was a big supporter of the bill and held a one-year anniversary event in Raleigh to celebrate its passage. At the event in 2023, Tillis said he was “semi-obsessed with making sure North Carolina becomes the nation’s best practice on the implementation of all the behavioral health provisions” in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
Guilford County Schools, Iredell-Statesville Schools, Surry County Schools and Wake County Schools were selected to take part in the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program, which provides five years of funding for the school districts to hire more social workers and psychologists to serve students. Guilford and Wake Counties received letters on April 29 terminating their grants.
The N.C. Department of Public Instruction, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina were selected to take part in the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program. The program was supposed to provide five years of funding to place mental health professionals in high-need school districts as part of their training, while also providing services to students. Both universities had their grants canceled by the Department of Education.
Meanwhile, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, Iredell-Statesville Schools and Surry County Schools told NC Health news that they did not receive a termination letter and their programs will continue.
Many have expressed confusion about why some of this much-needed grant funding has been canceled. The services provided with these funds led to significant decreases in suicide risk, fewer absentee days and fewer behavior problems in the classroom.
Nationally, Republicans and Democrats in Congress are demanding answers from the Department of Education. Meanwhile, more than a dozen state attorneys general have sued the department to restore the funds.
Why some grants were canceled
Though it’s not stated in the termination letters, Department of Education representatives have told news media outlets that language about diversity, equity and inclusion included in the grant proposals contributed to the department canceling their funding.
The Department of Education told CBS news that it found “grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas.” The department told the education reporting outlet Chalkbeat that one grant recipient planned to hire 24 new school counselors and set a goal for eight of them to be people of color. Another example the department deemed problematic was that one grant recipient said they would train therapists to address racial trauma, Chalkbeat reported.
The Department of Education didn’t respond to NC Health news’ questions in time for publication.
A department spokesperson defended the cuts to Education Week, saying: “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 mental health workforce has been predominantly white for a long time, and research has shown that matching providers with patients from similar backgrounds leads to higher patient satisfaction and better effectiveness of treatment. There’s also a long history of discrimination and barriers to mental health treatment for marginalized communities, which is why the previous administration encouraged grant applicants to consider addressing these issues in their applications.
The identical letters of termination sent to grant recipients list four possible reasons why their funding was canceled, including that they “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.”
A lawsuit filed in July by attorneys general from 16 states said “the Department issued these boilerplate notices […] providing little to no insight into the basis for the discontinuance, yet destroying projects years in the making.”
“To this day, Plaintiffs do not know which of the four theoretical reasons apply to their grants or why the Department discontinued their grants but not Program grants to other states that had been awarded using the same priorities and selection criteria.”
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson did not join this lawsuit. A spokesperson for his office said they are monitoring the case and assessing its potential impact for students in North Carolina. (This mental health grant funding is separate from nearly $7 billion in education funding that was withheld by the federal government, which Jackson and other state attorneys general sued over last month and successfully restored.)
The lawsuit says that if grant recipients are being “punished” for following Congress’ directive that school funds be distributed in a way that ensures equitable access to services, the department is in violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers.
The attorneys general claim that the department cannot “discontinue a multi-year grant based on newly sprung priorities.” They also note that the “boilerplate notices do not mention grantee performance.”
‘These programs work’
The lawsuit also included some notable statistics from grant programs, including a 50 percent reduction in suicide risk at high-need schools and an 80 percent reduction in student wait time for mental health services.
“By all markers, these programs work,” the lawsuit states.
Schools are where children spend the majority of their time, and for many, it’s the only place they will ever encounter mental health care, explained Eric Rossen, executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists, in a letter to members of Congress urging them to intervene to restore the grant funding.
“Their sudden non-continuation jeopardizes the incredible progress these programs have made expanding the workforce pipeline and recruiting and retaining professionals in high-need communities,” Rossen wrote.
In just one funding cohort, from May to December of 2023, Rossen wrote that the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program trained 1,767 school mental health professionals and supported 1,191 supervised practicum placements. During that same time period, he wrote that the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program led to the hiring of 1,163 mental health professionals, helped retain 13,155 professionals and provided services to more than 774,000 students.
“The discontinuation of ongoing projects that have demonstrated such early success is deeply troubling,” Rossen wrote. “The shortage of school mental health professionals has left many districts with little or no capacity to provide these services at a time when students have unprecedented and growing needs.”
North Carolina has a shortage of school psychologists, with an average of one to every 1,795 students; the recommended ratio is one to 500. Twenty-one school districts in the state have no full time psychologists.
A bipartisan group of more than 40 members of Congress sent a letter to the Secretary of Education highlighting the successes of these programs and asked the secretary several questions about the department’s plan to address the mental health needs of students.
Tillis, who championed the legislation that created these grant programs, said in a statement to NC Health news that it remains a top priority for him.
“Our office has been in contact with Department of Education about the grants included in the legislation and it is our understanding the Department of Education has reviewed these grant programs on an individualized level to ensure the funds are aligned with Federal civil rights law and the Department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education,” reads the statement from Tillis’ office.
“We share the Department’s goal to ensure this once in a generation legislation achieves Congressional intent, making historic strides towards increasing the quality and access of mental health resources for America’s youth. We understand the affected grant recipients have the opportunity to request reconsideration of these grants and our office has reached out to each NC-based grantee to ensure they meet the standards set by the Department of Education and reiterate Senator Tillis’ commitment towards effective implementation of this historic federal investment into the mental and behavioral health care workforce,” the statement concludes.
Highlighted success in Guilford County
Alex Tabori, executive director of mental and behavioral health services at Guilford County Schools, told NC Health news that he’s crossing his fingers and hopes that his school district’s grant funding will be restored.
Guilford County Schools is in year three of its five-year grant, receiving $3.9 million per year. The school district hired 12 mental health clinicians with the grant funding and contracted with 35 others to provide in-person and virtual mental health services to students. Guilford County has seen a 50 percent reduction in the number of suicide risk assessments per year.
“The work that we’re doing is important, and the services that we’re providing, not only to our students, but to our staff members and to the school district as a whole, is meaningful. And we’re getting great results from it,” Tabori said. “I would hate to see that go away or have to really modify those supports, because we would lose the ability to keep those clinicians on staff. We are really proud of what we’ve done.”
Over the past two years, the school district served 2,000 students and provided 20,000 therapy sessions at no cost to the students or their families. They’ve also been able to identify and address students’ needs in a preventative way before more serious issues developed, Tabori said. Because these services are offered in school, there’s a shorter wait time to get started with therapy, and students don’t have to miss school to go to appointments.
Tabori and other school staff have seen the results of providing therapy in schools, and he said some common themes have emerged.
“We probably have hundreds of stories just like this, where the student was getting suspended, was getting in fights, was not engaged during the course of the day. And then after six, eight, 10 weeks of us providing some direct services, they’re there every day, they’re not getting in fights, they’re able to manage their behavior and their anger in a much different way. Now they’re not getting suspended,” Tabori explained.
“We’ve gotten responses from teachers that the student is more academically engaged, they’re attending classes more, they’re in a better mood, they’re receiving information a lot better than they were previously because we’ve been able to work with them directly. And we get calls from parents all the time thanking us.”
Tabori said he’s sent the Department of Education evidence of the positive impact the grant funding has had in Guilford County and is waiting to hear back. Without the grant funding, the district will have to eliminate some staff positions and community contracts. The district had planned to try to keep these direct mental health services after the grant expired in year five by pursuing other grants and approaching local funders with their data and asking them to invest in supporting these services.
Filling a need
School social workers are asked to step in for a variety of issues, including failing grades, bullying, violence, chronic absenteeism or to conduct a suicide risk assessment, said Valerie Arendt, executive director of the National Association of Social Workers North Carolina Chapter.
“School social workers are that person who comes in and addresses social, emotional and mental health needs and are that bridge between the school, the community and the family to help make sure that the student is thriving,” she said.
But most schools do not have enough, and as a social worker’s caseload grows, it can be overwhelming, Arendt explained. The ratio in North Carolina is one social worker to almost 1,000 students.
“It’s harder and harder to recruit school social workers and bring them in to stay when they’re told that their caseload is going to be so significant,” she said. “And we’re seeing an increase in the significant mental health needs that are going unmet with these students.”
These mental health grants sought to alleviate some of the pressure in several school districts.
Wake County Schools is in the first year of its grant and had planned to use the funding to create 27 positions, including therapists, crisis response assistants, social workers, a clinical supervisor and a program manager. Wake had set a goal to place a mental health provider in every school by 2025-26, but they may not reach it now that the district’s grant has been canceled.
NC State is also in the first year of its grant and had planned to start a WolfPACT Scholars Program, designed to train 25 graduate students in school and clinical mental health counseling while serving more than 10,000 students in Halifax and Johnston counties — both rural areas with severe shortages of mental health professionals.
After graduation, those NC State students were committed to working in high-need schools in Halifax and Johnston counties for at least two years. Since the program will only be active for one semester now, the two-year service commitment has been waived.
Arendt said she had hoped these grants would “show the rest of the state, the legislators, that these types of programs, investing in additional mental health personnel, would allow students in the counties to thrive.”
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