ED Discontinues MH Grant Awards for Some Districts

May 02, 2025

Earlier this week AASA  that some of our members received letters from the U.S. Department of Education informing them that grants they were awarded to recruit and retain school mental health personnel and to build a pipelines of school based mental health personnel in their communities would be discontinued.

Specifically, many districts that are recipients of the School Based Mental Health Grants and the Mental Health Services Professionals Grant Program received this notice. These actions do not take effective immediately; the funding will run out at the end of the current grant year which is either 9/30/25 or 12/31/25 depending on the date of the award and there is an opportunity to appeal to the Department as outlined .

The Department’s rationale for rescinding the grant awards is that the Biden Administration awarded these funds to districts with the intention of asking them to violate "the letter or purpose of Federal civil rights law.” 

According to , the Department believes some districts have used the mental health funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas.  The Department reviewed the grants on a case-by-case basis and district grantees they believed were either violating the letter or purpose of federal civil rights law, conflicting with the department’s policy of “prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education”; or using federal funds inappropriately” were sent letters this week.

ܲAVƵis interested in tracking which districts are impacted by these recent actions. If you received this letter please .