Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley today joined Senate colleagues to demand the Department of Education disburse funds that were abruptly and unlawfully canceled for School-Based Mental Health Services (SBMH) and Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration (MHSP) grant programs and halt its attempts to end the grant programs.
Upon canceling over 200 of these grants in April 2025, the Trump administration attempted to justify their cuts to school-based mental health funding by claiming that grant programs promoted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and did not adhere to the administration’s policy priorities. The senators pushed back against this false claim pointing to the significant impact to mental health staffing and resources that thousands of students relied on.
“The Department’s recent actions create significant operational uncertainty for local school districts, interrupting student access to care and stalling the recruitment of future school-based mental health care professionals. These choices will increase the financial and administrative barriers to obtaining a quality education. We therefore demand that the Department disburse the funds grantees are contractually owed in a timely manner to ensure local school programs face no further disruption,” the senators wrote in their letter to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
These grant programs – part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – address the shortage of mental health professionals, social workers and services in our nation’s schools, especially those in rural and underserved areas.
“Despite these grants’ clear effectiveness, the Department sent boilerplate notices in April 2025 to 70 SBMH and 153 MHSP recipients claiming that these grantees did not adhere to the Trump Administration’s priorities and policy preferences. The notices failed to provide specific, individualized explanations for why the grants were abruptly discontinued. Consequently, grantees were forced to pause hiring and training and lay off school counselors, psychologists, and social workers. MHSP-supported graduate programs could also no longer fund the scholarships needed to recruit students,” the lawmakers continued.
After a court-ordered injunction and restraining order stemming the grant cancellations, the Trump administration imposed additional requirements upon grantees before deciding to release funding for the second half of the year – causing greater uncertainty for schools. The administration is now attempting to fully terminate these programs, placing their future in jeopardy.
“We insist that the Department honor the statutory funding directives enacted by Congress, resolve the administrative barriers affecting the pipeline of mental health professionals in our nation’s schools, and ensure that students have access to these crucial services. To cut, delay, and otherwise obstruct these grants is not only unlawful, but also unconscionable in light of the mental health crisis facing our youth. It’s not an exaggeration to say that young lives are at stake. Please step in to help,” the senators concluded.
The letter was led by U.S. Senators Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Angus King, I-Maine. In addition to Wyden and Merkley, the letter was also signed by U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Rev. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.
Merkley leads and Wyden cosponsors the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Act, legislation that would significantly boost the availability of mental health providers in America’s public schools.
The text of the letter is here.
A web version of this release is here.
###