In Nebraska, it’s trauma-informed training to support Native American students. In Arizona, it’s an effort to expand existing school mental health services. In a Texas region with high suicide rates, it’s a program to increase the number of mental health providers.
These are among the school mental health programs that could be on the chopping block thanks to Department of Education funding cuts.
Shrinking or losing these programs could be especially significant for school districts in rural areas, where mental health resources are more scarce and the need is higher than in urban hubs.
Many parts of the country are mental health care “deserts.” If schools in those communities don’t provide this kind of support, children there are unlikely to be able to get it anywhere else, says David M. Ardrey, interim executive director at the National Rural Education Association.
“Many mental health services that existed in rural places, those had already gone away, either by virtue of a business model [that] didn't make sense, or they went away because federal money went somewhere else,” he says.
Cuts at a Difficult Time
In a letter sent last week, a Department of Education official said grants would be terminated at the end of their funding cycle unless recipients filed an appeal. The move is widely credited to the Trump administration taking issue with the fact that many of the grant proposals mentioned increasing diversity among mental health professionals.
The nearly $1 billion infusion of funding for K-12 school mental health services and care providers started in 2022, the same year that a panel of medical experts made the unprecedented recommendation that primary care doctors screen all children 8 and older for anxiety.
The Department of Education’s decision to cut the flow of mental health grant funding is reverberating around the country, but they may hit rural schools particularly hard.
Ardrey speculates that some rural districts will have to pause the programs that were supported through the federal grants, provided the appeals are not approved, until they can replace that funding.
He points out that the timing of the Department of Education’s decision puts districts in a difficult position. School districts are in the process of negotiating or have signed contracts for services for the next fiscal year.
“Certain agreements have already been reached,” Ardrey says. “So who's going to be obligated to pay for that? Who's going to get stuck with that bill, if you will? And the districts are the ones that are being put in the middle of this.”
Scarce Resources
Districts nationwide are already dealing with a shortage of school psychologists and other licensed mental health professionals who are qualified to work in K-12 schools. It’s a profession where training takes years, and too few people enter the field each year.
In Nevada, for instance, a 2023 analysis found that the state’s prep programs for mental health professionals only graduated 12 people each year amid a shortage of nearly 2,900 school mental health professionals.
The grant programs being cut by the Department of Education were created to help schools and universities increase the number of licensed mental health workers.
For example, in Arizona, Cochise Educational Service Agency was awarded a $2.7 million five-year grant to increase the number of mental health providers in its rural district: “With only twelve providers for thirty-eight schools and 9,656 students, staffing levels are insufficient, leading to many students silently suffering.”
Meanwhile, Winnebago Public Schools and the Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation Public School in Nebraska together received nearly $1 million in 2024 to increase mental health services for Native American students.
Even if qualified care providers were plentiful, with their tight budgets, rural schools often find themselves having to choose between hiring a counselor or other type of staff member.
“If I have a counselor, do I have someone who's truly a mental health type, or someone who's supporting the students with their class schedules and with college preparation?” Ardrey says. “So oftentimes, districts have to combine workloads into other administrative type functions.”
Rural schools face other challenges in attracting mental health professionals, too, difficulties that are out of school officials’ hands. Any shortage of employees — teachers, bus drivers, counselors, social workers — is going to be worse by virtue of their smaller populations.
“And then the reality of it is in our rural communities, there's a housing shortage,” Ardrey says. “So if you're trying to hire a new teacher and you really want them to live in your community, but you really don't have enough housing or enough high-quality housing available, it's hard.”
He says that while rural districts will make plans to address the potential loss of these federal funds, for now it will likely be added to the long to-do list of tasks that keep schools running.
“I don't mean this in a flippant way, but I think there's just so much spaghetti on the wall right now that's impacting our schools, that they're taking 'em one at a time and trying to figure out what's next,” Ardrey says. “I think the important part to really highlight right now, no matter what's happening at the federal level with the federal funding streams: Our schools are open every single day and people are going to work every single day.”
