Trump administration must restore grants for school counselors, judge
rules
[October 28, 2025]
The Trump administration must release millions of dollars
in grants meant to address the shortage of mental health workers in
schools, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Congress funded the mental health program after the 2022 school shooting
in Uvalde, Texas. The grants were intended to help schools hire more
counselors, psychologists and social workers, with a focus on rural and
underserved areas of the country. But President Donald Trump's
administration opposed diversity considerations used to award the grants
and told recipients they wouldn't receive funding past December 2025.
The preliminary ruling by Kymberly K. Evanson, a U.S. District Court
judge in Seattle, applies only to some grantees in the sixteen
Democratic-led states that challenged the Education Department's
decision. In Madera County, California, for example, the ruling restores
roughly $3.8 million. In Marin County, California, it restores $8
million. The ruling will remain in effect while the case proceeds.
The Education Department under Democratic President Joe Biden first
awarded the grants. Biden's administration prioritized giving the money
to applicants who showed how they would increase the number of
counselors from diverse backgrounds or from communities directly served
by the school district.
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When Trump took office, his administration opposed aspects of the grant
programs that touched on race, saying they were harmful to students. In
April, his administration said the grants were canceled because they
conflicted with the department's priority of “merit, fairness, and
excellence in education” and weren't in the federal government's best
interest.
In her ruling, Evanson called that decision arbitrary and capricious and
said the states had made a case for real harm from the grant cuts. In
Maine, for example, the grants enabled nine rural school districts to
hire 10 new school mental health workers and retain four more — jobs the
state said would be lost if the funding ended.
“Congress created these programs to address the states’ need for
school-based mental health services in their schools, and has repeatedly
reaffirmed the need for those services over the years by reauthorizing
and increasing appropriations to these programs," Evanson wrote.
“There is no evidence the Department considered any relevant data
pertaining to the Grants at issue,” she wrote, and the department did
not tell grantees why their work didn't meet the “best interest”
criteria.
An Education Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a
request for comment. |
