Trump administration must restore grants for school counselors, judge rules

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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.

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.

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