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December 20, 2025 - OAKLAND — On Friday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta celebrated a decision from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, which declared that the U.S. Department of Education acted illegally by discontinuing grants awarded through Congressionally-established school mental health funding programs. The decision requires the Department to issue new funding decisions to 21 grantees in California. Because the Department has not identified any concerns with the grantees’ performance, the Department will likely resume funding to the grantees, including tens of millions of dollars to support high-need, low-income, and rural California schools. This funding is critical to students’ well-being, safety, and academic success. Today’s decision vacates the Trump Administration’s directive to halt these grants and brings the lawsuit by the attorneys general to a final resolution, subject to appeal.
“The courts have once again agreed with states nationwide and halted the Trump Administration’s illegal actions. This time, the President tried mightily to rip away funding that supported the mental health of our most vulnerable students. California and our sister states stepped in, and we are proud to have secured a court ruling permanently barring the U.S. Department of Education from withholding mental health funding from schools for any reason that does not have to do with grantees’ performance,” said Attorney General Bonta. “These mental health programs do critical work to ensure students not only succeed but thrive. California is committed and at the ready to defend our future generations from attack by an Administration intent on breaking the law. Today, we’ve done just that.”
Today’s decision also permanently blocks the U.S. Department of Education from deciding whether to continue funding to grantees based on new priorities or information that is not relevant to grantees’ performance and specifies that the Department cannot deny an award based on performance issues that were caused by the Department’s unlawful actions challenged in this case and their disruptive effects.
In July, Attorney General Bonta joined a coalition of 16 attorneys general in suing the Trump Administration over their discontinuation of these grants, and in October, the coalition secured a preliminary injunction blocking the Department from discontinuing grants and stating that the Trump Administration's actions were likely unlawful.
BACKGROUND
Spurred by episodes of devastating loss from school shootings, Congress established and funded the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program (MHSP) in 2018 and the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program (SBMH) in 2020 to increase students’ access to mental health services. MHSP addresses the shortage of school-based mental health service providers by awarding multi-year grants to projects that expand the pipeline for counselors, social workers, and psychologists through partnerships between institutes of higher education and local educational agencies; and SBMH funds multi-year grants to increase the number of professionals that provide school-based mental health services to students through direct hiring and retention incentives. The ultimate goal of the programs is to permanently bring 14,000 additional mental health professionals into U.S. schools.
The programs have been an incredible success. In their first year, the programs provided mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 elementary and secondary students nationwide. Sampled projects showed real results: a 50% reduction in suicide risk at high-need schools, decreases in absenteeism and behavioral issues, and increases in positive student-staff engagement. Data also showed recruitment and retention efforts are working – in the first year of the programs, nearly 1,300 school mental health professionals were hired and 95% of those hired were retained. Importantly, these newly hired school-based mental health providers were able to create an 80% reduction in student wait time for services. The grants have helped schools hire hundreds of psychologists, counselors, and social workers who have served thousands of students, including in the state’s most economically disadvantaged and rural communities. By all markers, these programs work.
Despite these successes, on or about April 29, 2025, the Department sent boilerplate notices to grantees, including state education agencies, local education agencies, and institutes of higher education, claiming that their grants conflicted with the Trump Administration’s priorities and would not be continued. The Department pledged to reallocate funds based on new priorities of “merit, fairness, and excellence in education,” providing little to no insight into the basis for the discontinuances, which threatened to destroy projects years in the making. However, in the press, the Trump Administration admitted that it targeted Plaintiff States’ grants for their perceived diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, which the court agreed today was not a legal basis for discontinuing these grants.
Source: CA. DOJ
