Lockers in the Luxemburg-Casco Middle School. PC: Fox 11 Online
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The Trump administration announced last week it will be cutting $1 billion in federal mental health grants at the Department of Education.
That means Wisconsin schools will lose $8 million in funding over the next four years.
May is also Mental Health Awareness Month. To kick it off, Kaleidoscope Academy in Appleton held an assembly Monday to help students better understand mental health, and learn about resilience and positivity.
“At middle level, we need to focus on positive mental health because of the changes the students are going through developmentally. Plus, they’re going through a lot socially with their friends. It’s a huge time of growth,” Kaleidoscope Academy Principal Alexandra Molitor said.
Mental Health advocacy organization “Rise Together” ran Monday’s event, hoping to help end the stigma around students asking for help. While the assembly wasn’t paid for through federal dollars, educators fear similar programs and others will be lost after cuts to mental health grants by the Trump administration.
“This policy, or this change in policy, is heartless because the impact will be felt most dramatically on our students,” Wisconsin Education Association Council President Peggy Wirtz-Olsen said.
The grant money from the Department of Education helps pay for counselors, psychologists, social workers and programs which address student mental health needs. In Wisconsin, current funding will last through the end of this year, but the state will lose $8 million dollars over the next four years.
Educators said these cuts will be detrimental.
“We’ve all seen a spike in teen suicides, and federal grants like this help us to ensure the mental health needs of all of our students in all of our public schools are met,” Wirtz-Olsen said.
In a statement to NPR, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications at the Department of Education Madi Biedermann said:
Recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help. We owe it to American families to ensure that tax-payer dollars are supporting evidence-based practices that are truly focused on improving students’ mental health.
It’s unknown what the full impact on students and districts will be, but the Appleton Area School District says without the money, it takes away from its ability to attract and maintain mental health professionals to meet student needs.
“We are utilizing that to provide specific interventions for students, and again, it forces us to look at, ‘Are we able to continue that and sustain that without these dollars?'” Appleton Area School District Executive Director of Student Services Laura Jackson said.
Jackson said the district hopes to see if the state will address education funding shortfalls in the biennial budget.
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