Minnesota school mental health grants face at least $17 million in cuts

[MUSIC PLAYING] NINA MOINI: So our top story this afternoon. The Trump administration is canceling $1 billion in school mental health grants, and it impacts at least $17 million in funding here in Minnesota. The White House said an education department review of the programs found they violated the purpose of federal civil rights law. Joining us to explain the grant cuts in Minnesota is Jessie Kember. She's the president of the Minnesota School Psychologists Association and faculty at the University of Minnesota School Psychology Program. Thank you for being here this afternoon, Jessie.

JESSIE KEMBER: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

NINA MOINI: So I mentioned there, the White House, it's no secret in recent months has been making many federal budget cuts, often around any programs that mention diversity or inclusion or equity. Can you tell us a little bit about what specifically these grants that were cut were about in Minnesota?

JESSIE KEMBER: I sure can. So two of those particular grants were grants acquired by the University of Minnesota. Twin Cities are specifically our school psychology graduate program. And those grants were specifically received to support provision of research-based school mental health services, specifically in under-resourced school systems by school psychology graduate student trainees.

This provided everything from financial support for graduate students who are specifically here to prepare to serve as future mental health professionals in schools. And also to try to reduce the critical shortages in the field that we've been experiencing with respect to personnel, student support personnel in schools.

NINA MOINI: Can you talk a little bit about why terms like diversity were used in the grant application? I'm trying to get to the heart of how work happens around increased representation and the disparities, the racial disparities that we know exist in mental health resources as well as the school system at large. How do you talk about those issues and improving those issues without talking about things like diversity and race?

JESSIE KEMBER: Yeah, I think the easy answer is you can't. These grants specifically centered anti-racist practice and training and also centered data-based decision making around inequitable outcomes that have been prevalent in our state, here in the state of Minnesota and also across the nation for years and years and years. And so any approach that doesn't center that language and those perspectives is going to fall short of ultimately serving all students in the state of Minnesota.

NINA MOINI: And the previous administration, the Biden administration has said that, hey, when Congress approved this, they were meant to be in fact, evidence-based approaches. Can you talk a little bit more? And you mentioned that too, about what that means. What is the evidence around representation?

JESSIE KEMBER: Absolutely. Representation in the field is incredibly important. Actually, here in the state of Minnesota, we only have three training programs supporting students to be future practitioners. In the field of school psychology, we're experiencing an influx in terms of diversity of the student populations that we're serving. And ultimately, we need the in schools to follow suit so that students can grow up and see what is possible for them in the future, to feel cared for, to feel safe in our buildings. And so that is ultimately why that representation is so incredibly important.

NINA MOINI: And what will happen to these grad students, Jessie, that were having some tuition paid for by this program?

JESSIE KEMBER: Yeah, we are in a incredibly challenging situation at the moment. Right now, our team is focusing on the appeal process. So we do have the opportunity to appeal the non-continuation notice, and we are doing our best to as quickly as possible, gather supporting documentation to engage in that appeal.

Aside from that, I feel fortunate to be a part of a really collaborative team. We're all on the same page. We have the same vision for the field of school psychology, and a big piece of that is making sure we're adequately, financially supporting diverse students and trainees who are interested in entering the field of school psychology. So it's going to be all hands on deck. We need to be exploring other mechanisms for possible financial funding for these students.

Our program alone is losing $11 million that was intended to be received through 2028. And with this non-continuation, the grants will essentially end at the conclusion of the current budget period, which is December 31st. So we have, the last two years, had the opportunity to welcome more students into the program because we've had that security of having financial funding available to our students who in turn are providing mental health services for students in schools. And it's a scary time to realize how much money we will be essentially losing throughout this process.

So there's going to be a lot of problem-solving and some creativity behind our next approaches in making sure we can secure financial support for all of our students.

NINA MOINI: And I read that part of the reason this funding was ever allocated in the first place was just because of the great need for mental health care in schools, particularly coming out of the pandemic and everything that's occurred over the last five years or so. Would you talk just a little bit about the need in general for the role of school psychologists in schools?

JESSIE KEMBER: Absolutely. School psychologists, our role is one of an advocate, an advocate for teachers, an advocate for students. We are there to support the whole child, so that is supporting them behaviorally, academically, socially, physically, making sure they feel safe and respected. And also emotionally, their emotional development. This includes individual level support, but it also includes making sure that we're constantly examining the functioning of the school system and the school community so that we know whether we are effectively serving all students, not just some of those students.

Our national organization recommends a ratio of 1 school psychologist to approximately 500 students to really be able to have adequate bandwidth in successfully serving students in that community. And currently in Minnesota, we are double that. We have one school psychologist for every 1023 students, and that really creates a lot of challenges and spreads our practitioners incredibly thin when it comes to service provision, as well as intervention and preventative supports that are available in schools.

NINA MOINI: So in the schools, they are short on these resources. And one of the things that they could do working with your schools and the grants was perhaps have a grad student come in and work in the school if they don't have or they can't afford to have a school psychologist yet. Are there services that you foresee being taken out of K through 12 schools that are right now currently being helped? And what position does this put the school districts in?

JESSIE KEMBER: Yeah. Ultimately, the impact of this non-continuation is incredibly far-reaching and yet impact our community schools that the university is there to support. Our students alone through these two grants have specifically provided 21,000 hours of support to our partnership districts in the community. And this includes intervention, prevention services, whether that's individual student support, small group support, as well as things like making universal screening available for having a pulse on how students are feeling emotionally, how they're engaging socially and behaviorally with others over the course of their day.

This was also in the form of support for teachers who are also experiencing exhaustion and burnout. And support for them to be able to deploy resources to create a healthier school climate and school environment, reduce the level of high intensity needs that are currently experiencing, and ultimately support the entire school community. So the impact is very far-reaching.

NINA MOINI: Jessie Kember, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing this with us. We really appreciate your time.

JESSIE KEMBER: Thank you so much.

NINA MOINI: That was Jessie Kember, the president of the Minnesota School Psychologists Association.