Trump cuts threaten mental health resources for Tacoma school students
Tacoma Public Schools received a grant under the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program from the Department of Education in 2022, providing it with $6,066,390 over five years to pay for 36 mental health clinicians to provide resources and care for students. The grant is the result of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which lawmakers passed in response to growing concerns about student mental health after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that year.
Pierce County's biggest school district had been using the funds, which it was supposed to receive in roughly $1 million chunks each academic year, to provide around 3,000 students at Tacoma Public Schools with access to mental health care, according to the district.
The Department of Education has notified districts that were receiving the money that they will have until Dec. 31 of this year to utilize the funds, meaning the mental health resources will remain in place until then. But TPS won't receive the remaining $2,655,740 it was supposed to receive for 2026 and 2027.
The bipartisan legislation from 2022 doled out $1 billion in grants to school districts to address youth mental health. The letter notifying grantees about the cuts stated that 'funding for programs that reflect the prior administration's priorities and policy preferences conflict with those of the current administration' and could 'violate the letter or purpose of federal civil rights law,' EdWeek reported.
Laura Allen, director of Whole Child for the district, said the district is exploring other opportunities to fund the resource after the money runs out in December.
'We have this runway to explore alternative sources, so we're actively working on that,' Allen told The News Tribune. 'There's an appeals process, so we're in the process of engaging in that process. We've also alerted our congressional delegation and hope that there's some possible advocacy there. It's the right thing to do for kids, and we aren't giving up.'
The program allowed for school staff to identify students who could benefit from additional mental health counseling and recommend them to one of the 36 support staff who are funded by the grant to meet with students in regular counseling sessions or to identify whether they could benefit from other resources, Allen said.
Mental health specialists who provided support to Tacoma students came from local organizations like Mary Bridge Children's Hospital's Youth Engagement Services. Ashley Mangum, director for kids mental health in Pierce County for Mary Bridge, said the program provided three specialists who served students at 23 middle and high schools in the district last year and this year has served 468 students across the district so far.
Mangum said the resource has been crucial in helping kids with their mental health before issues they're contending with escalate to crisis level.
'Our system is designed to be reactive, to only be able to manage crisis,' she told The News Tribune. 'Not having access to these services is going to prevent our opportunities to intervene earlier for kids.'
The potential loss of the program also comes as the city of Tacoma contends with a spike in youth homicides – four among people 18 and under killed since the start of 2025. Mangum and Allen said that highlighted the need for resources like the ones that the grant funded.
'We know our kids aren't without traumas,' Allen said. 'How do we help them navigate that and be able to come be in class and engage in their learning brain and then have this successful future in front of them? It's everything.'
Tracie Barnett, a clinical social worker and mental health specialist with Mary Bridge, has worked with hundreds of students across Tacoma Public Schools' middle and high schools as part of the federal grant. Barnett said she's noticing higher rates of anxiety, depression and trauma amongst the students she works with as they contend with the lingering effects of the pandemic, when some were forced to quarantine in toxic households.
'My clients don't even really care about politics. My clients aren't Republican, they aren't Democrat,' Barnett told The News Tribune. 'This is money that the government, all parties agreed that our youth needed and it's devastating to have it taken away when I feel like we're at this peak of a mental health crisis.'
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