School-Based Mental Health Grant Program

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION <DEPDOC>[Docket ID ED-2025-OESE-0152]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>School-Based Mental Health Grant Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Department of Education. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final priorities, requirements, and definitions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Education (Department) announces final priorities, requirements, and definitions under the School-Based Mental Health Services (SBMH) Program, Assistance Listing Number (ALN) 84.184H. We may use one or more of these priorities, requirements, and definitions for competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2025 and later years. These final priorities, requirements, and definitions are designed to target activities with the purpose of increasing the number of credentialed school-based mental health services providers, specifically school psychologists, in high-need local educational agencies (LEAs) available to provide mental health services to students. These priorities, requirements, and definitions replace the Notice of Final Priorities, Requirements, and Definitions published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on October 4, 2022 (87 FR 60092). However, those priorities, requirements, and definitions remain in effect for previous grant competitions in which the notices inviting applications (NIAs) were published before the Department finalized the proposed priorities, requirements, and definitions in this notice. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final priorities, requirements and definitions are effective October 29, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dana Carr, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 4B210, Washington, DC 20202-6450. Telephone: (202)987-0119. Email: <E T="03">oese.school.mental.health@ed.gov.</E> If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Purpose of this Regulatory Action:</E> On July 17, 2025, the Department published a notice of proposed priorities, requirements, and definitions (NPP) in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 33353). Through this regulatory action, we establish final priorities, requirements, and definitions that the Department may use for competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2025 and later years. <E T="03">Summary of the Major Provisions of This Regulatory Action:</E> The NPP contained background information and our reasons for proposing the priorities, requirements, and definitions. There is a minor clarification between the proposed priorities, requirements, and definitions and the final priorities, requirements, and definitions established in this notice of final priorities, requirements, and definitions (NFP), as discussed in the <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes</E> section in this document. <E T="03">Purpose of Program:</E> The SBMH program provides competitive grants to State educational agencies (SEASs)(as defined in 20 U.S.C. 7801(30)), LEAs (as defined in 20 U.S.C. 7801(49), and consortia of LEAs to increase the number of credentialed school-based mental health services providers, specifically school psychologists, delivering mental health services to students in high-need LEAs. <E T="03">Program Authority:</E> Section 4631(a)(1)(B) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended (ESEA) (20 U.S.C. 7281(a)(1)(B)). <E T="03">Public Comment:</E> In response to our invitation in the NPP, the Department received comments from over 2,400 commenters on the proposed priorities, requirements, and definitions. Generally, we do not address technical and other minor changes, or suggested changes that the law does not authorize us to make under applicable statutory authority. In addition, we do not address general comments regarding concerns not directly related to the proposed priorities, requirements, or definitions. <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes:</E> An analysis of the comments and of any changes in the priorities and definitions since publication of the NPP follows. <HD SOURCE="HD1">General Comments</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Many commenters supported the proposed changes to the priorities, requirements, and definitions, such as those related to limiting the scope of the program, and specific restrictions related to using program funds to support gender ideology and increasing requirements related to parental consent. A few commenters, however, suggested that the Department not support the expenditure of funds for mental health grants and instead recommended that the Department remain solely focused on supporting academic achievement. Other commenters opposed some of the proposed changes to the priorities, as well as some of the requirements and definitions, as detailed below. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> We appreciate the comments expressing support for the priorities, requirements, and definitions. The Department recognizes the connection between mental health and learning. Students facing mental health challenges may be unable to focus on learning, and increasing the capacity of schools to provide needed services to students may support these students' academic engagement. In addition, the Department is committed to implementing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act as planned, which requires the Department to support mental health grant programs through FY 2026. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <E T="03">Comments:</E> Several commenters encouraged the Department to allow Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) to be eligible applicants in this program. One commenter stated that IHEs would help address the needs of high-need LEAs to employ and retain school psychologists by creating partnerships and a workforce pipeline. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> This program is intended to address workforce shortages by providing SEAs and LEAs with funds to recruit and retain credentialed providers who are available to meet their immediate workforce needs. Therefore, we think SEAs and LEAs are the most appropriate recipients for these funds. This approach also meets the Department's broader goal of returning education to States. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <E T="03">Comments:</E> One commenter noted that some applicants would benefit from technical assistance on raising matching funds for the grant. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> Although this grant program historically required matching funds to be eligible to apply, this is no longer required in this program. However, the Department encourages SEAs and LEAs to develop sustainable funding models for any mental health services that are necessary to meet the needs of their students, particularly those most in need of early intervention and intensive mental health services. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Priorities</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Many commenters recommended that the Department revise the priorities, requirements, and definitions, where applicable, to include recruitment, retention, and respecialization of school counselors, social workers, and other school-based mental health service providers, in addition to school psychologists). Many commenters suggested these changes because they believe school counselors and school social workers are necessary to meet the full continuum of mental health needs of students, and are critical to strengthening family-school partnerships. One commenter noted that the definition of “high-need LEA” proposed in the NPP underscores the need for a comprehensive, rather than narrowly specialized, response from a range of providers. A few commenters also believe that other professionals, such as those licensed as occupational therapists or licensed family therapists, should also be included because, in some States, their credential allows them to provide necessary mental health services to students. Many commenters also pointed out that the functions of school psychologists delineated in the notice are not commonly carried out by school psychologists, but rather undertaken by school social workers, school counselors, or other school-based mental health providers. Commenters stated that one function school psychologists often carry out is educational testing. Additionally, many commenters noted the prevalent school-based mental health workforce shortages that would be alleviated by allowing a range of professionals to be included in this program. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department believes that school psychologists are the school-based officials who are clinically trained and licensed to provide early intervention and intensive mental health services to students most in need. While commenters may support a team of school-based mental health providers that includes school counselors, school social workers, and other professionals, such as licensed occupational therapists or licensed family therapists, the Department believes school psychologists are best suited to provide these clinical services and is choosing to prioritize SBMH funds accordingly. Over the past several years, concerns about the mental health of children and youth have increased. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> From documented increases in emergency room visits for mental health crises to reports of increased sadness and hopelessness among adolescents, the Department believes schools play a role in helping to meet youth mental health service needs. <E T="51">2 3</E> <FTREF/> The Department is focusing this program on school psychologists, as opposed to school counselors and school social workers, because these individuals have training that is uniquely focused on the intersection between students' behaviors, motivations, disabilities, mental health and th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 49k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━