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The Trump administration has announced that it will cut $1 billion from a program that sent federal money to schools for mental health care. Passed in 2022, the bipartisan Safer Communities Act was especially valuable for students in rural areas where access to mental health services is limited. NPR's Jonaki Mehta was in Maine one day before news of the cuts came.
JONAKI MEHTA, BYLINE: Wednesday night last week, when the Trump administration announced the school mental health cuts, I was on the road home from talking to students and counselors in Skowhegan, Maine. It's an area where schools have licensed counselors because of the Safer Communities Act. It's a rural district, an hour and a half north of Portland that serves around 2,500 students.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: How you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: Good.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Good.
MEHTA: That's where we met Riley (ph), a fifth grader at Mill Stream Elementary.
What you got there?
RILEY: Miss Jordan has this basket of fidgets for people who like to fidget with things.
MEHTA: With a purple, squishy fidget toy in hand, she sat down with me and her counselor Jordan Chighali's office.
RILEY: It actually kind of helps me concentrate because sometimes when I'm in school, I kind of, like, zone out and I'm just, like...
MEHTA: Riley's an energetic moon-faced fifth grader with her hair pulled back in a braid. We're only using her first name because she's a minor and because of student privacy laws. Riley and more than 40 other students see Jordan Chighali every week in a cozy office where the walls are lined with stacks of toys, puzzles and artwork. Riley has been in counseling for more than two years now, and she says it's helped manage her anger.
RILEY: Miss Jordan taught me to talk through it instead of getting physical so...
JORDAN CHIGHALI: I feel like, with Riley, she has found her voice...
MEHTA: That's Jordan Chighali, or Miss Jordan, as the students call her.
CHIGHALI: ...And feeling comfortable, like, having difficult conversations, communicating her needs.
MEHTA: Miss Jordan is one of three licensed clinical professional counselors in the district. Their salaries are all paid by that federal grant we've been talking about. Miss Jordan grew up around here, and she says mental health services have long been hard to come by in rural and low-income areas like this.
CHIGHALI: Being able to access that in school in an environment they are comfortable with, they can now access their mental health and focus on academics.
MEHTA: And the service is free, which is huge because more than two-thirds of the people in this community struggle with poverty, and that comes with all kinds of challenges.
CHIGHALI: We're seeing a lot of anxiety, more depression. Parents may be struggling with substance use, maybe not having heat, kids living in campers.
MEHTA: Miss Jordan says when her students get better at coping with their mental health, they do better in school and in all areas of life.
RILEY: Early on this year, I was having a hard time with coming to school. I would be, like, exhausted, tired, angry.
MEHTA: That's Riley again.
RILEY: But then I kind of actually really looked forward to going to Miss Jordan's because I think that I'm less anxious and frustrated in class.
MEHTA: Miss Jordan and her colleagues have a long wait list. They started serving students about three years ago when the district got its mental health grant from the federal government. The money was supposed to run out in 2027, and the district had a plan for that. But late last Wednesday, not long after I met Riley and Miss Jordan, the Trump administration announced that it would cut their grant by this December.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
MEHTA: The morning after the announcement, I gave Miss Jordan a call.
What was your sort of reaction when you heard this news?
CHIGHALI: I was disappointed - just devastated for the kids, honestly.
JONATHAN MOODY: What went through my head was having a hard time understanding why anyone would cut mental health supports for kids.
MEHTA: That's superintendent of the Skowhegan area school district, Jonathan Moody. In response to that very question he asked about why these grants have been cut, an Education Department spokesperson told NPR in a statement, quote, "recipients use the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health." Yet, Moody says the money his district got was only used for student mental health care. And he said these jobs, this service, it's too important to lose, so they'll have to find the money somewhere else.
MOODY: And that could be anything from not having a field trip go to not hiring a position that you otherwise might have.
MEHTA: And in the meantime, they may have to cut down the number of students who can see counselors like Miss Jordan. It was odd to think that just a couple days earlier, I was sitting down with Riley asking her...
I wonder if tomorrow, Miss Jordan wasn't able to be here, what do you think would be lost?
RILEY: If I don't have a way to express my feelings, like, if I'm mad at school, I might accidentally take it out on someone at home. So I think that skill might be lost.
MEHTA: In Riley's case, she's off to middle school next year, which brings its own new anxieties.
RILEY: I'm kind of worried for the counselor next year because I have to get used to her all over again. But for right now, I have Miss Jordan.
MEHTA: At least, for right now.
Jonaki Mehta, NPR News, Skowhegan, Maine.
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