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MIAMI – The U.S. Education Department has announced stopping $1 billion in federal grants that school districts nationwide use to address mental health issues among students.

The funds allowed the school districts to hire mental health professionals, including counselors and social workers to help students cope with difficult times in their lives.

The grants were part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a bill passed in the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which a teen gunman killed 19 elementary school students and two adults and injured 17 people.

The bill, among other things, poured federal dollars into schools to address rising concerns about a student mental health crisis.

According to NPR, Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Department of Education, explained the decision to discontinue the grants:

“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.”