(ABC 6 News) – Rochester Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Kent Pekel sent out a letter to the RPS community on Tuesday, saying a $1.9 million federal grant for mental health services has been cancelled.

Effective December 31, 2025, the School-Based Mental Health Scholars grant will be terminated.

The program pays for existing RPS staff to earn licenses and master’s degrees necessary to provide students with counseling and other types of mental health support.

That money covers costs of tuition for the social work program at Winona State University, substitute pay for staff while they are completing work for their degrees and mentoring for the soon-to-be mental health practitioners as they learn the ropes.

Pekel is calling the move “a big step backward,” as right now our students are facing a mental health crisis, not just in Rochester, but nationwide.

“I have trouble believing that most people don’t have somebody that they know, especially a kid, who’s really been struggling for different reasons,” said Pekel.

The hope behind the program was for these staff members to be hired by RPS or its community partners, or even in surrounding school districts like Byron and Pine Island, to grow the pool of qualified mental health practitioners.

“We’re thrilled that we still have them here, but they all wanted to move into meeting this urgent need that we have, not just in our district, but in the country,” said Pekel.

Though going through the program doesn’t guarantee someone a job as an RPS social worker or counselor, it would guarantee them an interview.

This spring, six people will earn their licenses and master’s degrees thanks to this program, but ten others who are still working up to that point will be left hanging without that federal funding, not to mention the 12 others who were expected to enter the program next year, who now may not get the chance.

“There was a lot of disappointment today among people who really were committed to be working with our students who are struggling with mental health,” said Pekel.

Pekel says it’s a shame to see the plug has been pulled before the program had a chance to prove if it works and is calling the cancellation of the grant “a strikingly inefficient and unproductive use of taxpayers dollars.”

Though existing mental health specialists aren’t going away, the loss of funding means those services can’t expand to meet the high demand for support in the district.

“When you screen a kid with a scientifically valid screener, and you discover that they are struggling from depression, and anxiety or maybe thinking of hurting themselves, you actually have an obligation to provide treatment,” said Pekel.

Those services are critical to thousands of kids in Rochester, with the latest surveys showing one-quarter to one-third of RPS students identify as being in need of mental health support.

One of those students is Shelly Sprenger’s second grader, who began to struggle in school when his family moved to Rochester around the time he started kindergarten.

“His teacher came to us and said, ‘hey, he’s really struggling, can we have him talk to somebody?’ and he did that and he’s doing really well now, we’re so proud of him,” said Sprenger. “He’s really successful right now, and if he has another episode, it’s really scary to think that those services won’t be there, and it’s also scary to me as a parent that cares about other people’s kids.”

RPS was notified the grant would be terminated through a letter received on April 29 from Murray Bessette, a senior advisor in the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education.

ABC 6 News reached out to Bessette for insight on why the grant was cancelled and what can be done to fill the gap the loss of funding will lead to for RPS students that will miss out on mental health services, but did not hear back.

The district was told the grant was terminated because of shifting priorities between the last administration and the current one, but Pekel says this is the first time he’s seen a grant be cancelled for that reason before the program could be completed.

You can read Dr. Pekel’s full letter to the community below:

Dear Members of the Rochester Public Schools Community,

On April 29, 2025, Rochester Public Schools (RPS) received a letter from Murry Bessette in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education informing RPS that a federal grant to prepare and license staff to provide mental health services to RPS students has been terminated, effective December 31, 2025. The letter informed us that funding for the School-Based Mental Health Scholars grant is being discontinued in the middle of the multi-year grant period, leaving the objectives of the project incomplete and the majority of the people who are participating in the project without the licenses and degrees that the federal grant was awarded to help them earn.

The termination of this grant is a big step backward. Thousands of students who might have received counseling and support to address challenges to their mental health, such as depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide, will not receive that support unless the U.S. Department of Education reconsiders its termination of this vitally important initiative.

The $1.9 million federal grant to RPS was designed to address the profound mental health crisis that is affecting students in every community and from every background across the United States today. Toward that end, the federal funds are helping to fill a gap that Rochester Public Schools cannot fill on its own: enabling talented people who are already working in our school system to earn the licenses and degrees that they need to provide students with counseling and other forms of mental health support. The federal grant covers tuition in the social work program at Winona State University, substitute pay for staff while they complete internship experiences to earn their degrees, and mentoring and supervision to support these emerging mental health practitioners as they learn their craft.

Importantly, while the grant helps people earn their licenses and degrees, it does not guarantee them a job in Rochester Public Schools. Rather, it only guarantees them an interview. They must then earn that job like any other candidate who applies.

The federal grant to Rochester Public Schools includes an appropriate and common-sense emphasis on helping people of color and Indigenous people earn the degrees they need to provide mental health services in our schools. Two-thirds of the participants in the project to date are from those backgrounds, while one-third are white. As such, while the grant seeks to increase the number of mental health professionals in our school system who are underrepresented when compared to the demographic composition of the student body we serve, it does not exclude people from other backgrounds and life experiences from participating.

This spring, six people participating in the program will earn their licenses and master’s degrees and will be able to serve as social workers in our schools and as staff at mental health agencies who work with schools in Rochester. We are thrilled at their accomplishment and thank them for their hard work to reach this personal and professional milestone.

However, helping those six people enter new careers to serve our students was supposed to be just the beginning of the project’s accomplishments. Another ten people are currently participating in the program, but if this grant is terminated, they will not be able to earn their licenses and degrees. Terminating the grant before those people finish the program is a strikingly inefficient and unproductive use of taxpayer dollars. Funds that have already been spent on tuition, stipends, and other expenses for those participants would be largely wasted because they will not be able to complete the credentials they need to serve in our schools.

And beyond the current participants in the program, twelve more people are supposed to begin participating in the project next year and are scheduled to complete the program during the final two years of the federal grant.

If RPS is allowed to complete the work that the federal grant was funded to support, by the end of the project, it will have prepared more than two dozen talented and dedicated professionals to strengthen student mental health in Rochester and beyond.

Rochester Public Schools plans to file a request for reconsideration of the termination of this grant, and I am hopeful that staff at the U.S. Department of Education will recognize that it is in our nation’s interest to pursue innovative strategies to strengthen the mental health of our young people.

The termination of this grant has brought the decisions that are currently being made in Washington, D.C., close to home here in Rochester. Some of those decisions will impact much larger numbers of people than will be impacted by the termination of the federal mental health grant to Rochester Public Schools. But if you have spent time, as I have, with students who are struggling with mental health and wellbeing, you know that the termination of this grant would be a lost opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students who desperately need additional support to thrive in school and in life.

Sincerely,

Kent Pekel, Ed.D

Superintendent