When a child refuses to go to school, starts calling themselves stupid, or cries through homework every night, the first instinct is to find mental health support. On July 10, fifteen states filed suit to protect $1 billion in school mental health grants that train counselors and mental health professionals for K-12 schools. That funding matters.
But a 2024 special issue of the Annals of Dyslexia documented what the lawsuit will not fix: one in five school-aged children faces mental health problems, and the risk climbs significantly when an unidentified learning difference sits underneath. When nobody has looked for the underlying cause, the counselor’s office treats the smoke, not the fire.
Fifteen states are suing to restore $1 billion in school mental health funding. The fight is real — and so is the gap the coverage skips: children with unidentified learning differences are among those facing the highest risk of school-related mental health struggles, and school counselors rarely have the tools or mandate to look for the cause.
Common questions
Can school counselors help my child who has a learning difference?
My child is anxious about school. Could a learning difference be the cause?
What is the school mental health grant program the states are fighting over?
Should I wait for the lawsuit to resolve before getting my child help?
15 states are suing to protect school mental health funding. What the fight leaves out: kids with unidentified learning differences are most at risk. Ask for both.
What the Lawsuit Is Actually About
The Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program received $1 billion from Congress following a string of school shootings. Within a year of distribution, the grants were supporting schools in 49 states and had provided mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 students nationwide.
The Trump administration halted the grants in April 2025, citing conflicts with administration priorities. A December 2025 court order blocked that termination, but the administration has continued pushing to wind the program down. The new July 10 lawsuit, filed by attorneys general from fifteen states including California, Massachusetts, Oregon, and New York, targets gaps in the earlier order.
“The courts have repeatedly ruled that the Trump Administration does not have the power to arbitrarily revoke grant funding that provides critical mental health services to our students,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in a statement announcing the suit. “Still, the federal government continues its attempts to terminate funding.”
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha framed the human cost: “Our children deal with a unique set of problems which arise from growing up in 2026 — from loneliness to substance use disorder to the ever-present fear of violence — and the programs funded through these grants are designed to help them cope and hopefully thrive.”
Our children deal with a unique set of problems which arise from growing up in 2026 — from loneliness to substance use disorder to the ever-present fear of violence — and the programs funded through these grants are designed to help them cope and hopefully thrive.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
The Part Every Story Leaves Out
Here is what nearly every account of this lawsuit does not say: the children most likely to be sitting in a school counselor’s office are also among those most likely to have an unidentified learning difference that nobody has screened for.
Researchers Georgiou, Parrila, and McArthur, in a 2024 special issue of the Annals of Dyslexia, put the number on the table: one in five school-aged children between ages 4 and 19 already experiences mental health problems, and the risk is measurably higher for children with learning disorders like dyslexia. Children with literacy difficulties in early grades show higher social anxiety by grade 5. The International Dyslexia Association’s updated 2025 definition explicitly acknowledges that dyslexia “may affect psychological well-being, including anxiety, low self-esteem, and mood.”
That connection matters because school mental health programs are built to address symptoms. When the symptom is a child who is anxious, withdrawn, or acting out, the counselor offers support for that symptom. What the program rarely offers: a structured look at whether the root cause is a reading, processing, or attention difference that nobody in the school has named yet.
The real obstacle is not that counselors lack skill. It is a system that funds emotional downstream support without funding the upstream screening that would tell the counselor why this particular child is struggling in the first place. The 2024 Annals of Dyslexia authors themselves noted that “little is known about effective interventions for mental health problems in individuals with dyslexia” — meaning that even the mental health support for these kids is underequipped, because the learning piece is missing from the picture.
Key takeaways
- One in five school-age kids faces mental health problems, and the risk is higher with learning differences: A 2024 Annals of Dyslexia review found that children with reading difficulties show elevated rates of anxiety and social withdrawal, with effects visible as early as grade 3 and persisting to grade 5.
- The IDA’s 2025 dyslexia definition explicitly links the condition to anxiety, low self-esteem, and mood: Treating a child’s school anxiety without asking whether a learning difference drives it leaves the most important question unanswered.
- Parents should ask for both: School mental health support and a learning difference screening are not competing asks. Children whose learning root is identified alongside their emotional struggles get more complete support.
What This Means for Your Child Right Now
The lawsuit will work through courts for months. Parents of children who are already struggling do not have to wait for it to resolve.
If your child is anxious, withdrawn, or resistant about school, a counselor is a real asset. While you get that support in place, ask the harder question: has anyone formally looked at how your child processes written language, sounds, numbers, or attention? A mental health professional working without that information is navigating a map with half the terrain missing.
The research from the 2024 Annals of Dyslexia special issue found that resilience and coping skills help children with learning differences manage the emotional weight — and that when the learning difference is addressed directly, the anxiety that grew around years of unexplained failure often shrinks with it. “Your child isn’t broken — their brain is learning differently” is not a soft reassurance. It is what the neuroplasticity research from Shaywitz at Yale and Temple at Stanford actually shows: the right intervention changes the brain, and a reading or processing difficulty is not a fixed sentence.
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations such as an IEP or 504 plan, or you suspect a vision, hearing, or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too — that is the only route to those supports.
The courts have repeatedly ruled that the Trump Administration does not have the power to arbitrarily revoke grant funding that provides critical mental health services to our students. Still, the federal government continues its attempts to terminate funding.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Every child who ends up in a counselor’s office because school feels impossible deserves that support. They also deserve a system that asks what made school feel that way. The real obstacle here is not a funding fight in the courts. It is a model that pours resources into emotional downstream support while leaving the upstream learning difference unidentified and unnamed. Your child’s brain is changeable. A reading or processing difference is not a life sentence. The counselor who works with both the emotional response and the learning root is the one who actually moves the needle. Start by finding out what is actually going on with your child’s processing: Learning Success All Access.
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A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
References
- Stateline (Anna Claire Vollers) — 15 states sue Trump administration to block school mental health funding cuts
- Georgiou, G.K., Parrila, R. & McArthur, G. (2024) — Dyslexia and mental health problems: introduction to the special issue, Annals of Dyslexia
- International Dyslexia Association — 2025 Definition of Dyslexia
