But when she saw an announcement at her high school for a camping trip in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she was intrigued.

“I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would drive nine hours just to sleep in the woods,” said Begum, who went on to co-found an outdoor adventure club at her high school. “But as I lay in my tent that night, I realized that the fresh air and peacefulness of being by the lake were unlike anything I have ever experienced.’

The trip opened up a new world of friendships and ignited a love of nature, said Begum, who will begin her sophomore year at the University of Michigan this fall. 

But experiences like Begum’s are in shorter supply this summer, outdoor education advocates said, after cuts to federal grants led to the abrupt cancellation of hiking and camping trips for tens of thousands of children and teens.  

“We’re worried there’s going to be a domino effect of losing a whole generation of kids who don’t have early access to nature,” said Julia Hurwit, campaign manager of the Sierra Club’s Outdoor Alliance for Kids (OAK). “We know that early access to nature is what creates lifelong advocates and environmental stewards who then grow up to lead outings like this.” 

It may also be an antidote for excessive time spent in front of a phone or computer, Hurwit said. Studies show on average, kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend more than watching or using screens, which can lead to sleep problems and mental health issues.

“This generation is spending the least amount of time outside of any generation in history,” she said. “We’re seeing the mental and physical impacts of that.”

Founded in 2010, OAK includes more than 100 organizations that provide outdoor experiences like Nazma Begum’s camping trip. Under past presidential administrations, OAK and its members received relatively abundant support, including President Obama’sin 2015 to make it easier for kids in cities to get to trails and President Biden’s 2025 to increase outdoor access for youth and veterans. 

But this summer, camping programs in Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota and California were canceled in the wake of funding cuts, according to Sierra Club data, scaling back summer activities for thousands of children, many of whom are from underserved communities. 

In February 2025, President Trump’s administration cut in AmeriCorps grant funding, forcing the cancellation of outdoor education programs across the country. Even after some funds were restored later in the year, many programs had already been called off,  including trips for nearly 24,000 students in and 3,000 youth in Wisconsin, where the Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes its Reaching Out program.

Federal workforce reductions also forced some programs to call off educational experiences. In Alaska, some Denali Discovery Camp youth trips for youth were canceled last summer after an education program manager was laid off.  

In spite of the cancellations, the Sierra Club increased its goal for the number of kids that participate in outdoor education this summer and beyond. The initiative, launched in June, aims to create more opportunities for students to learn outside and get more kids outside by next summer. So far more than 150 organizations have joined the initiative, helping 50,000 children connect with nature.

“We’re trying to engage our members to bring joy back into this work and grow the base,” Hurwit says, “so that if in a few years we have the chance to make moves on the policy front, we’re able to do that in a much more effective way.”

Hurwit hopes the initiative will mobilize member organizations so that it will be easier to successfully lobby for legislation that benefits outdoor education. The , for example, was introduced in March but has not advanced during this congressional session. 

She said the Million Kids Outdoors initiative is also intended to raise the visibility of organizations that continue to lead camping, hiking, canoeing and other outdoor trips even as federal support decreases. Detroit Outdoors, a partnership between the Sierra Club and the Detroit Department of Parks and Recreation, took eight teenagers to Yosemite National Park in July for a week of climbing, photography, poetry, painting and swimming in the chilly Merced River. 

Detroit Outdoors also offers overnight camping trips in Michigan to train teachers to bring their students to Scout Hollow, a campground in Detroit’s Rouge Park.

“We support the teachers so they can take their lessons outside and be able to do it where the kids are going to be safe, warm and dry and have the equipment they need,” says Garrett Dempsey, lead Sierra Club staff with Detroit Outdoors. “We really believe that time outside offers so much for a classroom environment, when it comes to learning larger academic concepts or about yourself.”

Research backs up the arguments that . Especially since COVID, outdoor education is seen in different states as a way to boost mental health and academic outcomes. Initiatives to reduce screen time and develop green spaces to cool urban “heat islands” often go hand-in-hand with efforts to get kids outside for instruction. 

When federal grant money isn’t available, some organizations are able to step up their fundraising efforts. Sausalito-based NatureBridge leads overnight environmental science trips in national parks for students in grades 4 through 12. The organization raises more than $1 million annually to fund scholarships so that students who qualify for free and reduced-lunch can participate.

“Students need time away from screens, meaningful science learning and opportunities to connect with each other and the natural world,” says NatureBridge President and CEO Phillip Kilbridge. “The challenge isn’t demand, it’s that many schools are making decisions in an environment of increasing financial uncertainty.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon awarded Indiana a “Returning Education to the States” waiver, easing federal regulations on how the Indiana Department of Education can use $13 million in federal Title grants for “state-level activities” including testing, teacher training, and afterschool programs. 

But McMahon, after months of negotiations with Indiana officials, did not grant the much broader request Indiana submitted last summer to waive restrictions on $350 million in Title grants that flow directly to districts and schools.

At issue are the $30 billion federal Title grants – such as Title I to combat poverty and Title III to help English Language Learners – that Congress created in the 1960s to give vulnerable students across the country extra help in school. Conservatives have wanted to scale those grants back for years, with Trump seeking to cut them and combine them into more flexible block grants to schools as far back as 2020.

The outcome in Indiana was similar to what happened in Iowa, where state officials proposed in March, 2025, a broad waiver of restrictions on how money is used by both the state and by individual districts. What started as a in state grants by the time it was approved in January.

The reduced Indiana waiver, combined with the scaled-back waiver in Iowa and a small waiver of requirements in Louisiana, suggest McMahon may not have as much legal authority to cut rules —  considered red tape and inefficient by some and guardrails to protect the neediest kids by others — as much as some states and conservatives hoped.

A spokeswoman for the Indiana education department said Congress would have to change the laws covering the Title grants in order for the state’s request to be granted.

Opponents of the waivers were relieved that McMahon did not waive the rules broadly. 

“I hope that it signals that, at least when it comes to waivers, the department is doing closer to the law than what some may have expected,” said Phillip Lovell, Associate Executive Director of All4Ed, an education think tank that has opposed the waivers. Lovell said the Iowa and Indiana waivers show the Trump administration is “being a bit more moderate than what many of us had feared they would be.” 

Nicholas Munyan-Penney, assistant director of P-12 policy of the EdTrust education nonprofit which has also opposed the waivers, said he was hopeful because Indiana’s request to include all districts and schools “largely did get shot down.”

“My sense is that they really are trying to be thoughtful about this, and are worried they won’t be able to defend parts going broader,” he said.

But both Lovell and Munyan-Penney had concerns about McMahon approving some waivers of academic testing rules as Indiana reshapes its grading system for schools and districts.

McMahon did not address why Indiana’s full request was not approved at the . She instead proclaimed that it “frees…state and local funds from bureaucratic red tape compliance paperwork, and returns it to its rightful place in the classroom.”

Indiana Governor Mike Braun, a Republican, and state education secretary Katie Jenner also did not address why the full request did not win approval.

Indiana Department of Education spokesperson Courtney Bearsch later downplayed the scaled-back waiver.

“The only component in the request that was not able to be granted would require an act of Congress to make it possible,” Bearsch said. “Indiana is ready and eager to lead those discussions nationally and continue to increase flexibility for states to improve education for our students.”

Last year, McMahon encouraged states and school districts to apply for waivers that cut the “red tape” of federal requirements to prove that each dollar of grants went to the specific group of disadvantaged students.

Indiana’s application last fall asked to combine multiple grants into a single fund so it could better focus the money on its main goals –  literacy, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) proficiency and reshaping high school education.

Indiana also wanted to take some other grants to create an “innovation fund” that would act as a school choice grant. The state proposed taking money aimed at improving struggling schools to help other schools nearby, whether charter or traditional district schools, that students could choose instead. Such a fund would “better support a growing ecosystem of effective, innovative school models,” according to Indiana’s application. 

That proposal is not included in the waiver.

Indiana’s waiver added, however, a limited pilot program to try out combining Title funds for teacher training, reducing class sizes, mental health and afterschool programs at up to 15 percent of districts.

But just because we’re always worrying doesn’t mean that we’re always wrong. Children today are struggling with their mental health — struggling to maintain a semblance of hope about the future they’re inheriting. — report feeling so discouraged that it interferes with their daily lives. 

This youth mental health crisis has been with us for a moment. In 2018, in response to the horrifying Parkland, Florida, school shooting, President Donald Trump’s using federal School Safety funding for investments to “expand the pipeline of school-based mental health services providers.” The ensuing began in 2019, near the end of Trump’s first term. 

And yet, despite the issue’s ongoing urgency, the second Trump administration . Among the schools that felt that loss was the Multicultural Learning Center, a public charter school on the outskirts of Los Angeles County. As the administration’s decision works its way through the courts, it’s worth considering what might be lost if we stop investing in supporting children’s mental health. 

A $4.6M grant for students’ well-being

Winter is sunny in Canoga Park, where the Multicultural Learning Center’s campus is cloudless, ice-free and pushing 70 degrees. The air’s crisp on a dry December Thursday in the school’s courtyard garden, which hosts a series of green, thriving native plants and a sign that outlines the school’s goals for its learners: “Caring, Respectful, Responsible, Safe, Tolerant.” 

The dual language immersion charter school opened in after California voters approved a statewide mandate largely banning bilingual education. Its status as a charter allowed it flexibility from that decision, which it used to pursue a child-focused pedagogy in both English and Spanish. Co-founder and executive director Gayle Nadler says that these elements serve the goal of “learner agency. We want our students to be ready to advocate for themselves.”

This focus on students’ social skills and well-being sharpened as the school reopened after the pandemic. This tracked national—and international—trends. A of the pandemic’s impact on children found that they “consistently point[ed] to a decline in child wellbeing globally.” At the Multicultural Learning Center, school leaders now estimate that they had capacity to support only one-quarter of their children who needed services. 

In 2022, seeking to grow that capacity, the school applied with several other charters for one of . They were awarded nearly $4.6 million over five years, which launched at the beginning of 2023. Simultaneously, the school secured funding from to construct a small “Wellness Center” where students could receive the mental health support they needed. 

That $4.6 million made it possible for the school to staff the center with two full-time therapists and a rotating group of graduate interns preparing for careers in social work or therapy. “The funds get used to partner with universities to have master’s-level students do their fieldwork with us,” Nadler says, “to hire recently graduated candidates from those same universities to work on our staff.” 

The program at Multicultural Learning Center modeled the twin purposes of the grant: create more demand in the job market for school-based mental health therapists by funding those positions while making the schools a training ground for future therapists.

When the administration zeroed out the grants last April, it blocked MLC from accessing the last $1.9 million originally budgeted for the project.

The sudden loss of funds left grantees like Nadler in a lurch. She estimates that her school’s share of the money raised their mental health services capacity to a level that they were meeting the needs of at least 95% of students who needed support. To try to recover the resources they’d been expecting, the school joined a lawsuit headed by Washington state. 

The federal government technically ended the grants by denying their renewal, arguing that they were no longer aligned with the president’s second term priorities. While federal grants are subject to regular reviews to ensure that grantees are meeting expectations, the Multicultural Learning Center and their co-plaintiffs countered that the administration had made the choice to cancel their grants without any substantive consideration of the work being done. 

In December, , and ordered the administration to undertake an appropriate review of the grants by the end of the month. The administration then disbursed small “interim” grants — $90,000 in the Multicultural Learning Center’s case — while individual reviews took place. As the deadline for these reviews neared, the Education Department requested an extension from the court while it prepared an appeal. 

On Feb. 24, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused, ruling that the administration appeared unlikely to convince the courts that it had provided grantees adequate reason for canceling their funding. 

In the meantime, the ruling meant that the department had to release the originally promised 2026 funds for the mental health grants for recipients like the Multicultural Learning Center.

The saga is far from over. As the Education Department plans its appeal, it released six months of the promised 2026 funding. In a letter sent to grantees, the department explained that the remaining half may be made available after it conducts an “updated performance and budget report,” depending on how the lawsuit is ultimately settled.

For now, the school is muddling through, staffing the Wellness Center through the end of this school year with the half-year of funding they were able to pry loose through the courts. Nadler says it’s a priority to maintain these services, but isn’t sure where she’ll find the funds to replace the federal resources if the Trump administration ultimately succeeds in blocking the rest of the 2026 money they’d budgeted for. 

Taking care of the kids still No. 1

Almost anything can become normal if we let it. Remember traveling without a phone in your pocket? Remember when school shootings were so rare that, when they occurred, we expected our political leaders to act to make them even less likely?

Humans can get used to most anything. But that doesn’t mean that we can navigate any particular new normal with an equal degree of ease. This is particularly true for children, who are less practiced at accommodation than their parents and caregivers. You might have grown used to bloodstained classrooms and brazen public corruption, but your 11-year-old’s gonna have questions when they first see these sorts of things. 

As I’ve written many times now, this is the key to understanding the United States’s youth mental health crisis. The various tech boogeymen haunting public discourse — smartphones, social media, screens more generally — are real problems, but insufficient for understanding the depth of the problem. No, today’s kids are gloomy because they are clearsighted: we have dealt them a genuinely terrible hand. 

To dig them (and ourselves) out of this hole, we need to 1) make actual, effective steps towards a safer, stabler and more dignified world worthy of our children’s dreams; and 2) provide mental health services to help repair the damage we’ve done to their well-being. 

“The number one thing you can do to prevent school violence,” Nadler says, “is mental health counseling, build[ing] relationships, taking care of the kids. That’s the number one thing. It’s not metal detectors, it’s not active shooter drills, it’s not armed guards, none of that.” 

“I just can’t imagine a world,” she added, “where we don’t take care of people — and it starts with children.”

But the state’s request before the U.S. Department of Education has raised concerns by advocates who worry needy students could “lose both dedicated attention and resources” in Indiana and other states.   

Indiana joined Iowa this fall in asking the U.S. Department of Education for permission to merge their federal “Title” education grants – such as Title I to combat poverty and Title III to help English Language Learners — into one block grant for states and schools.

A similar attempt by Oklahoma is on hold after state Superintendent Ryan Walters resigned in September, while several state school leaders have asked U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to work with Congress to ease restrictions.

“Our goals…include less red tape for our people,” state Education Secretary Katie Jenner told the state school board. “We’re shifting towards…the flexibility to put the resources where they’re needed the most.”

At the same time, advocacy groups are shouting warnings that removing guardrails on the $30 billion in Title grants, created in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” could lead to the country’s most needy students being left out.

In Indiana, officials have asked the U.S. Department of Education to pool the more than $350 million it receives in Title grants in the name of efficiency — to save time and millions of dollars now spent documenting how each dollar is used for specific groups of students.

Instead, the state wants the freedom to use the money for its main statewide education priorities — literacy, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) proficiency and reshaping high school education.

It’s also seeking freedom to spend federal School Improvement Grants — money now targeted at improving failing schools — to go instead toward state school choice goals.

Indiana would create an “innovation fund” with that money to help other schools nearby that students could choose instead. Such a fund would “better support a growing ecosystem of effective, innovative school models,” according to Indiana’s application.

“Students and families cannot wait — sometimes for years — for a chronically underperforming school to improve in order to receive access to high-quality instruction,” the application adds..

Both Iowa and Indiana’s request to the Education Department — with rulings expected early next year — “are expected to set a precedent for the scope of future waivers granted to other states,” the American School Superintendents Association

Indiana’s request, however, is raising concerns from several education advocacy groups — including The Education Trust, All4Ed, UnidosUS and the National Parents Union — that removing restrictions on the money will mean that students that most need extra help won’t get it.

“This approach fundamentally misunderstands — and threatens to undermine — the purpose of these targeted federal programs, which were created to address specific, documented gaps in support for vulnerable student populations,” the groups said in a . “When Indiana lists numerous state priorities without any specific commitments to individual student groups, it signals that these populations would lose both dedicated attention and resources under the proposed consolidation.”

Indiana’s request to the U.S. Department of Education to waive restrictions on the money goes beyond Iowa’s, said Nicholas Munyan-Penney, Assistant Director of P12 Policy at The Education Trust. Indiana is seeking leeway from restrictions both for the state and for individual schools and districts, while Iowa is asking for an exemption just for the state, he said.

“In its current form, Indiana’s is much more dramatic and wide-ranging in its scope and potential impact,” Munyan-Penney said.

Within Indiana, the Indiana State Teachers Association is also raising concerns.

“ISTA believes flexibility can be beneficial when paired with transparency, collaboration and a clear focus on student success,” the association . “However, we remain concerned about provisions in the waiver that could reduce input from educators and parents and divert critical resources from schools working to close opportunity gaps.”

The union also has concerns about shifting the School Improvement Grant money.

“The proposed waiver could redirect these funds to schools or programs that are not identified as low-performing, potentially diluting the impact on historically underserved students,” the union said.

And residents of Gary, a high-poverty city, also worry that the neediest students will be left out if guardrails are removed.

“When I hear…this waiver is about ‘cutting red tape,’ I don’t buy it,” Natalie Ammons, grandmother of three students in the Gary school district, testified last week in a webcast to Congressional staff. “It may be cutting something, but it’s not red tape — it’s cutting away the few protections families like mine have left.”

Asked for school officials who are seeking the waivers, the Indiana Department of Education did not suggest any. 91ɬ�� also requested a copy of feedback the department sought from residents and officials on the waiver, but the department did not provide it.

The goal of combining Title grants, which total about $30 billion a year nationally, have been a growing priority of Republican officials after a version of it was proposed in Project 25. Oklahoma and Iowa proposed merging them this spring, but concerns arose about what the U.S. Department of Education could legally allow.

Trump also put a hold on disbursing several Title grants to states this year before backing down.

In July, McMahon encouraging them “to seek creative and effective waivers for improving student academic achievement and maximizing the impact of Federal funds” and spelling out a waiver process.

Title I, which accounts for more than half of that money, is awarded to states and schools according to poverty levels and enrollment. All4Ed, estimates that more than two thirds of school districts receive some Title I money, though sometimes in low amounts if poverty is low.

Indianapolis Public Schools, for example, are scheduled to receive $15.7 million in Title I money next school year, while several smaller districts receive well under $100,000.