DC Mayor Muriel Bowser wants to save $7 million by gutting the mental health system that keeps the city's most vulnerable students safe — and she wants to do it before a replacement is ready.

Her proposed budget would phase out contracts with community-based organizations providing mental health clinicians to more than 180 DC schools, handing those responsibilities to a city agency that is not yet fully staffed to take them on. It would also end the city's 15-year contract with ChAMPS — the Child and Adolescent Mobile Psychiatric Service — which responds to mental health crises in schools. The replacement? A crisis team that primarily serves adults and operates overnight.

A DC Council member said it plainly: "We are building the plane as we are flying it." Some of the organizations affected haven't even been told whether their contracts will survive. Clinicians who have built years of trust with students may be gone before anyone else is ready to step in.

This is not reform. This is disruption. DC kids are already struggling with truancy, mental health crises, and community trauma. They need more support, not less.

We call on the DC Council to reject these cuts, preserve the ChAMPS contract, and pause the school-based behavioral health overhaul until a real plan is in place.