How RFK Jr. is now involved in managing school shooting recovery - USA Today

RFK Jr.'s agency to help manage school shooting recovery

A program that was critical to helping schools in Sandy Hook and Uvalde heal will now be managed by the Health and Human Services Department (with continued oversight from the Education Department).

WASHINGTON – The federal agency run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to take over managing a multimillion-dollar grant program that helps schools recover from shootings and natural disasters, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.

McMahon said Feb. 23 that her agency would allow Kennedy's Health and Human Services Department to manage grant competitions and technical assistance for the School Emergency Response to Violence (or Project SERV) program, which provides money for schools that have experienced a "violent or traumatic event in which the learning environment has been disrupted."

Millions of dollars from the program have gone in recent years to schools at the center of high-profile shootings and disasters. Newtown Public Schools in Connecticut received more than $6 million in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre that killed 26 people in 2012, while $3 million went to the school district in Uvalde, Texas, after a similar tragedy 10 years later.

The federal Education Department also awarded the Hawaii Department of Education roughly $2.2 million through the program after wildfires ravaged the state's schools in 2023.

Project SERV money for those types of emergencies will now be administered through HHS, though still ultimately overseen by the Education Department.

“Nothing matters more than the safety of our children,” Secretary Kennedy said in a statement. “HHS brings decades of frontline experience responding to crises and disasters, and we are putting that expertise directly into our schools. We will equip communities with the tools they need to protect students, support teachers, and keep families safe.”

Kennedy has made controversial comments in the past about gun violence, saying last year that when he was a kid, he and his peers were "encouraged" to bring guns to school. He has linked the rise in school shootings to "overmedicating" children, though there's a lack of scientific evidence to support that statement.

Secretary McMahon said HHS will additionally take on a bigger role in managing some educational programs for low-income families. She also announced a separate agreement authorizing the State Department to take on more responsibility for overseeing colleges' compliance with foreign gift-reporting requirements.

“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” the education secretary said in a statement.

In the past year, the Trump administration cut the Education Department in half, spinning off many of its most critical offices into other parts of the government. Those divisions have long administered a wide range of programs to support things like after-school activities, charter schools, historically Black colleges and Title I funding for low-income schools.

"These illegal agreements aren’t just creating pointless new bureaucracy that burdens our already-overworked teachers and schools; they are actively jeopardizing resources and support that students and families count on and are entitled to under the law," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said in a statement.

The Education Department's union also pushed back on the latest attempt at reorganizing the agency. Rachel Gittleman, the union's president, said moving programs for schools to places without the right educational expertise will create confusion, not efficiency.

"Today’s announcement moves the Office of Safe and Supportive Schools to the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency run by a man who frequently spreads conspiracy theories and misinformation about children’s health," she said in a statement. "This is an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on the Department to safeguard access to quality education and to the taxpayers who depend on federal oversight to prevent waste.”

Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.