Illinois made screening universal, and it was the first.
Everything before it encouraged, funded or studied. Illinois required. That's the line districts in other states now ask us about, because it's the template their legislature is most likely to copy.
It does not start until the 2027-28 school year, which is the part districts miss. The runway is the window to get a program right rather than stand one up in a hurry.
Read subsection (d) before you plan around it. The duty to offer screening only binds in years the State has actually procured a free self-report tool, and districts can apply to push the start date. A mandate with a condition attached is not the same as a mandate.
States that require education or training.
The most common kind, and still the fastest growing. Nobody has to be screened, but somebody has to be taught. Watch where the duty lands: on the school in Georgia, on the state to supply the training in Montana, on licensure in Virginia.
Requires at least one hour of evidence-based suicide awareness and prevention training for every student in grades six through twelve.
01 JUL 2025Made youth suicide awareness and prevention training mandatory rather than recommended, one hour every three years, and put the state on the hook to make that training free.
05 MAY 2025Requires that school staff and students receive education on suicide awareness and prevention.
22 APR 2021Requires school counselors to be trained in mental health, including disorders, depression, trauma and youth suicide, to be licensed and to renew.
30 MAR 2021Requires health education courses to include information on mental health.
21 AUG 2021Encourages schools to provide mental health training and education for students.
01 JUN 2021States that fund services rather than mandate them.
Money without a requirement. These are the states where a district can run a program if it chooses to, and where the budget question is already answered. Colorado is the one to read: it funds training for the staff you have rather than headcount you don't.
Created the School-Based Mental Health Support Program, which trains and supports the educator workforce a district already has instead of funding new hires, with rural schools first in line.
18 APR 2024Established the Children's Behavioral Health Initiative, including grant funding for school-linked behavioral health services.
27 JUL 2021Appropriated funding for a pilot program for telebehavioral health services through schools.
29 JUL 2021Allocated American Rescue Plan Act funding to a grant program for schools to hire psychologists.
18 NOV 2021States that require access to information.
The lightest touch, and the easiest to satisfy. Every one of these is a publishing requirement rather than a program, and most districts are already half done. Since 988 went live the crisis number on a student ID has become the single most copied provision in the country.
Requires mental health and suicide crisis resources, including 988, on student identification cards at any public school with grade seven or above, and at every institution of higher education.
JUL 2025Folded the state crisis line into 988 Colorado and updated what a student identification card has to carry.
MAY 2025Requires schools to print crisis line contact information on all identification cards for students in grades six through twelve.
28 MAY 2021Requires all school websites to provide access to information and resources on behavioral health, including mental health.
03 MAY 2021States that set policy, or told somebody to go and look.
Studies, advisory bodies and crisis protocols. These tend to be the states where a requirement arrives two or three sessions later, which is why they're worth watching rather than ignoring. Virginia is the live one: the work group it created reported in November 2025, and a screening tool was the thing it was told to design.
Convened a work group across health, behavioral health and education to design a mental health screening and assessment tool for children from birth to five, reporting to the money committees by 1 November 2025.
2025 SESSIONEstablished a legislative study required to report on mental health screening and suicide prevention policies for children in schools.
01 OCT 2021Established the School Emotional Learning and School Climate Advisory Collaborative, to develop a strategy for collaborating with community-based mental health providers.
24 JUN 2021Requires local boards of education to allow students up to four mental health days per school year.
16 JUN 2021Requires school health services plans to state that staff must attempt to contact a mental health professional for a student in crisis, and that providers and resource officers must attempt verbal de-escalation.
06 JUL 2021How a district actually starts, in five moves.
Whether your state requires screening or merely allows it, the path is the same. The paperwork differs, and we handle the part that differs.
We track them so a superintendent doesn't have to.
Requirements move every session, and they rarely move in the same direction twice. We watch the ones that touch your setting, tell you when something changes, and keep the program compliant as it does.
Tell us your state and we'll come back with what applies to your district today, whether or not you ever become a client.
For the wider policy picture, the Hopeful Futures Campaign publishes a state-by-state School Mental Health Report Card. We would rather send you to a source that is maintained than pretend this page is one.
