QUINCY, Calif. — When Taletha Washburn and the staff at Plumas Charter School first heard that California wanted to help schools treat more kids struggling with mental health, it felt like a propitious remedy for a rural community where families struggle to find care. Getting the program funding up and running, however, has proved to be an arduous endeavor.

Employees spent two years floundering, attending state-led webinars, filling out countless forms, and researching electronic health record systems to prepare. When they reached out for assistance, they waited months for a state response. The school received its first reimbursement check in April, but for a program Washburn had thought could be a panacea in her small rural town, it has been a disappointing bust.

A First-in-the-Nation Blueprint

Plumas Charter is among roughly 1,000 public schools, community colleges, and universities that participate in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first-in-the-nation initiative requiring health insurance companies to reimburse them for on-campus behavioral healthcare. California schools have been adding counselors, therapists, and psychiatrists to provide services where young people spend most of their time, making mental health treatment more accessible to kids whose families might have spent months waiting to see private therapists.

Five years after the program’s launch, school officials say they have encountered a rollout fraught with inadequate guidance from the state, an incomplete billing infrastructure, a lack of standardized forms, and persistent delays. More than half of California’s school systems and colleges do not participate in the billing program. Of those that do, fewer than one-fifth had filed claims as of June 1, according to the latest state data.

Administrative Labyrinth

The program has not come close to bringing in the half-billion dollars in promised revenue to cover the salaries of thousands of counselors, therapists, and wellness coaches. As a result, schools across California have issued thousands of pink slips amid local budget cuts.

“One of the things that makes people hate government is when we make a promise and then we struggle to keep that promise because we can’t get the administrative part of it up and running,” said state lawmaker Dawn Addis, a former special education teacher who has criticized the program’s slow implementation.

Tom Insel, the former head of the National Institute of Mental Health, who has advised Newsom, noted that the rocky rollout reflects the groundbreaking nature of what California is trying to do. Still, given the level of investment, he expected clearer evidence of dramatic improvement.

As regulatory frameworks and state implementations continue to evolve, this situation serves as a cautionary tale for publicly funded initiatives deployed without rigorous administrative scaffolding.