The Keeping Drugs Out of Schools Act of 2025 authorizes the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy to fund school‑community partnerships that pair Drug‑Free Communities (DFC) funded coalitions with local schools to implement tailored prevention strategies. The statute defines eligible entities narrowly — existing DFC‑funded coalitions that have a memorandum of understanding with at least one local school — and requires applications to include a detailed implementation plan.
This bill matters because it directs federal anti‑drug infrastructure toward K‑12 settings and explicitly covers modern delivery methods (including electronic devices). The grant program is deliberately modest and locally focused, so it will strengthen some community‑school links quickly but is unlikely, on its own, to produce statewide coverage without additional funding or expansion of the DFC footprint.
At a Glance
What It Does
Authorizes ONDCP to award initial and renewal grants to DFC‑funded coalitions that form school‑community partnerships with elementary, middle, or high schools. Grants are intended to implement locally tailored prevention strategies and may be executed by another federal agency under an interagency agreement.
Who It Affects
Existing Drug‑Free Communities coalitions that already receive federal DFC funding and have or will sign MOUs with local schools; local school administrations that agree to partnerships; ONDCP and other National Drug Control Program agencies if the Director delegates program execution.
Why It Matters
It channels federal anti‑drug resources into school settings using established coalition infrastructure, ties program evaluation into existing DFC reporting, and explicitly brings attention to electronic delivery mechanisms — all while using relatively small, focused grants rather than large, systemwide investments.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill creates a narrowly targeted grant stream: the Director of ONDCP may award money to eligible entities — which the statute defines as coalitions that have received DFC grants under the Anti‑Drug Abuse Act and that maintain a memorandum of understanding with at least one local school. A ‘‘school‑community partnership’’ is simply that coalition working with one or more local elementary, middle, or high schools to carry out prevention strategies tailored to that school’s student population and community environment.
Applications must be submitted jointly by the coalition and each partnering school and include a detailed, comprehensive plan describing the prevention activities. Awarded funds must be spent to implement the submitted plan and, if needed, to obtain specialized training and assistance from the organization identified in the bill (the entity that received a grant under section 4(a) of Public Law 107–82).
The statute emphasizes that grant money must supplement, not supplant, other federal and non‑federal funds already available for school prevention efforts, which places an administrative obligation on grantees to document additionality.The Director may delegate grant administration and related duties to another National Drug Control Program agency via interagency agreement, which allows flexibility in execution but can diffuse accountability. The bill also imports the evaluation regime used for Drug‑Free Communities grants by applying the statutory evaluation provision at section 1032(a)(6) of the Anti‑Drug Abuse Act, so grantees will be subject to the same reporting and performance measurement expectations as other DFC awardees.Substantive definitions are notable: ‘‘substance use and misuse’’ is taken from the Anti‑Drug Abuse Act and expressly includes consumption using electronic or other delivery mechanisms, bringing vaping and similar technologies within the program’s scope.
The statute authorizes multi‑year appropriations and places an administrative cap on how much of the appropriation the Director may use for overhead, limiting program run‑rate costs relative to direct grants.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The program limits each grant recipient to forming a single partnership per local school — no more than one eligible coalition may receive a grant tied to the same school.
A grant award is capped at $75,000 per fiscal year for each eligible entity.
The Director may renew an initial grant for up to three additional fiscal years following the award year.
Grantees must use funds to implement the approved plan and may obtain specialized training from the organization named under section 4(a) of Public Law 107–82, but may not use the money to replace existing federal or non‑federal prevention funding.
Congress authorized $7,000,000 annually for fiscal years 2026 through 2031 and limits ONDCP administrative spending on the program to no more than 8 percent of those appropriations.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Establishes the Act's name as the "Keeping Drugs Out of Schools Act of 2025." This is procedural but important for codification and cross‑referencing in agency guidance and future statutes.
Who counts as eligible and what counts as prevention
Sets statutory definitions that shape program reach: an "eligible entity" is a coalition that has received DFC funding under the Anti‑Drug Abuse Act and has a memorandum of understanding with at least one local school. The bill reuses the statutory definition of "substance use and misuse" from the Anti‑Drug Abuse Act and explicitly includes electronic delivery mechanisms, so prevention strategies must address vaping and similar technologies. By tying eligibility to existing DFC funding, the statute channels money through an established network but excludes groups without prior DFC awards.
Initial awards and renewals, and limits on recipients
Authorizes ONDCP to make initial grants and to award renewal grants for each of the three fiscal years following an initial award year. The statute caps grant amounts per fiscal year and prevents multiple coalitions from receiving program funds tied to the same local school, which preserves geographic exclusivity for partnerships but limits competition for any given campus.
ONDCP may delegate grant execution
Allows the Director to enter into interagency agreements with other National Drug Control Program agencies to execute grants and perform necessary program activities. This creates execution flexibility — ONDCP can lean on agencies with grant management capacity — but it shifts lines of operational accountability and may require interagency memoranda of understanding to clarify roles and data flows.
Joint applications, plan requirement, and spending rules
Requires eligible entities to file applications in coordination with each partnered local school and to include a detailed, comprehensive plan. Awarded funds must be used to implement that plan and can pay for specialized training from the organization cited in P.L. 107–82. The statute also includes a supplement‑not‑supplant clause, obliging grantees to demonstrate that program dollars add to, rather than replace, existing prevention funding.
Evaluation tied to DFC metrics and six‑year funding authorization
Applies the evaluation provision used for Drug‑Free Communities grants (section 1032(a)(6) of the Anti‑Drug Abuse Act), which means reporting, performance measures, and evaluation design will align with existing DFC requirements. Congress authorized $7 million annually for FY2026–2031 and capped administrative spending by ONDCP at 8 percent, creating a predictable but modest budget envelope with relatively little headroom for central program expansion.
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Explore Education in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Drug‑Free Communities coalitions that already have federal DFC funding and school MOUs — they gain a new, dedicated revenue stream to place prevention programs directly in nearby schools and to purchase specialized training.
- Local schools (elementary, middle, and high schools) that sign MOUs — they receive resources to implement locally tailored prevention strategies and access to coalition expertise on community drivers of substance use.
- Students and families in partner school communities — the statute's inclusion of electronic delivery mechanisms means prevention efforts can explicitly target vaping and device‑based product use common among youth.
- Organizations that provide specialized training recognized by the statute (the grantee under section 4(a) of P.L. 107–82) — they may see increased demand for technical assistance and training contracts funded by these grants.
- Public health and prevention practitioners within coalition networks — the program creates funding to pilot school‑specific interventions that, if evaluated, can inform broader practice.
Who Bears the Cost
- ONDCP — must stand up program processes, manage grants or oversee delegation, and operate within an 8 percent administrative cap that constrains central staffing and oversight capacity.
- Local school districts — even though grants cannot supplant existing funds, districts must coordinate applications, sign MOUs, and often supply in‑kind support (staff time, space, local coordination) to implement plans.
- Smaller or unaffiliated community coalitions — the eligibility rule limiting awards to existing DFC grantees excludes groups without prior federal DFC funding, concentrating benefits where DFC infrastructure already exists.
- National Drug Control Program agencies that accept delegated execution — delegation transfers operational workload and compliance responsibilities to accepting agencies, which must absorb grant management costs.
- Congressional appropriations priorities — the $7 million per year authorization is modest and will compete with other prevention and treatment programs for Congressional attention and funding.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill trades reach for reliability: it channels resources through established Drug‑Free Communities coalitions to ensure competent implementation in partnership with schools, but that choice excludes communities without a DFC footprint and, combined with modest per‑award limits, favors targeted pilots over broad, equitable coverage — a classic depth‑versus‑breadth policy dilemma.
Several implementation tensions could shape how much impact this program actually has. First, by restricting eligibility to coalitions that previously received DFC funding, the statute ensures experienced grantees but leaves gaps in communities without a DFC presence; those areas will not be served unless they obtain separate DFC funding first.
Second, the per‑grant ceiling and the overall authorization level create a program of limited scale: small awards encourage local tailoring and pilots but cannot deliver comprehensive, sustained programming across many schools without additional appropriations or leveraging other funding sources.
Operational questions remain. The supplement‑not‑supplant requirement is sensible politically but hard to enforce in practice: grantees and school districts will need clear accounting rules to show that federal grant dollars truly add to existing resources.
Delegation authority gives ONDCP flexibility but puts a premium on interagency coordination and on written agreements that preserve performance measurement and data sharing. Finally, importing the DFC evaluation framework aligns the program with existing metrics but may not capture school‑specific outcomes or allow rigorous causal evaluation of school‑level interventions without additional evaluation design investments.
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