Last week, Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office and the Iowa Department of Education announced a competitive grant award totaling more than $8.6 million to 64 school districts across the state to assist schools with providing mental health and other “wraparound” services to students and families.

A Business Record member emailed us soon after to express his dismay that the state’s largest district, the Des Moines Independent Community School District, was not among the districts chosen. “Having seen first-hand the staggering need for more services, this is devastating news,” the reader wrote.

As we reported, 130 school districts had applied for the competitive grants; the only Greater Des Moines districts that were awarded grants were the Indianola, Johnston and Urbandale districts.

The Des Moines public schools considered applying for the grant, but elected not to apply, district spokesman Phil Roeder said.

“A big part of [the grant] is to provide Youth Mental Health First Aid training,” Roeder said in an emailed response. “We had a similar grant a few years ago that we used to get several staff trained to be [Youth Mental Health First Aid] trainers for the district, so we decided not to apply for this.”