Michigan Just Named Character Education an Approved 31aa School Safety and Mental Health Expense

This December, Michigan will send mental health and school safety money to every district that opts in this fall. And, for the first time, that money can buy character education. The change is one sentence in Section 31aa(2)(k) of the education budget signed on July 21:

“Purchasing and implementing an evidence-based character- and relationship-building education program that includes family engagement, service learning, and project-based character development, and that fosters positive student-educator relationships and whole-school culture.”

Starting with the checks that land this December, Michigan districts can pay for The Positivity Project with Section 31aa money. Character and relationship education is now a named line on the state’s approved spending list.

The budget itself (House Bill 5630, now Public Act 25 of 2026) includes $321 million to support student wellness through mental health and safety grants to districts, which is a 12-fold increase in that funding since 2019. Most of the coverage focused on literacy, free school meals, and increased per-pupil funding. But, for school leaders who believe culture and safety start with character and relationships, the sentence above is important news.

What is Section 31aa?

Section 31aa of Michigan’s State School Aid Act (MCL 388.1631aa) is the state’s student mental health and safety fund — and its per-pupil program is not a competitive grant. There is no application or rubric. Any district, charter school, ISD, or nonpublic school that opts in during the fall window receives a per-pupil payment by December 31.

Last year, about a third of Michigan’s districts opted in — and those districts received roughly $365 per student. The rate changes each year with the appropriation and the number of participants. 

In addition to adding the language around character and relationships, lawmakers also narrowed the language around state investigations. If your board decided not to accept the 31aa funding in a prior year, the new language may be worth reviewing to see if it’s now a better fit.

Where does The Positivity Project fit in 31aa funding?

Subsection (2)(k) is the newest of 31aa’s allowable uses — and it’s conjunctive, meaning a program has to check every clause, not just one. So, let’s break it down.

“Evidence-based.” P2 meets the criteria for a Tier 2 evidence-based intervention under ESSA. Dr. Justin D. Garwood — Professor of Education at the University of Vermont and author of more than 55 peer-reviewed journal articles — has independently studied P2’s impact. His peer-reviewed research found significant reductions in students’ internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, improved teacher-student relationship quality, and enhanced sense of relatedness among P2 students. He also found that teachers implement P2 with 94% fidelity — nearly double the rate typically seen with social-emotional learning interventions.

“Character- and relationship-building.” Daily 15-minute, teacher-led lessons on positive psychology’s 24 character strengths and the Other People Mindset — in every classroom. At P2, daily lessons are deliberate because we believe that consistency is how character becomes culture.

“Family engagement.” P2 for Families sends each week’s character strength home with weekly lessons and family letters — in English and in Spanish — so the vocabulary students learn at school gets spoken at the dinner table. Each week also includes a non-tech downloadable activity to engage families in each character strength.

“Service learning” and “project-based character development.” P2 provides service learning opportunities. And, P2’s project-based learning library includes 30+ differentiated units spanning grades K-12: school-wide projects that unite students across grade levels in serving people in their school and community, and class-based units that challenge students to apply character strengths to authentic, real-world problems — research, build, reflect, and present.

“Positive student-educator relationships.” The peer-reviewed study “Change in Teacher-Student Relationship Quality During a Tier-One Character Education Intervention” found that students and teachers “experienced higher rates of closeness and lower rates of conflict” as a result of The Positivity Project, compared to a control group that didn’t use it.

“Whole-school culture.” One shared character vocabulary, PreK-12, across every classroom and assembly. Our Results page documents what that looks like school by school — in behavior, attendance, and belonging. Behavior: a school that went from 1,672 referable incidents to 116. Attendance: an elementary school that cut chronic absenteeism from 17.7% to 5.5% across four consecutive years of improvement. Belonging: a middle school where, after one quarter, students reporting that their teachers care about them as individuals rose from 54% to 87% — and students reporting they feel safe at school rose from 66% to 75%. And, a principal who wrote that when implemented purposefully and consistently, “P2 opens the door to the place students and staff want to be.”

P2 supports the counselors, screeners, and safety upgrades for which 31aa was built. P2 strengthens the whole system that those investments serve — because, as we’ve said before, one counselor can’t carry a school culture alone. That work must be distributed among the staff so that character become the culture. 

What can districts do now?

Three things:

1. Put the fall opt-in on your business office’s calendar. Last cycle, the window ran from late October to early December. The form is the Section 31aa(2) “Student Mental Health and Safety Per Pupil Payment” opt-in, filed through MDE’s GEMS/MARS system. Opting in takes 10-15 minutes if your access already exists — and a couple of weeks of account setup if it doesn’t, which is why the districts that miss the funding are the ones that start too late.
2. Review the conditions with leadership. Opting in means spending only on the list of 31aa allowable uses, filing an annual expense report, and agreeing to the statute’s cooperation requirements. It’s best to meet with district leaders early to decide if opting in is right for your district.
3. Know that the new use starts with this December’s payments. The character and relationship education line applies to funds from the budget just signed — the checks that arrive on December 31.

The bigger point

We can’t control every challenge our students carry through the door. But, what we can control is whether every classroom in a building shares a habit of daily connection, a vocabulary for character, and a mindset focused on other people. And, Michigan law now recognizes character education for what it is: part of keeping students safe and well.

If your district wants help claiming these funds — whether or not you ever partner with us — we’ll walk your business office through the opt-in step by step. To learn more, please connect with us.