Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed budget bills Thursday to provide additional funding for school safety, student mental health, and reading assistance.
The $125 million appropriation includes money for literacy coaches and dyslexia services. Whitmer says schools will also have money for campus resource officers, alarm systems, or other safety upgrades.
“We’ve been really focused on improving outcomes for students, improving the safety in the classroom and giving people the wraparound support that they need,” she said. “I’m proud of that work, but there’s always going to be more to do.”
The governor signed the bills at an elementary school surrounded by students and Democratic lawmakers.
Whitmer said the school safety grants are a dark recognition that incidents of gun violence in schools are a near-daily event in the U.S. She said the new laws build on earlier gun safety legislation she signed. That includes a law that requires guns to be locked up when not in use in homes where they can be accessed by minors.
Some Republican lawmakers withheld support for a bill to create a tipline for students to report unsafely stored firearms. That bill ultimately passed, and was one of those signed into law by Whitmer on Thursday.
