Governor Gretchen Whitmer has announced that schools across Michigan are now recruiting over 500 mental and physical health professionals.
The funding to boost the number of counselors, social workers, psychologists and nurses in schools comes from the $17.1 billion state K-12 budget that Governor Whitmer signed last summer.
School districts have a deadline of March 1 to hire staff using state grant funding.
Michigan was rated the second worst state during the 2019-2020 school year in its student to counselor ratio of 671 to 1. The American School Counselor Association recommends a 250 to 1 ratio.