📢 Petition Summary:

We call on Michigan legislators to preserve Section 32p as a dedicated funding stream in the FY26 School Aid Budget. Eliminating it would dismantle the local systems that connect families to vital early childhood services in every Michigan community.

✍️ Petition Description:

Michigan’s youngest children—and the families raising them—are at risk.

Since 2006, Michigan has invested in a statewide early childhood infrastructure through Great Start Collaboratives (GSCs) and Great Start Family Coalitions (GSFCs). These are not programs—they are systems. Funded through Section 32p of the School Aid Act, GSCs align local health, education, and family support services. They are how communities coordinate early childhood resources to reach families effectively.

Without dedicated funding, we lose the infrastructure that:

• Coordinates programs across health, education, and human services
  Brings together parents, schools, child care providers, libraries, health departments, and more
• Centers parent/family/caregiver voice in decision-making and system design
• Identifies gaps, prevents duplication, and ensures taxpayer dollars are used wisely
• Ensures that local needs—not a one-size-fits-all solution—drive early childhood investment

In Michigan, Section 32p funding strengthens early childhood systems by supporting local communities in delivering essential services to children and families. With this dedicated investment, communities across Michigan are able to:

• Design solutions that reflect local values and priorities
• Promote parent leadership and family voice
• Advance Michigan’s Early Childhood Outcomes:
  • Children are born healthy
  • Children are healthy, thriving, and developmentally on track from birth through third grade
  • Children are developmentally ready to succeed in school at the time of school entry
  • Children are prepared to succeed in fourth grade and beyond by reading proficiently by the end of third grade
• Connect families to developmental screenings and early intervention services through HUB systems and local referral networks, including Centralized Access Systems like Help Me Grow and MI Early Childhood
• Offer home visiting services that support parenting, early learning, and child development
• Promote early literacy through initiatives such as Talking is Teaching, family literacy events, StoryWalks, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, and book distribution
• Partner with WIC (Michigan’s Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) to engage families with young children—providing early literacy resources, developmental information, and connections to local early childhood programs
• Support kindergarten readiness and smooth transitions between preschool and elementary school
• Provide parent education and mental health support through local parent education workshops, groups, and family outreach
• Host family engagement opportunities, including play-based learning activities and community events
• Reach families with limited access to services, including ALICE households, single parents, caregivers of children with special needs, and those facing high stress
• Coordinate partnerships across sectors through Great Start Collaboratives and Family Coalitions to align local services and close opportunity gaps
• Support early childhood providers and educators through professional development, peer networking, and systems-building
• Bring together schools, health providers, social services, businesses, faith-based partners, parents, and more to align services for children birth to age 8
• Identify gaps and overlaps in services and works to improve coordination across sectors
• Strengthen early childhood providers through training and peer networks
• Prevent duplication and maximize taxpayer dollars by aligning services

While services may vary by region, every Michigan community benefits from Section 32p. This dedicated funding strengthens early childhood systems, ensuring families are connected, children are supported, and communities are prepared for long-term success.

Section 32p does not fund direct services for only a few—it funds the systems that make early childhood work for everyone.

Whether you're a first-time parent, a teacher, a grandparent caregiver, or a community leader—you benefit from a well-organized early childhood system.

These supports work because they are locally led, family-centered, and coordinated. They reduce isolation, strengthen school readiness, and provide real solutions that save money down the road. GSCs are accountable to their communities. They submit annual work plans, partner with cross sector agencies, and elevate parent voice in every decision. No other funding structure does this.

🛑 But if Section 32p is absorbed into Section 22f—general per-pupil funding—everything is at risk:

❌ No requirement to support early childhood
❌ No coordination structure or local planning tables
❌ No guaranteed access to family voice in system design
❌ No accountability for outcomes or efficient use of funding

Rolling 32p into Section 22f isn’t just a budget move—it would unravel nearly two decades of progress. Michigan would lose the only dedicated structure for ensuring young children and their families receive coordinated support from birth through age 8.

We urge Michigan lawmakers to: 

• ✅ Maintain Section 32p as a dedicated funding line
• ✅ Reject proposals to merge it into Section 22f
• ✅ Protect the statewide network of Great Start Collaboratives and Family Coalitions that make our systems work

Great Start Collaboratives and Family Coalitions are not duplicative programs. They are the backbone of early childhood infrastructure in Michigan. Their neutral, cross-sector leadership ensures every family has a place at the table and that no child falls through the cracks.

Michigan’s children and families deserve a system that is stable, locally driven, and built to last.

NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT!

🖊️ Add your name and stand with us to protect Section 32p and the systems that support every Michigan child’s great start in life.