Opportunity Overview
Michigan Section 97n supports public school district community violence intervention plans intended to reduce or prevent youth violence. The Michigan Department of Education’s live grant page controls the current application period: August 24, 2026 through September 21, 2026 in NexSys. The FAQ linked from that page still contains older application-date text, so Atlas does not use the FAQ’s obsolete dates. The live public MDE grant page does not publish a closing clock time or time zone, so Atlas does not infer one.
Funding and Eligibility
MDE’s live Section 97n page identifies a $10,000,000 allocation for the 2025-2026 program. The FAQ currently linked by MDE states that there is no district request limit and permits up to 5% of the grant award for specified administrative costs, but that FAQ contains prior-cycle application dates. Atlas therefore treats those applicant-level budget details as background until the current NexSys application confirms that they apply unchanged to the August-September 2026 round.
Eligible applicants are Michigan public school districts. The applicant must work with a qualifying community violence intervention partner and document the partnership. The prior-cycle materials currently linked by MDE state that the partnership relationship must have been established for at least three months; the linked rubric gives its strongest partnership score to relationships exceeding six months when the application also demonstrates substantial existing work, training, and collaboration with the school community.
Program Requirements
Section 97n projects must use evidence-based violence intervention or prevention strategies and may include mentorship, community engagement, academic support, counseling, health services, and wraparound supports when they are integral to the district’s community violence intervention plan. Districts may contract with nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, experts, and governmental entities when the relationship and services satisfy MDE requirements.
Referenced Prior-Cycle Scoring Background
The scoring rubric currently linked by MDE totals 100 points and uses a 50-point eligibility threshold, with categories for Demonstrated Partnership, Community Violence Intervention Plan, Budget Narrative, Letters of Support, SMART Goals, and the NexSys Budget. Because the linked FAQ and rubric were issued for an earlier application cycle and contain superseded dates, Atlas treats these scoring details as background until the current NexSys application confirms that they apply unchanged to the August-September 2026 round.
Competitive applications should clearly document the qualifying partner and relationship history, the local youth-violence problem and affected population, evidence-based intervention strategies, implementation responsibilities, training, connections to resources, and shared accountability. A partner letter of support is materially scored, and applicants must provide at least two SMART goals with measurable outcomes. The NexSys budget must align with the narrative and applicable cost controls.
Atlas Strategic Analysis
Formal Atlas Opportunity scoring is deferred. The live MDE page confirms a current Michigan school-safety and public-health prevention opportunity, but the exact closing clock time and time zone and the full current-round NexSys requirements have not been authoritatively verified.
Formal N9+ fit scoring is deferred. The verified opportunity is designed to support community violence intervention partnerships and related prevention, counseling, academic, health, and wraparound services. The controlling materials do not establish a defensible procurement pathway for the Nonagon N9+ device and platform. Atlas should not force a device or remote-examination use case into this program.
Submission and Outreach Control
Applications are submitted in NexSys. Because MDE’s current controlling public grant page does not publish the exact closing clock time or time zone, Atlas will not begin new cold applicant outreach under the current 48-hour deadline governance based on an inferred deadline time. Existing contacted organizations may continue to receive permitted support.
Official Sources
Controlling source: Michigan Department of Education Section 97n. Applicants should also review the MDE FAQ and scoring rubric linked from that page, while using the live grant page as the controlling source for the current application window.