LANSING — Mental health concerns now account for more than one-third of all reports made through Michigan’s OK2SAY student safety tip line, marking a dramatic shift for a program that began in 2014 focused primarily on school threats and bullying.
OK2SAY received 10,777 tips during 2025, including 3,991 related to mental health concerns — 37% of the total — according to the Michigan State Police. The annual total was the second-highest since the statewide program began in 2014, although it was about 8% lower than the record set in 2024, according to the 2025 OK2SAY Annual Report.
“We continue to see that OK2SAY serves an important need in our state, empowering students to take an active role in keeping their schools and communities safe,” Michigan State Police Director Col. James F. Grady II said in a statement. “Every tip received shows our children have the courage and compassion to say something helpful when they suspect something harmful.”
“OK2SAY began operations in 2014 as a tipline dedicated primarily to threats against schools and preventing bullying in schools,” said Peter Hoffman, an OK2SAY program specialist with the Michigan State Police, in an email. “Since that time we have seen a truly massive increase in the percentage of tips related to mental health.”
Hoffman said schools, counselors and law enforcement work together to connect students identified through the tip line with the help and resources they need.
Mason County students identified many of the same concerns. During the Community Foundation for Mason County’s 2025 Annual Gathering, members of the Mason County Youth Advisory Council presented results of their 2025 Needs Assessment, a survey of 679 local high school students. Academic stress topped the list of concerns at 53.3%, followed by substance use (41.4%) and mental health struggles (38.7%). Students also identified mental health, financial hardship and a lack of motivation as significant barriers to success.
Ludington Area School District Interim Superintendent Mary Marshall said OK2SAY gives students, staff and parents another way to report concerns if they are uncomfortable raising them directly with the school. She said district students generally do report issues when something “doesn’t seem right,” but having the statewide tip line helps ensure potential safety concerns are not missed.
Andrea Large, executive director of the Community Foundation for Mason County, said students also have access to a variety of local and school-based mental health resources. She pointed to Family Link, the Corewell Health School Behavioral Telemedicine Program, which offers counseling services in participating school districts, and school counselors as examples of support available to students.
“There are a lot of programs available to students for mental health support,” Large said. “It might be nice to highlight those as well.”
The largest single OK2SAY reporting category in 2025 was “other,” which includes anxiety, stress, depression and harassment, with 1,816 tips. Suicide threats followed with 1,767 reports, followed by bullying (1,576), drugs (1,153) and sexual assault, misconduct or exploitation (1,036).
The reports also prompted a range of responses by schools and law enforcement across Michigan. During 2025:
Forty-one reports involved weapons, allowing law enforcement and school officials to intervene before anyone was harmed.
Fifty-seven reports led to the immediate transport or hospitalization of students experiencing active suicidal crises.
Tips resulted in the seizure of drugs, alcohol or other prohibited items in 220 cases.
Schools conducted 445 formal behavioral threat or suicide risk assessments following OK2SAY reports, an 89% increase from 2024.
Schools and law enforcement agencies submitted 3,247 outcome reports after investigating OK2SAY tips. Of those, 87% indicated the information provided was sufficient to begin an investigation, while 72% said officials were unaware of the concern before receiving the report. Eighty-eight percent of respondents described OK2SAY as a valuable tool for promoting student safety and well-being.
The report also found that OK2SAY referred 5,538 incidents to school officials, 1,405 to law enforcement agencies, 671 to counseling resources or crisis lines and 176 to Child Protective Services during 2025.
Hoffman said OK2SAY does not release county-by-county or intermediate school district breakdowns because of confidentiality concerns, making it impossible to compare activity among individual communities.
The Michigan Student Safety Act created OK2SAY in 2014 as a confidential reporting system that allows students, parents, teachers and community members to report potential threats or criminal activity involving students, school employees or schools. Reports can be submitted 24 hours a day by phone, text, email, the OK2SAY mobile app or online.
