The purpose of this article is two-fold; (1) to inform school psychologists of connections between models of school engagement, psychological needs, and strength-based assets and (2) to share data collected with the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) to understand the relationships between academic performance and two environmental protective factors (caring relations and meaningful participation in school). Hypotheses and findings are presented to generate future research questions for study of strength-based measures and school engagement. This is one of the first studies examining the CHKS and academic outcomes. Participants were an ethnically and culturally diverse group of 229 7th-grade students. Results indicate that students with moderate Meaningful Participation in Schools (MPS) had higher Grade Point Averages (GPAs) than students with low MPS. Further, MPS was significantly related to caring peer and adult relationships in schools. Thus, results emphasize the importance of often-overlooked social-emotional contexts of school engagement. The article also discusses limitations of the study and proposes home and school support as an important focus for future research in school engagement. (Contains 1 table.)