Philadelphia School District Gets $2.6M For Safety Enhancements

PHILADELPHIA — Millions in grant funding was awarded to school districts across Pennsylvania for school safety and security enhancements from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the School District of Philadelphia got the largest cut of the funding.

The district received $2,607,347 in grant funds.

These funds will be used for numerous initiatives, including conflict resolution or dispute management, including restorative justice strategies; development and implementation of research-based violence prevention programs that address risk factors to reduce incidents of problem behaviors among students, including, but not limited to, bullying; staff training programs in the use of positive behavior supports, de-escalation techniques and appropriate responses to student behavior that may require immediate intervention; and costs associated with the training and compensation of school resource officers and school police officers.

Overall, the commission gave $53.7 million in school safety and security grants to 524 school entities, as well as $7.5 million in community violence prevention/reduction grants to 30 organizations throughout the Pennsylvania.

Schools were eligible to apply for programs designed to reduce community violence, including increasing access to trauma-informed support services and behavioral health care, providing health services and intervention strategies, providing mentoring and other intervention models, and fostering communication between school entities, their community and law enforcement.

Projects were required to support initiatives such as performing school safety assessments; purchasing security-related technology and equipment; supporting school safety-related and behavioral-health trainings; preparing all-hazards plans; hiring school resource officers, school police officers, school counselors, social workers and school psychologists; and providing for trauma-informed approaches to education.