Elmbrook Awarded Additional $419,665 Safety Grant

BROOKFIELD, WI.- Students in the Elmbrook School District will see more security upgrades and staff better-prepared to meet the mental health demands of its student population after the district received a second School Safety Grant from the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Office of School Safety.

District officials say that Elmbrook was among 597 recipients awarded in the second round of School Safety Initiative Grants, totaling over $45 million.

According to the Elmbrook School District, the $419,665 grant will be used to train staff on mental health and trauma, improve camera systems across the District, upgrade emergency communication tools, and expand social-emotional curriculum to Middle School.

“This grant will help us continue to improve our school safety measures and prevention
education,” said Chris Thompson, Chief Strategy Officer in a statement. “We are grateful for the support of the Office of School Safety as we work to continue to ensure the safety of our students.”

Elmbrook previously received a grant for $210,800 in July which was used to train staff on
trauma informed care and strengthen the physical security of district schools.

Elmbrook's two grants include the following training and educational opportunities:

Providing training to school teachers, administrators, counselors and psychologists. The Office of School Safety mandates that this training be conducted by NASRO.

Providing three hours of trauma informed care training to all school teachers. The district is conducting this training throughout the year, and have used both a contracted trainer, and a train-the-trainer model.

The Second Step SEL curriculum was adopted last year at district elementary schools as part of Elmbrook's social emotional curriculum work will now be extended to the middle schools as part of the second grant. District officials will also add the Elementary Bullying program with grant funds.

The formation a School Safety Intervention Team, in partnership with local law enforcement agencies. The district has teams in each school that already provide some of the core objectives required in this grant, but adding the law enforcement voice will strengthen their approach, officials say.

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