HARRISBURG — Sen. Joe Scarnati, R-Brockway, announced Tuesday that 27 local school districts in the 25th Senatorial District, including Bradford Area School District, have been awarded $25,000 state grants to help improve student safety through a new program strongly supported by the senator.
Scarnati said “The School Safety and Security Grant Program” was created by the legislature earlier this year to provide grants to school districts, intermediate units, area vocational-technical schools, charter schools and private residential rehabilitative institutions for a wide variety of projects to improve school safety. Scarnati said said each local school district that applied through the program was awarded a grant of $25,000.
“Our goal with the new school safety program was to provide schools with the opportunity to apply for grants that can help improve student safety and reduce school violence,” Scarnati said. “It is extremely important that we ensure local control to allow each school district to evaluate its needs and vulnerabilities and apply for funding to shore up any weaknesses that exist.”
Eligible uses for the grants include hiring school security officers, purchasing security-related technology, completing safety and security assessments, implementing violence prevention curricula, offering counseling services for students and creating other programs to protect students.
Other local grant recipients include Cameron County School District, Johnsonburg Area School District, Ridgway Area School District, Saint Marys Area School District, Kane Area School District, Otto-Eldred School District, Port Allegany School District, Smethport Area School District, Austin Area School District, Coudersport Area School District, Galeton Area School District, Northern Potter School District and Oswayo Valley School District.
When contacted by The Era, Bradford Area School District Superintendent Katharine Pude said she was pleased the district received the funds.
“That’s cool if we got it,” Pude said in learning of the news. “I wrote that grant to get cell phone service” at George G. Blaisdell Elementary School. “Right now we only have cell phone service in the front of the building.”
While the grant would not provide the total amount needed to upgrade cell phone service at the school, Pude said that “it would certainly make it more feasible for us to get it should anything happen to the land lines” at the school.
The upgraded cell phone service would also enable GGB teachers and staff to receive weather alerts and other emergency updates on their phones.
In providing additional information, Scarnati said a total of 496 grants were approved for schools across the state. The grants being awarded through this round are the meritorious application grants, which are the first part of the program’s grant awards. The meritorious application was only for school districts making a meritorious application to receive a minimum grant allocation of $25,000.
The second round of competitive application grants for school districts, intermediate units, area vocational-technical schools, charter schools and private residential rehabilitative institutions seeking additional funding beyond their meritorious grants will be announced at a later time.
“Teachers cannot teach and children cannot learn in an environment where they don’t feel safe,” Scarnati stated. “I am pleased that this year we created the new School Safety and Security Grant Program, as well as expanded the existing School Safety Program through the Department of Education. This is an issue of tremendous importance to me and be assured that I will continue to be a strong voice for helping provide needed resources to our schools to increase safety initiatives in the future.”
