Knoxville gets $240K federal grant to help keep schools safe

As schools across the country work to improve security measures, the city of Knoxville has added $240,345 to its school safety resources through a program included in a cluster of federal grant initiatives totaling about $72 million.

The 2018 Community Oriented Policing Services School Violence Prevention Program is one of three grant programs in the Department of Justice that provide cities funding to enhance school security, education and train students and faculty, and aid law enforcement officers and first responders confronting a school violence incident.

The grants were announced Tuesday in a news release from the Department of Justice and Douglas Overbey, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

The COPS Office School Violence Prevention Program is investing dollars in 91 jurisdictions for school safety measures that incorporate law enforcement. The program will support coordination with law enforcement, training for law enforcement to prevent student violence committed against others and self, hardening of schools, and technology that will more quickly alert law enforcement to an emergency, according to the release.

The new federal dollars come on the heels of steps Knox County Schools and the Knox County Sheriff's Office have taken to make the county's 88 schools safer. While the district has added 24 school security officers to its workforce to fill existing vacancies among a total of 105 officers, the sheriff's office has added four law enforcement officers to schools, bringing its total to 29.

KPD to administer grant

The Knoxville Police Department will receive and administer the grant money, according to KPD spokesman Darrell DeBusk, who noted the money will likely be accessible in four to six weeks.

It will be used for training and equipment purchases related to school security, he said.

Similarly, the City of Newport, in Cocke County, has been awarded $20,419 by the COPS School Violence Prevention Program, which has a funding pool of close to $25 million.

Across the country, 244 grants are being doled out to communities through the trio of grant programs, thanks to the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the Office of Justice Program’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, according to the release.

Second grant program

A second grant program, BJA’s STOP School Violence Threat Assessment and Technology Reporting Program, will distribute 68 grants adding up to more than $19 million. The money will go toward training to develop and operate threat assessment and crisis intervention teams and to introduce technology for local or regional anonymous reporting systems, potentially through a mobile phone application, hotline or website, the release states.

The other program, the STOP School Violence Prevention and Mental Health Training Program, is also overseen by BJA and will enable training and education on preventing violence and addressing related mental health crises, the release states. The program will disseminate $28 million through 85 grants.

The grants, according to the release, are authorized by the STOP School Violence Act, signed off on by President Donald Trump.

“This funding will allow each jurisdiction to increase school safety by providing more coordination and training for local law enforcement, as well as upgrading technology to help prevent acts of violence from occurring and improve response capabilities in the event of an emergency,” Overbey said in a statement.

Additional federal, state investments in school safety

The grants sit alongside other federal funding mechanisms largely aimed at keeping schools safe, including $200,000 the Department of Justice earlier this month set aside for the National Association of School Resource Officers, which will help prepare about 230 school resource officers to protect schools. The department is also working with the association to offer an online training program in order to “increase the reach of training efforts,” the release states.

The Department of Justice has also announced plans to provide more than $64 million to state agencies to refine the country’s criminal record systems, aimed at better serving law enforcement and to boost the effectiveness of background checks, according to the release.

The dollars build on additional money and initiatives surrounding school safety announced in March, including adding more school resource officers to schools, helping ensure school and law enforcement personnel participate in firearms and situational awareness training, and involving the Department of Justice in the Federal Commission on School Safety.

A separate $1 million from the Department of Justice will fund research to “better understand the factors behind mass shooting incidents,” the release states.

Knox County Schools

State funding resources have also helped bolster safety measures for schools, with dollars routed to Knox County Schools as part of $35 million Gov. Bill Haslam earmarked for school security in the state’s 2019 budget. The pot of money includes $25 million in School Safety and Security grants, one-time funding for schools to overcome identified safety risks, and $10 million in Safe School grants, recurring grant funding to benefit ongoing safety and prevention initiatives.

Knox County Schools, according to a Board of Education September meeting agenda, received a School Safety and Security grant worth more than $1.1 million, which must be matched locally with at least $765,570.

The district was also awarded a Safe School grant totaling $505,790.30 with a mandated in-kind local match of at least $306,210.