ASD Receives Safe School Grant Funding

Four school districts in the 41st Senatorial District were selected to receive state Safe School Initiative grants for the training and compensation of school resource officers and school police officers, and to prevent and reduce violent incidents through programs and security equipment, according to re-elected Senator Don White.

The local funds were part of $6.5 million in competitive grants announced by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Freeport Area School District, located in Armstrong and Butler Counties, was awarded a $31,100 Safe School Initiative Grant and a $24,995 equipment grant for a public address system and radios.

The Armstrong School District received a $25,000 equipment grant for cameras.

In Indiana County, Penns Manor Area School District was awarded a $24,996 equipment grant for cameras and the United School District received a $24,920 equipment grant for cameras.

“It is unfortunate that we have to take these measures to keep our classrooms safe,” Senator White said. “But events have tragically shown that there is no place safe from violence. It is incumbent upon us as a state to take the appropriate and necessary steps to protect students. These grants will give these districts the resources to increase security in and around their buildings.”

Senator White is the author of a law enacted in 2014 that gives public and non-public school districts in communities where police services are furnished solely by the Pennsylvania State Police the option to contract with municipal police from nearby jurisdictions to provide security as well as school resource officers in their schools.

When Senator White introduced the measure as Senate Bill 1194 on November 22, 2013 with the intent of deterring and responding to school violence, though, he never imagined that the next incident of school violence would occur just six months later at Franklin Regional High School – a school in his Senatorial District.

“To be clear, even if SB 1194 had been enacted prior to that tragedy, it would not have prevented it. Franklin Regional School District was already very capably protected by a full-time municipal police force. The first responders who assisted at the scene did their job with the utmost thoroughness and professionalism and they certainly saved lives,” Senator White said. “However, many of our 500 school districts and many of Pennsylvania’s private schools did not have local police coverage immediately available and those are the ones that benefitted from enactment of my bill.”

Armstrong School District has also utilized grant funding in the past to enhance school safety and security.

1 Comment

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  By sickofpayingforit, November 10, 2016 @ 4:04 PM

  Great news. Our new Taj Majal will have better security than the bank. And of course, those that would celebrate this mighty windfall of a grant, should realize that some of us actually pay more in taxes than they get to write off or get refunded and there is NO free money when it comes to the government. Somebody is paying for it somewhere.

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