HARRISBURG – School safety grants totaling about $1.87 million were awarded Wednesday to 14 school districts in the central Pennsylvania’s 34th Senate District, according to Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman (R-34).
“A safe and secure learning environment is an important part of our ongoing commitment to providing a quality education for Pennsylvania students,” Corman said. “This funding is vital for our communities to help provide the school districts with the access to the tools they need to achieve that.”
School districts and other entities in our area that will receive grants include:
| Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8 | $ 449,945.00 |
| Bald Eagle Area SD | $ 35,000.00 |
| Bellefonte Area SD | $ 40,000.00 |
| Greenwood SD | $ 100,180.00 |
| Huntingdon Area SD | $ 405,539.00 |
| Juniata County SD | $ 40,000.00 |
| Juniata Valley SD | $ 30,000.00 |
| Keystone Central SD | $ 45,000.00 |
| Mifflin County SD | $ 495,000.00 |
| Mount Union Area SD | $ 35,000.00 |
| Penns Valley Area SD | $ 35,000.00 |
| Philipsburg-Osceola Area SD | $ 74,787.00 |
| State College Area SD | $ 45,000.00 |
| Tyrone Area SD | $ 35,000.00 |
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.
The grants were awarded by the School Safety and Security Committee within the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) as part of the School Safety and Security Grant Program, which was created by lawmakers in 2018.
“As these grants are released, we are in the middle of our review of the governor’s proposed budget that includes cutting school safety funding by $45 million,” Corman said. “We restored that cut last year and vow to take steps to ensure that schools have access to the funds they need to protect our children.”
A total of approximately $53.7 million was awarded for 524 projects throughout the state in the current round of funding. PCCD received a total of 970 applications totaling $134.5 million for school safety projects in the current Fiscal Year.
In spite of the popularity and importance of the program, Gov. Tom Wolf’s 2020-21 budget proposed to cut $45 million from the program next year — a 75-percent reduction. Senate Republicans have made restoring this funding a top priority in budget negotiations.
