The Indiana Secured School Board has approved more than $19 million in matching state grant funds, marking a second consecutive year of record-breaking school safety investments.
The $19.4 million in awards allows the Board to fully fund all eligible, top-priority projects identified over 400 schools in their applications to the Secured School Safety Grant program (SSSG). In addition, the Board fully funded all school threat assessment projects, as well as eligible projects geared toward implementing health and wellness support services for parents and students.
The SSSG fund is administered by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. Including the funds committed this year, the SSSG program will have distributed more than $91 million in state matching grants to schools since the program became law in 2013.
The SSSG issues matching grants for eligible items and then schools match those funds at a certain level, either 25 percent, 50 percent or 100 percent. The match requirement is based on average daily membership of the school district, the total amount of the project or what the request covers.
Eligible items in the grant include funding for school resource officers (SROs) and law enforcement officers in schools; equipment and technology; active event warning systems; firearms training for teachers and staff that choose to allow guns on school property; threat assessments and to implement a student and parent support services program.
Among area school corporations receiving funds:
Eastern Hancock $22,000.00
Greenfield-Central $87,980.00
Mt Vernon $92,500.00
Southern Hancock County Comm School Corp $100,000.00
Shelby Eastern Schools $50,035.00
Shelbyville Central Schools $100,000.00
Southwestern Con Sch $50,000.00
