Several Agencies Team Up To Promote School Safety
As the new school year starts at schools across the country, the federal government is promoting a new effort to promote student safety. Part of this initiative is developing a focal point for proving information on available grant programs that address safer schools and communities.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with the departments of Education (ED), Health and Human Services (HHS), and Justice (DOJ), this week launched a public awareness campaign to highlight federal school safety resources and evidence-based practices available through SchoolSafety.gov. The initiative seeks to advance the mission and maximize the benefits of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) by accelerating and enhancing the implementation of programs and initiatives that will help families, communities and schools build capacity and establish and expand successful school safety strategies.
“Student and educator safety remains our priority. I want all school and district leaders, educators and staff and students and families to know that SchoolSafety.gov is the one-stop shop for accessing resources and evidence-based approaches for building safe schools and positive learning environments,” said ED Secretary Miguel Cardona. “We’re pairing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act’s historic investments in school safety and student mental health and wellbeing with easily accessible information on everything from responding to cyber bullying and preventing violence to improving emergency preparedness and accessing federal grants.”
SchoolSafety.gov will contain a range of resources, including a video, communications toolkit and infographics to help schools learn more about how to enhance school safety, access support and easily share information about the campaign with others in their community. The site is the public website of the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse, an ongoing and collaborative effort among ED, DHS, DOJ and HHS to enhance school safety through a whole-of-government approach.
More information about school safety grants can be found at the site’s Grants Finder Tool. Users can learn more about applicable funding opportunities to help keep their school community safe. The tool features a variety of federally available school safety-specific grants that you can navigate based on school safety topic, award amount, application level of effort and more. As federal agencies release school safety funding opportunities and grants throughout the year, the tool will be updated on an ongoing basis to reflect these opportunities.
For example, one program listed is DHS’ State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, which provides funding to help states, local governments and territories address cybersecurity risks and cybersecurity threats to information systems. The program enables targeted cybersecurity investments in recipient agencies, thus improving the security of critical infrastructure and resilience of the services that state, local, and territorial governments provide to their communities.
We hope this cross-agency effort proves effective in making schools a safer place to be this school year.
Join us for our following Thompson Grants events:
Federal Grants Forum For Institutions of Higher Education | Sept. 13-14, 2023 | Virtual Event
Virtual Advanced Federal Grants Forum | Oct. 25-26, 2023 | Virtual Event
