Numerous grant opportunities are available to public and private schools across the US each year. These include grants administered by the Department of Education and those offered by non-profit organizations, private foundations, education associations, and for-profit corporations. Among the many sources of grant funding currently available, the School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP) awards funds to K-12 school districts to support student safety and wellness initiatives.
The Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018 (STOP School Violence Act of 2018) gave the COPS Office authority to provide awards directly to states, units of local government, or Indian tribes to improve security at schools and on school grounds in the jurisdiction of the grantee through evidence-based school safety programs and technology.
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)
With up to $73 million available in funding, The School Violence Prevention Program will provide this award over a 36-month duration for a maximum federal share of $500,000 per award, with a required local cash match of at least 25%.
Read on to learn:
- What is covered by the SVPP funding
- If your state is eligible for SVPP applications
- Which essential student safety solutions fit the SVPP criteria
- How to apply for available SVPP funds
What is covered by the School Violence Prevention Program?
The COPS Office’s School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP) is a competitive award program that provides funding to support the improvement of security at K-12 schools and on K-12 school grounds through evidence-based school safety programs. The COPS Office is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights and equity, increases access to justice, strengthens community safety, and protects the public from crime and evolving threats.
In 2023, the COPS Office awarded more than $73 million in SVPP funds, which supported upwards of 1.5 million students across more than 4,000 schools. Now, in 2024, the SVPP will be available to provide up to 75% funding of $500,000 for K-12 school safety measures.
Some of the authorized uses of the SVPP funds include the following purpose areas:
- Coordination with law enforcement
- Training for local law enforcement officers to prevent student violence against others and self
- Metal detectors, locks, lighting, and other deterrent measures
- Technology for expedited notification of local law enforcement during an emergency
- Any other measure that the COPS Office determines may provide a significant improvement in security
The SVPP specifically covers the implementation and improvement of what COPS refers to as ‘evidence-based’ school safety programs. In simple terms, this means any program, technology, practice, or equipment that meets their predefined criteria and demonstrates a significant effect on relevant safety and wellness outcomes.
Is my state eligible for the School Violence Prevention Program grant?
Favorably, no matter which state your school district operates in, you will be eligible to apply for the School Violence Prevention Program funding in 2024. Among those eligible, units of local government including school districts (including public charter school districts and school districts with a single school) and school boards are encouraged to apply.
Unfortunately, individual schools not operating as school districts, independent schools, and private schools including private charter schools cannot apply as a primary applicant, though cities and municipalities are encouraged to partner and work together with one single applicant applying as the prime applicant. Units of local government may also be listed as subrecipients thereafter.
COPS affirms that SVPP is not awarded based on any particular ‘formula’. All applications will be reviewed based on their answers to specific questions, security needs and need for federal assistance, and submitted project and budget narratives, among other relevant factors. For those districts who have an existing SVPP grant, there is no restriction from submitting an additional application in 2024 for a different project.
As with any such grant like the SVPP, awards will be subject to the availability of appropriated funds, as well as any modifications or additional requirements that may be lawfully imposed.
The SVPP and Securly: which student safety solutions you should consider
Just like the School Violence Prevention Program, Securly’s aim is to help improve student safety and wellness all across the US. To achieve the best student outcomes, the needs of the whole student must be met – and that extends to their physical and online security.
Securly gives you the tools to do just that.
Below, we’ve detailed some of the safety and wellness solutions we provide that could be implemented with the funding awarded by the SVPP.
Securly Pass | Simplify hall passes and strengthen campus safety
Traditional hall pass systems may have worked for years, but they fall short when it comes to meeting the safety needs of a modern school. If you need to account for students during a lockdown or other emergency, for example, a digital hall pass system is exactly what your school needs.
Securly Pass helps admins and teachers track how many passes are in use and by whom to improve student accountability and shore up safety concerns. In short, Pass improves your campus’ safety by knowing who is out of class and where they’re going, and also helps you to better investigate instances of bullying and vandalism.
Securly Pass Premium also features our Visitor Management tool, which automates your visitor check-in process, and keeps your students and staff safe by screening every person entering your school. Learn more here, or hear from our existing Pass customers.
Securly Aware | Online Student Wellness Monitoring
Many students struggle to manage feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, and grief. Without the proper support and interventions, these feelings can lead to violence, self-harm, or even suicide.
That’s where Securly Aware comes in. Aware is a student safety and wellness solution that provides unprecedented visibility into your students’ mental health and wellness. Aware’s AI engine analyzes emails, social media accounts, and web browsing activity using sentiment analysis to help determine which students are most in need of critical help.
Securly Aware can also be coupled with Securly On-Call, enlisting our team of safety experts to analyze and validate alerts for you, escalating responses before things get worse. For more on Aware, read our product brief, or learn more about student wellness monitoring here.
Securly Discern | AI-driven safety insights for K-12 school leaders
Securly Discern is a groundbreaking AI that not only generates K-12 data for SEL and student interests, but also generates data surrounding safety and wellness frameworks like school climate and school violence threat assessments.
Discern automates this data collection and analysis, leveraging the entirety of your school or district’s data to provide streamlined and bespoke reporting. For you, that means more efficient and actionable data to help improve your school’s overall success and, crucially, its safety.
You can learn all about Securly Discern here, or see what our users are saying about this game-changing K-12 solution.
You can view the entire suite of Securly’s solutions here.
How can my school or district apply for School Violence Prevention Program funds?
Applications for the 2024 School Violence Prevention Program need to be submitted online via a two-step process. Step one of the process – submitting an Application for Federal Assistance (SF-424) and a Disclosure of Lobbying Activities (SF-LLL) to Grants.gov – must be completed by Tuesday, June 11, 2024. Step two, which is the completion of the full application via JustGrants, is due a week later by Monday, June 17, 2024.
To help you in your application, we’ve provided the following step-by-step instructions:
Step 1 | SAM Confirmation
To begin, you must first confirm your district’s System of Award Management (SAM) registration. This will require you to confirm that your existing SAM registration is active and accurate. If you are not yet registered with SAM, you can find details of how to do so here.
Step 2 | Confirm Contact Information
Within your SAM, your electronic business point of contact – or E-Biz POC – needs to be up to date to ensure smooth communication can take place during the application and beyond. Ultimately, this means checking the name and email address of your E-Biz POC is correct.
Step 3 | Grants.gov Registration & Submissions
For the first stage of the two-step process, you’ll be required to submit an SF-424 and SF-LLL to Grants.gov by the Tuesday, June 11 deadline. To do this, you’ll need to register with or confirm your account with Grants.gov – you can complete this here. Then, when you’re ready, you can submit the necessary documents to proceed.
Step 4 | JustGrants Onboarding & Final Application
Your district will also need to be registered with the JustGrants Justice Grants system, a similar online service to that in Step 3. This will allow you to submit the final portion of your application via the online portal. You can register for JustGrants and complete the second of the two application steps here.
The decisions of the awards will be announced on or after September 30, 2024. For further details surrounding the application process and to begin your application, you can visit the dedicated COPS webpage.
Securly is here to help
Securly’s sole focus is to help schools and educators in providing the best support possible for their students’ safety and wellness. We believe the School Violence Prevention Program grant is a phenomenal opportunity to do just that, providing schools and districts with access to game-changing funding.
You can learn more about Securly and our mission here.
