U.S. Attorney Bill Powell announced that more than $83 million in Department of Justice grants is available to help communities improve school security and protect students, teachers and faculty from school violence.

Schools should be a safe haven for students, a place to learn and grow. No child, parent, or educator should be afraid of anything that happens inside school walls. We must do everything we can to prevent violence at our schools. I hope that our educational leaders apply for funding to make their schools safer places to learn,” said Powell.

“School violence is no longer an abstract threat but has become a tragic reality in too many of America’s communities. Moving to meet this challenge is among the Administration’s top domestic priorities,” said Katharine T. Sullivan, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs. “The Department of Justice is front and center in the fight to meet this challenge. OJP is making historic amounts of grant funding available to ensure that our communities have access to innovative and diverse solutions.” 

 The funding is available through OJP, the federal government’s leading source of public safety funding and crime victim assistance in state, local and tribal jurisdictions. OJP’s programs support a wide array of activities and services, including programs designed to tighten school security and improve the reporting of threats.  

A number of funding opportunities for school safety are currently open, with another opening in the near future:  

Research and Evaluation on School Safety
https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/nij-2020-17308
Total Available $5 million                 Deadline 4/13/2020    

STOP Act School Violence Program (FY20)
https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/nij-2020-17308
Total Available $71.4 million                Deadline 4/13/2020 

Strategies to Support Children Exposed to Violence  
https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/ojjdp-2020-17926
Total Available $7 million                                           Deadline 4/27/2020

For more information regarding all OJP funding opportunities, visit https://www.ojp.gov/funding/explore/current-funding-opportunities.