On November 15, 2018 the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors accepted the Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act Program grant award. The purpose of this grant award is to improve efforts to reduce violent crime through the creation of school threat assessment teams and the use of technology to anonymously report suspicious activity regarding school violence. Eligible applicants for this funding are limited to states, units of local governments, and federally recognized Indian tribes. Funded applicants can subaward funds to local educational agencies and/or nonprofits.
Under the Technology and Anonymous Reporting Category, funded projects must establish an anonymous reporting system available via mobile phone, hotline, or website that will enable students, teachers, faculty, and community members to anonymously identify school threats. Where feasible, the system can also be utilized as an incident response and management notification system. Federal funds cannot exceed 75% of the total costs of the project while the remaining 25% is the required local match.
In consultation with the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office and Information Services, the Spotsylvania County Schools have identified several vendors that can provide a 2-way crisis communication platform. Specifically they are seeking a platform that will provide an anonymous tip line, provide an alert tool for every staff member in the school, provide 2-way communication between the schools and first responders, provide an accountability and unification tracking system, and provide resources for safety education and training. In addition, the program requires that travel and lodging expenses be included in the budget for a maximum of three people to attend mandatory training in Washington D.C.
The grant award between the County and the U.S. Department of Justice still requires that several special conditions must be met before any grant funds can be obligated or expended. The subaward agreement will not be executed and funds appropriated until after all special conditions have been met. It is hoped that the special conditions will be removed in September. The Schools and staff are requesting that approval be provided at this time so that procurement can commence as soon as possible after the special conditions have been met.
Contingent upon the execution of the subaward agreement, the County will appropriate an additional $94,851 for the Schools consisting of $1,101 for travel, $3,750 for training materials, and $90,000 for the software. The Spotsylvania County Schools will provide the 25% local match requirement of $31,617 through the use of their annual School Division Adopted Budget – Instructional Technology. The County will retain and appropriate $622 of the grant award to send one County employee to the mandatory training and will be required to provide $206 as the local match portion which will be met through the FY 2020 Adopted Budget.
The grant award operates on a reimbursement basis and will expire on September 30, 2021. At the conclusion of the grant, the Spotsylvania County School Division will include sustainment costs for the project in their annual Instructional Technology budget submissions.