Schools Receive $22.9 Million In School Safety Grants

By Whitney Downard

The Indiana Secured School Safety Board on Tuesday granted 425 requests, over $22 million, with letters to award winners going out Sept. 1.

“I think there’s more discussion and more interest than ever before, unfortunately, because of events around the country,” Joel Thacker, the executive director of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, said. “To afford this many schools this amount of money is incredible.”

The funding was approved by a board created after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook. Overall more than $110 million in matching grants for school resource officers (SROs), safety equipment, cameras and visitor management systems have been given.

Schools qualify for up to $100,000 each year, including public school corporations, accredited non-public schools, charter schools and private schools.

The grants to 425 school corporations are an increase over the previous year’s allocation of $19 million. Though the state legislature provided $19 million annually to disperse to schools, this year the board used excess funding from previous years.

“Two years ago, I think it was, there were projects that weren’t done, such as SRO training, because of COVID and so schools didn’t use that money,” said Rusty Goodpaster, the director of the board. “That’s where we got the extra $3.8 million because that does not revert back to the general fund.”

The vast majority of applicants sought funding for school resource officers – with 271 schools receiving $15 million. A second tier of requests, totaling $37,161, will cover associated costs for SRO, firearm, active shooter and ALICE training at 12 school corporations. ALICE refers to a type of school safety training that emphasizes a series of steps: Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate.

Doug Carter, the superintendent of the Indiana State Police, asked for clarification surrounding the interpretation of a bill passed in 2022, which redefined a school resource officer. He worried that put rural school districts at a disadvantage when it came to applying for grant funding.

“My phone has burned up (with messages) from rural counties in Indiana that will never be able to have a technical SRO,” Carter said. “We’ve made some rural schools unsafe.”

Legislation confusion

The bill, House Enrolled Act 1093, was written to allow school resource officers more time to complete their training but some districts told Carter it disqualified them from applying for school safety grants because they didn’t have any officers.

Eric Bowlen, the principal at Martinsville High School, said that’s how he read it too.

“We have contracts with 18 off-duty officers so there’s four on duty each day,” Bowlen said. “Now, we’re trying to figure out how we can go get training because… the way we read it is if you’re not training (as an SRO) you can’t be in the school.”

Bowlen abstained from voting since he represented a school district under consideration for grants.

Alyssa Schroeder, the deputy legislative director of Homeland Security, said the definition change didn’t disqualify school districts without school resource officers, because the board’s statutory definition allowed school districts with law enforcement officers or memorandums of understanding with local law enforcement agencies to apply.

“This is really good news,” Carter said, adding at least five other schools had indicated they didn’t apply for grants because of the misinterpretation.

Of the applications, 87 were only partially funded because the requests included non-eligible items or fell under a lower priority category. Another five schools were denied funding because their requests were ineligible and some schools only received grant funding for one of their proposed projects.

Goodpaster clarified that non-eligible items could include training such as STOP THE BLEED, an emergency first aid program or other specialized training.

Thacker said his department has had internal discussions about whether to expand the eligibility criteria for grants.

“Since the statute was written, there haven’t been many changes,” Thacker said. “As we look at events around the country and when we have multiple districts asking for the same thing, maybe it’s time to look closer.”

Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated that every request was granted. Every Priority 1 request was granted but not lower priorities.

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