U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey Announces More Than $83 Million Available To Support School Safety

Knoxville, Tenn. – U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey of the Eastern District of Tennessee today 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 threats of violence.

"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.”

“Keeping our children safe in and out of school is a matter of critical importance, and I am pleased to join the COPS Office in announcing these grants which will help provide our educators and their communities with potential funding to support our joint goal of school safety.  These grant opportunities are direct resources to help accomplish this vital mission of keeping our schools and children safe,” said U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey.

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.

                                                                                      ###