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Washington, D.C. - Congressman Dale E. Kildee (D-MI) announced today that Bay City would receive a $125,000 grant for the COPS in Schools Program. The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, awarded the grant to Bay City to help local law enforcement agencies pay for additional officers in schools. Congressman Kildee worked with the U.S. Department of Justice to help secure funding for this program.
“The COPS in School Program is designed to protect our children by using community policing strategies to prevent school violence, which will ultimately help improve the safety and security of our local schools,” said Kildee. “The COPS program has helped curb the recent rise in school violence across our country. We must continue to provide our schools with the resources and services to protect our children so that they can learn in a safe environment.”
The COP in School grant program provides a maximum of $125,000 toward the salary and benefits of each new School Resource Officer (SRO) over three years. COPS also deliver training on school safety issues for each new SRO and an administrator from the school to which the officer is assigned. The training includes topics ranging from developing emergency response plans and conducting safety assessments of schools, to child development and cultural fluency.
The COPS Program has been successful in preventing school violence across the nation. These officers provide an increased sense of security by educating our students about crime prevention and delinquency. In addition, these officers perform a wide variety of functions within a school including teaching crime prevention and substance-abuse classes and monitoring troubled students. By providing guidance and assistance to students, these officers are able to effectively prevent crime. |
