To help keep students safe and improve their learning environments, the U.S. Department of Education awarded more than $70 million to 130 grantees in 38 states. The Department made the awards under four new grant programs that were among the common-sense proposals included in President Obama and Vice President Biden’s “Now Is The Time,” a comprehensive plan to make our schools safer, reduce gun violence by keeping guns out of dangerous hands, and increase mental-health services. The new competitive grant programs are:

• School Climate Transformation grants to school districts—$35,818,097
• School Climate Transformation grants to states—$7,339,654
• Project Prevent grants to school districts—$14,167,876
• School Emergency Management grants to states—$13,082,991

“If we can’t help protect kids and staff, and make them feel safe at school, then everything else that we do is secondary,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “If kids don’t feel safe, they can’t learn. It’s that simple. Through these grants of more than $70 million, we are continuing our commitment to ensure that kids have access to the best learning experience possible.”

The School Climate Transformation grants to school districts provide more than $35.8 million to 71 school districts in 23 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The funds will be used to develop, enhance, or expand systems of support for implementing evidence-based, multi-tiered behavioral frameworks for improving behavioral outcomes and learning conditions for students. The goals of the program are to connect children, youths, and families to appropriate services and supports; improve conditions for learning and behavioral outcomes for school-aged youths; and increase awareness of and the ability to respond to mental-health issues among school-aged youths. School districts also will use funds to implement models for reform and evidence-based practices that address the school-to-prison pipeline—the unfortunate and often unintentional policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially those who are most at-risk, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The grants provide funding for up to five years, for a total of nearly $180 million. Many of the school districts receiving this funding also will coordinate their efforts with support from Now Is The Time programs administered by other agencies. One hundred school districts received the Department of Health and Human Services’ Project AWARE grants, including 29 of the Department of Education grantees. In addition, five grantees will receive assistance through the Department of Justice’s School Justice Collaboration program.

The School Climate Transformation grants to states provide more than $7.3 million to 12 states to develop, enhance, or expand statewide systems of support for, and technical assistance to, school districts and schools implementing an evidence-based, multi-tiered behavioral framework for improving behavioral outcomes and learning conditions for all students.  The grants provide funding for up to five years, for a total of more than $36 million. Twenty states received funding through the Department of Health and Human Services’ Project AWARE grants, including nine Department of Education grantees.

The Project Prevent grants provide funding to school districts to expand their capacity to more effectively assist schools in communities with pervasive violence to better meet the needs of students directly or indirectly exposed to violence. The more than $14.1 million in awards to 22 school districts in 14 states will be used for school-based counseling services, or referrals to community-based counseling services for assistance in coping with trauma or anxiety; school-based social and emotional supports for students to help address the effects of violence; and conflict resolution and other school-based strategies to prevent future violence. Funds also will be used to create a safer and improved school environment, which may include activities to decrease the incidence of harassment, bullying, violence, gang involvement and substance abuse.

These grant programs also address a critical goal of President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, which is to ensure that schools can provide the social, emotional, and behavioral supports for all youth—including boys and young men of color—that will enable all students to graduate from high school ready for college and careers.

The School Emergency Management grants provide more than $13 million to 25 states to expand their capacity to assist school districts in developing and implementing high-quality school emergency operations plans (EOPs). Those states that currently have limited internal capacity will first expand that capacity and then provide training and technical assistance to school districts. States that provided evidence of current internal capacity (i.e., that currently have EOP subject matter experts on staff and comprehensive, up-to-date state EOP resources) will immediately provide or expand training and technical assistance to school districts. These one-time grants provide funding for 18 months.

Below are the grantees for each new program:

2014 School Climate Transformation Grants—School District Grantees

2014 School Climate Transformation Grants—State Grantees

2014 Project Prevent Grantees

2014 Grants to States for School Emergency Management