West G Garners School Safety Grant
West Geauga Schools Board of Education announced May 8 it received grant funding to go toward school safety initiatives.
West Geauga Schools Board of Education announced May 8 it received grant funding to go toward school safety initiatives.
During their regular meeting, board members passed a resolution accepting a grant awarded by Ohio’s K-12 School Safety Grant Program in the amount of $200,000 for the purpose of school safety.
“I was optimistic that we would get the $200,000 because West Geauga has successfully applied for and obtained grants in the past,” school Superintendent Richard Markwardt said.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on April 25 awarded more than $42 million to support physical safety and security upgrades at hundreds of Ohio schools.
A total of 624 schools will receive funding as part of the fifth round of Ohio’s K-12 School Safety Grant Program, according to governor.ohio.gov.
The new round of funding brings the total number of schools served by this program to 2,789 and the total amount of funding awarded to more than $215 million.
“What we’ve done over the period of two years is, we have applied for safety grants with the state which are coming out of federal funds,” Treasurer Karen Pavlat said. “The governor has allocated so much of the excess federal funds from COVID and allocated that to school safety and you can get up to $50,000 per school building.”
DeWine partnered with the Ohio General Assembly to launch the K-12 School Safety Grant Program in 2021, which was created to help schools pay for physical security expenses, such as new security cameras, public address systems, automatic door locks, visitor badging systems and exterior lighting, according to the state.
The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission administered the program in partnership with the Ohio School Safety Center. The program was funded through Ohio’s operating budget and with allocations from the American Rescue Plan Act, according to the state.
“At this point, we are thinking the money may be applied to upgrades in the public address system, but that has not been decided,” Markwardt said. “It does not apply to increased expenditures related to police presence in our school buildings.”
In other business, school board members passed a resolution to enter into a contract with C&J Contractors Inc. for the demolition of the restroom building, pavilion and concession stand at the athletic fields on the former Newbury Schools property.
“It’s all the facilities that are slated for demolition — this is in cooperation with the Newbury trustees — they know these are coming down,” Markwardt said. “These were the ones that were deemed superfluous.”
