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Academy, others receive safety grants

LEWISTOWN — With another school shooting making headlines this week, school officials throughout the Juniata Valley remain vigilant about safety and security in their buildings.

Administrators at the Mifflin County Academy of Science and Technology announced at their monthly Operating Committee meeting on Thursday that the school has received a $70,000 school safety and mental health grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

Academy Administrative Director Laura Hicks said the funds will be used to replace six to eight original exterior and interior doors that have been identified by the safety assessment and safety team as a risk to the integrity of the physical security and structure of the building.

The newly revived health and safety team has been working to assess and prioritize safety issues within each program as well as building wide strengths and opportunities for improvement,” Hicks explained.

“The varied expertise on the team has fostered extremely productive discussions that will eventually be compiled into a safety and security plan,” Hicks added. “This plan will allow us to continue to strive to limit physical and environmental factors that could negatively impact the safety and security of our students, staff and MCAST community.”

The objective of the 2024-25 school safety and mental health grants is to offer funding to schools to address school safety needs. A total of $100 million is available for 2024-25 school safety and security grant program funding.

Funding can be spent on physical security enhancements, mental health improvements or both – at the school’s discretion.

Mifflin County School District

The Mifflin County School District will use the $189,112 it received from the school safety and mental health grant to fund a master’s level behavioral therapist for two years — 2024-25 and 2025-26 — to provide and advocate mental health services and to purchase additional Motorola radios to increase school safety and security communication in the buildings, according to Mifflin County School District Superintendent of Schools Vance Varner.

Varner said the master’s level behavioral therapist is a district-wide trauma team core member, who works with children, families, teachers and staff of the district to provide and advocate for mental health services. The cost is expected to be $176,380.

“The master’s level behavioral therapist will work 184 days per year at the elementary level,” Varner explained. “Students, staff, and families at these schools will benefit from the services of this position. The behavioral therapist will provide support to students, staff and parents through a trauma-focused lens.”

The therapist will provide counseling to students at the elementary level and will assist with the development of the crisis response plan for the district. The behavioral therapist — contracted Service from Laurel Life – to support Tier I behavioral health and school climate baseline criteria.

At the cost of $12,732, the district will also purchase 18 additional Motorola two-way communication devices, or radios, that can be programmed to specific school radio frequencies to increase safety and help school teams work and communicate more efficiently.

Juniata County School District

Juniata County School District Superintendent of Schools Christie Holderman said the district received $145,625 from the school safety and mental health grant. School administrators plan to use the funds to cover the costs of hiring a school resource officer.

The district recently posted an advertisement on its website, seeking proposals from “qualified security service providers to supply one full-time armed resource officer for Juniata County schools within our district,” the post said. “The goal is to enhance the safety and security of our students, staff and visitors.”

The deadline for proposals was Oct. 30.

“This grant we received is for someone to provide school security with the new requirements,” Holderman said. “We should be approving something at our January meeting.”

Act 55 of 2024 requires all school districts to have at least one full-time school security personnel on duty.

Other neighboring schools were also awarded grant funding:

• Midd-West School District — $137,629

• Mount Union Area School District — $123,730

• Tuscarora Intermediate Unit No. 11 — $70,000

• Greenwood School District — $114,316

Starting at $2.99/week.

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