New grant available to help enhance school security

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Louisiana Department of Education offers grant to help schools enhance campus security.

Superintendent of Assumption Parish School, John Barthelemy, says they are looking at options to upgrade security measures around campuses, but it all comes down to cost.

“When you look at it, our facilities were built in the 50s’, 60s’, and 70s’ without school safety in mind. It was more of a cosmetic. I think this grant will help us get closer to those single point entries into our facilities. In our rural area, you know our budget is not that much, but we are known to do more with less. However, the board is in full support spending funds to make sure that our staff and our students are safe,” says Barthelemy.

Assumption Parish School System is not the only ones with this issue. Louisiana Department of Education is offering $21 million to help school systems strengthen their perimeters. Public schools all across the state can apply for the grant, and the money will be divided up.

“These aren’t small grants, these are going to be half million dollar grants that are going to be awarded, that are substantive, that if they need to do some minor construction they can do that. If they need perimeter fencing, they can do that, if they need security cameras, or if it’s locks,” explains State Superintendent Cade Brumley.

This also applies metal detectors and if the school wants to do any type of construction renovations to enhance security.

Barthelemy wants to use the money to create a front entrance office, as the only access entry point for visitors, that means all other doors are locked.

“In addition to the single point entries, we also talked about like a keyless entry, where you can use a card to kind of scan to get in and out of building,” adds Barthelemy.

Applications for the grant will go out this week, and the deadline for schools to apply for the funding is April 3, 2023.

Click here to report a typo.

Copyright 2022 WAFB. All rights reserved.