DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com

 

The Warren County Sheriff’s Office is applying for a $500,000 grant to further enhance communications with law enforcement across Warren County Public School facilities, according to WCPS.

The grant would also require WCPS to provide a 25% cash match for $125,000.

WCSO will spearhead the application for the federal grant, which is part of the Community Oriented Policing Services School Violence Prevention Program.

Grant monies would go toward enhancing and speeding up communication systems and their consistency across WCPS structures, Warren County Sheriff Brett Hightower said. It’ll likely take several months to pursue the grant and receive a final answer on the application, he added.

The WCPS Board of Education on Tuesday unanimously approved the memorandum of understanding between the school system and sheriff’s office. The supplementary board document states that a COPS grant would support a communications upgrade so WCPS’s 17 SROs can effectively contact other law enforcement agencies and first responders in the area.

WCPS received a $572,000 grant in the 2024-25 academic year to also help with radio connectivity, WCPS Chief Operations Officer Chris McIntyre said.

“(It’s a) great partnership with our schools, and always collaborative efforts like that, to ensure that we’re working together in a partnership for the safety and security of our students in our community,” Hightower said.

Also:

The WCPS Board of Education approved $25,200 for two courses from Franklin Covey Leader in Me.

It’s a continuing contract for elementary schools that adds the most recent Leader in Me products for middle and high school programs. It’ll be in all WCPS middle and high schools next school year, McIntyre said.