BJA’s STOP School Violence Grant Program

Funds to prevent violence in a K–12 school setting

Program Goals

The FY24 Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) STOP School Violence Program application period has closed. $83M (up to $2M for Category 1 awards and $1M for Category 2) is the total amount anticipated to be made available for nonprofits, school districts, and other entities to apply for. Allowable expenses include:

school-based behavioral threat assessments and/or intervention teams to identify school violence risks among students
technological innovations that are shown to increase school safety such as anonymous reporting technology
and other school safety strategies that assist in preventing violence

Who Was Eligible?

There will be 10 awards in Category 1, up to $2 million each. Category 1 was open to state governments as well as public and state-controlled institutions of higher education.

There will be 69 awards in Category 2, up to $1 million each. Category 2 was open to:

City or township governments
County governments
Units of local governments
Native American tribal governments (federally recognized)
Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
Private institutions of higher education
Independent school districts
Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education

Private K–12 schools, including private charter schools, should’ve applied as “nonprofits.” Public charter schools should’ve applied as “independent school districts.”

Applicants may have proposed to use the grant to contract with or make one or more subawards to local educational agencies, nonprofit organizations, or units of local government or tribal organizations.

Focus areas

Develop and operate technology solutions such as anonymous reporting systems (ARS) for threats of school violence, including mobile telephone applications, hotlines, websites, or other school safety technology solutions, for accurate identification of danger (without resorting to discriminatory stereotypes or violating privacy) or other technology solutions shown to improve school safety. Applicants will need to detail how the data collected through this system is handled, secured, and shared and review data to ensure there is no disparate impact based on race, ethnicity, or disability in outcomes.
Develop and implement multidisciplinary behavioral threat assessment (BTA) and/or intervention teams. BTA and/or intervention teams must be multidisciplinary and should coordinate with law enforcement agencies, behavioral health specialists, community stakeholders, and school personnel. Applicants seeking to implement BTA activities must partner with a researcher in this activity and account for the research in the project team and associated expenses.
Train school personnel and educate students on preventing school violence, including strategies to improve the school climate. This includes training for school officials on intervening and responding to individuals in mental health crises, social emotional learning, anti-bullying prevention, suicide prevention, and other evidence-based programs that may improve school climate.
Provide specialized training or create specialized non–training policies for law enforcement who work in schools and/or with school-age populations such as school resource officers (SROs) and probation officers.
Hiring school support personnel such as climate specialists, school psychologists, school social workers, school-based violence interrupters, and others directly supporting the prevention of school violence.

Purchasing Raptor with STOP Funding

Raptor provides SaaS and mobile technology as well as comprehensive training and consultation solutions across the entire school safety lifecycle, ranging from crisis prevention and preparation to emergency response and recovery. Raptor’s globally integrated product portfolio includes VisitorSafe, VolunteerSafe, StudentSafe, StaffSafe, DismissalSafe, EventSafe, Emergency Management, SIGMA Threat Management and the PublicSchoolWORKS training and compliance platform.

All Raptor software directly relates to the STOP goals and allowable expenses.