School Safety Grants

Wisconsin Threat Assessment Validation Study

The Office of School Safety has awarded funds to 27 schools chosen to participate in the U.W. Madison’s Validation Study of the Wisconsin School Threat Assessment Protocol. Proposed expenditures will enhance or improve upon existing efforts to prevent school violence through access to internal and external behavioral health resources. The goal of this program is to provide schools with financial assistance to support students who present as a medium or high risk of violence.

 

To be eligible schools must have provided official documentation from the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Education Department showing the school has been selected to participate in the DOJ/UW-Madison Threat Assessment Validation Study.

 

The project period for this funding opportunity is July 1st, 2021 – December 31st, 2023.

 

Grant Announcement

 

Are you a validation study grantee who is ready to request reimbursement? When requesting reimbursement, grantees must complete and upload either a Control School Reimbursement Checklist or Intervention School Reimbursement Checklist into Egrants, based on your school’s study group.

 

Questions about the checklist? Email schoolsafetygrants@doj.state.wi.us

 

See below the updated list of eligible expenditures for this funding opportunity, updated July 31st, 2021.

 

Eligible expenditures are those expenses reasonably and directly related to student assistance and/or intervention following a threat assessment of concerning or prohibited behavior. Eligible expenses include:

  • Personnel not employed by the school who provide behavioral health resources to a person of concern believed to present a risk of violence. Such resource personnel may include psychologists, counselors, or other similar intervention personnel.
  • Personnel not employed by the school who provide psychological recovery services to the victims of actions or behaviors of the person of concern listed in #1, above. Such recovery personnel may include psychologists, counselors, social workers and/or similar community service providers.
  • School personnel whose primary duty is providing therapeutic intervention service to high-risk students. Note that this position must be new and cannot have been previously budgeted. Examples include hiring of a new school counselor, social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist, or other mental health provider to provide therapeutic services.
  • Travel costs directly related to providing the therapeutic or recovery services listed above.
  • Supplies directly related to providing in-school tele/virtual mental health appointments.
  • Infrastructure directly required to create tele/virtual mental health systems.

 

Additional eligible expenditures have been added to this funding opportunity. See the two items listed below that are now also eligible for reimbursement.

  • DOJ OSS is now allowing all grantees to request reimbursement for students are who uninsured/underinsured, or who cannot afford their copay.
  • DOJ OSS is now allowing “intervention school” grantees to request reimbursement of costs incurred due to school staff attending the required Basic or Advanced Threat Assessment Team Training. As these trainings are all virtual and take place during the day, and reimbursement cannot replace previously budgeted expenses (staff salaries). An example of a reimbursable cost would be hiring substitute teacher to cover for an individual while TAT members attend the training.

 

SSI Grants - Critical Incident Stabilization Funds

This Office of School Safety grant is meant to assist schools that need additional resources to respond or recover from a very critical incident. There are several qualifications that a school/district must meet prior to applying, and these funds are awarded differently than other school safety grant funds. A panel of representatives from the OSS Advisory Committee will review and determine if an application will be approved.

 

Please note that this is not a "round 3" grant. Schools may not apply for these funds retroactively, and schools must meet the criteria explained in the announcement. Schools/districts are not required to have been awarded previous DOJ school safety grants to apply. The grant announcement is available here.

 

Closing Out Round 1 and Round 2 School Safety Initiative Grants

Final fiscal and program reports are due in Egrants on 1/30/2021. To prepare for submission of final reports, schools should:

  • Gather unsubmitted Invoices: Gather any remaining unsubmitted invoices and ready them for submission (the easier the invoices are to decipher, the sooner OSS will be able to process them).
  • Fill out the final G2 form (found at the bottom of this web page)
  • Fill out the Grant Certification Form (GCF) for each round (found at the bottom of this web page)

Then

  • Upload all above documents into Egrants, fill out the final fiscal report table, and “submit” your final fiscal report.
  • Finally, in Egrants complete and “submit” the Final Program Report (an annual progress report that is also required at the end of the grant period)

Keep in mind: If there is a current fiscal report pending in Egrants, the next (potentially final) report cannot be submitted. Grant Specialists are processing pending non-final reports as quickly as possible to allow grantees to submit by the due date of 1/30/2021.

 

Once the above list has been completed, your report(s) will be placed into the Egrants queue.

 

Any unobligated funds after 12/31/2020 will be turned back to the Wisconsin Department of Justice Office of School Safety.

 

Requesting Reimbursement in Egrants through Fiscal Reports

 

Fiscal Reports are due in Egrants on 1/30/2021. To request final reimbursement schools must complete and upload the following information in Egrants under School Safety Grants:

  1. A Fiscal Report completed in Egrants, inside the “monitoring” tab
  2. An accurate, signed G2 form
  3. A copy of paid invoices which reflect the requested amount of reimbursement
  4. A Grant Certification Form is required for final payment.

 

Grant Guides and Resources

General Guides

Program and Fiscal Reports

Certification Forms required before release of final payment

Direct Deposit Forms

Your school needs to be a registered vendor with the Department of Justice to receive reimbursement. If you are not a registered vendor, please request the three documents (listed below) from your Grant Specialist. If your school is already registered as a vendor and you would like to delineate which account School Safety funds are deposited into, please complete section 1, 2, 5 and 6 of the Authorization for Direct Deposit form. Note, these forms will require a copy of a current voided check or a bank letter on bank letterhead, signed by a bank representative.

  • Authorization for Direct Deposit
  • New Supplier
  • IRS W-9

 

Training Required by School Safety Initiative

  • Round 1: Three hours of Trauma Informed Care/ACES/Trauma Sensitive Schools training for all full-time staff. Completion must be certified when closing out your Round 1 grant by initialing the Round 1 Grant Certification Form. Schools do not need to submit further proof of training unless requested at a later date.
  • Round 2: Threat Assessment Team Training (one person per School Safety Intervention Team) and DOJ-approved adolescent mental health training (10% of full-time teachers and counselors). All Round 2 training must be completed by 2/4/2021.

Detailed Information Regarding Required Grant Training:

Round 1 Training Requirement:

  • Three hours of Trauma Informed Care/Trauma Sensitive Schools training, to be completed by all staff by 8/31/2019.
  • DPI recommends modules 1-5 to meet this requirement, available on their website. DOJ does not require these specific modules--schools may complete different TIC/TSS/ACEs training if it directly addresses these topics and is at least three hours in length.

Round 2 Training Requirements:

  • Threat Assessment Team Establishment and Training
    • Basic Threat Assessment Team Training is required for at least one individual per School Safety Intervention Team (SSIT).
    • The number of SSITs is dependent upon total buildings at your school/in your district. Each middle and high school must have their own SSIT, while elementary buildings may share an SSIT.
    • Establishment of the SSIT team was due August 31st 2019. "Establishment" means:
      • Members of the team have been identified, including one member of local, responding law enforcement. See grant announcement for more details.
      • Policies are in place (how often are you meeting, where are you meeting, etc.)
      • Team is using a “threat assessment protocol”. The Wisconsin School Threat Assessment Protocol is free.
    • The Office of School Safety provides the Basic Threat Assessment Team Training at no cost - sign up here.
    • Note: Basic Threat Assessment Team Training is different from “Digital Threat Assessment Training" provided by 'Safer Schools Together.’ Although very beneficial, Digital Threat Assessment training is not required.
  • DOJ-approved adolescent mental health training
    • Requirement: train 10% of full-time teachers and counselors due 2/4/2021 (extended to accommodate training difficulties due to COVID-19.)
    • When filling out the grant application, schools were instructed to list 10% of their “full time teachers and counselors” in the Performance Measures in Egrants. This is the number of staff who must attend AMHT. When sending staff to satisfy the 10%, schools can send teachers, counselors, administration, school psychologists, etc.
    • At least one member of each SSIT team must attend AMHT
    • OSS provided additional information regarding this requirement on 5/31/19. This document explains required training components.

Historic School Safety Grant Information

Round 1 School Safety Initiative Grant

The Department of Justice previously accepted applications for programs and projects related to school violence. The application deadline for this first round of funding was June 8, 2018. Expenditures enhanced or improved upon school or district efforts to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and/or recover from violence. The Department accepted applications from school boards, operators of independent charter schools, governing bodies of private schools, and tribal schools. The materials from the first round of grant funding are shown below for reference purposes. Note that this first round grant application is closed.

Round 2 School Safety Initiative Grant

The second round of grant funding advanced baseline mental health and physical security improvements made in the first round of grant funding through advanced training for teachers on mental health; the creation of local teams of educators, counselors, and law enforcement to develop School Safety Intervention Teams that will assess threats and identify students in need of support; and additional physical security upgrades. K-12 schools-public, private, charter, and tribal-were eligible to apply for these grants.

 

Recipients are required to send at least 10 percent of full-time teachers and counselors to DOJ-approved 12-hour Adolescent Mental Health training by December 31, 2020. Schools may use grant funds to pay expenses incurred (tuition, travel, lodging, meals, substitute teacher pay, etc.). Schools must also establish a School Safety Intervention Team (SSIT), following DOJ guidelines based on the U.S. Secret Service model, which will engage in behavior monitoring, threat assessments, and intervention. Additional details are in the grant summary, below.

SSI Grants - End Date extended to 12/31/2020

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Governor Ever’s Safer at Home Order, the DOJ Office of School Safety has extended the end date of the School Safety Initiative – SSIT and Mental Health Training grant period from August 31, 2020 to December 31, 2020. This extension is intended to assist all grantees that will not be able to meet grant training requirements or expend grant funds before the previously designated August 31, 2020 deadline. Grant contacts received a formal letter explaining the extension, the requirements, and the opt-out provisions on May 4, 2020.

 

Fiscal Report due date extension – 4/12/2020

In order to assist you during this challenging period, the Wisconsin Department of Justice has authorized up to a 60-day extension of the reporting deadline for the Fiscal Report due on April 12, 2020. No request for an extension or additional approval is required. To avoid a delay in payment, however, we ask grant recipients that are still able to meet the existing reporting date please continue to do so. If you will be unable to submit a Fiscal Report by April 12, 2020, please communicate with your Grants Specialist to coordinate the delayed submission of your report. Please note that the eGrants system will continue to send an automatic delinquency notification which can be disregarded for the report due on April 12, 2020. At this time, the dates for the April-June and July-September reporting periods have not changed.

 

OSS Complying with "Safer at Home" Order/

 

To comply with the “Safer At Home” order, all Office of School Safety staff is working remotely. While this adjustment period may cause minor delays in response time, your Grants Specialist is working diligently to adjust to this new way of working and will respond as soon as possible. If you have any questions about your grant, please reach out to your grants specialist via email, or call Stephanie La Haye, (608)282-5003 .

 

This page is created by the Wisconsin Department of Justice. All text, images or associated items are property of the Wisconsin Department of Justice, and may only be reproduced with the consent of the Wisconsin Department of Justice.