WAITT FAMILY FOUNDATION HELPS FACILITATE PROCESS

Sioux City Community School District to Obtain Three Year $ 6.6 million Safe Schools Grant from Federal Government

The U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services announced more than $38 million in grants for its Safe School/Healthy Students Program (SSHS). SSHS program's goals are to promote safer schools, foster child development, prevent aggressive and violent behavior, and eliminate drug and alcohol abuse. The Sioux City Community School District was one of only 20 communities selected from 196 applications from communities nationwide.

Sioux City Community School District received a three-year grant in the amount of $2,211,174 per year. These funds will be used to support a number of community-wide programs including:

• COPS funding. The funding will support two resource police officers in the middle schools;
• The school system will receive funding for 12 social workers, psychiatric nurse services, and security cameras for high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools;
• The creation of a Woodbury County Family Resource and Assessment Center.
• Healthy Opportunities for Parents to Experience Success (HOPES), an in-home volunteer program which provides assistance and training for staff, community and parents on issues of discipline, bully prevention, harassment and substance abuse prevention;
• Two outreach workers/mentors for gang and violence prevention;
• Expansion of Mentors in Violence, an anti-bully and mutual respect program, to all high schools and middle schools;
• Expansion of Stork's Nest program to help children from birth to school-age; and
• Expansion of "Beyond the Bell", United Way's before- and after-school initiative, to provide programming for all elementary and middle students.

The grant was written by Pat Somsky with the help of The Safe School Committee through a grant from The Waitt Family Foundation to offset costs associated with the grant application.