NORTH COUNTY —— Four North County school districts are on track for state grants totaling almost $2 million to help make their campuses safer.
The money can be used by schools in Oceanside, San Marcos, Fallbrook and Julian for everything from anti-gang programs to sworn school resource officers during the next three years, authorities said Tuesday.
The grants are approved on the basis of strong collaboration between law enforcement and schools, as well as the need for law enforcement at campuses, said Steve Hedrick, assistant director of the Crime and Violence Prevention Center for the state office of the attorney general.
"It's more than, 'We're just going to work together,' " he said. "They have to show a collaborative process."
He said three appeals from school districts that weren't approved for grants have to be settled before the grants get the final OK.
There is a lot of competition for the grants. This year, 36 grants were preliminarily approved out of 170 applications for the $11.3 million available.
Three of them are grants totaling $975,000 that were applied for through the San Diego County Office of Education for eight schools in Oceanside and three in San Marcos.
Anthony Ceja, a county Safe Schools coordinator, said the two grants for $650,000 for Oceanside focus on gang prevention efforts.
The grants sought cover Libby, Laurel and Mission elementary schools; Martin Luther King and Jefferson middle schools; the Clair W. Burgener Academy, and the Oceanside and El Camino high schools.
"Each site will have mentors to work with at-risk kids," Ceja said. "There will be a lot of education happening throughout the whole community."
The money will also pay for gang prevention information for parents and school staff, he said.
Laura Chalkley, spokesperson for the Oceanside district, said the district already has five school resource officers who rotate through all the campuses.
School resource officers are sworn police officers or sheriff's deputies who respond to criminal complaints on campuses, get to know students in order to prevent crime, follow through with students involved in incidents, and work with truancy boards to keep children in school.
The San Marcos Unified School District, which has two school resource officers, wants to use a $325,000 grant to provide job, social and other skills for high school students to prepare them for employment and careers after school, said Gabriela Baeza, project analyst for the San Diego County Office of Education.
"A lot of the kids will be at risk for gang involvement," Baeza said.
The grant is for the Mission Hills, San Marcos and Twin Oaks high schools.
The Fallbrook Union Elementary School District and the Julian Unified School District each have a $325,000 grant on the preliminary list.
Fallbrook's grant, pending final approval by the school board, will be used for programs at the James E. Potter Junior High School to help students learn about tolerance, said Robin Sales, middle school coordinator. She said it will also help students who are suspended to work on their behavior.
"We're going to work with kids on being tolerant with other kids," Sales said.
Hedrick said Julian's grant request included a school resource officer and a prevention coordinator as part of an overall safety effort within the community for students at Julian Elementary and Julian High schools.
After seven years, this is the last year of this format for the safe school grants, Hedrick said.
"We're hoping to go to a five-year, one-time-only grant, $100,000 a year," he said.
Contact staff writer Jo Moreland at (760) 740-3524 or jmoreland@nctimes.com.
