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Schaumburg, IL - Congresswoman Melissa Bean announced the award of a federal grant to the Gurnee Police Department and Gurnee School District 56 under the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program today.
Gurnee Police will combine the $50,639 federal grant with an equal amount of matching funds from District 56 to install over 30 security cameras on District 56 grade school buses, which are unequipped with such cameras right now.
“Protecting our schoolchildren is vital, and investing in this technology will help Gurnee police and school officials with that task,” Bean said. “The COPS program, which I’ve been proud to support, is a good example of federal and local governments working together to improve our community.”
Gurnee Police Chief Robert Jones said, “We are thankful for the Department of Justice funding. And we are pleased that we could assist District 56 Schools in obtaining funding for this project. The safety of our school children is paramount and the new camera equipment will most certainly help in that regard.”
“We’ve had an increased amount of bullying we’ve seen on the buses,” said Dr. John Hutton, Superintendent of District 56. “Curbing bullying is a priority for our Board of Education and we think this will help.”
The grant was awarded by the COPS Office as part of almost $16 million under the FY09 Secure Our Schools (SOS) grant program. Grants will be awarded to 128 law enforcement agencies in 38 states. SOS grants provide funding to state, local, or tribal governments to assist with the procurement of school safety resources and the opportunity to establish and enhance a variety of school safety equipment and/or programs. Each SOS grant is two years in duration, and provides a maximum federal share of $500,000.
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