U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced today that the Department of Education will provide a second grant in the amount of $51,700 to the Grossmont Union High School District in La Mesa, Calif., under Project School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV). The additional funding will be used to respond to a second school shooting that took place within the Grossmont district at Granite Hills High School on March 22, 2001.

"We hope these additional funds will assist the Grossmont district with its ongoing efforts to address the needs of students, teachers and families," Paige said. "The Grossmont school community has experienced too much violence and fear in the past several weeks and we will continue to work with the district to support them."

This will be the second grant awarded under Project SERV, a new program created to provide financial assistance to local school districts that have experienced a traumatic event such as a school shooting. Project SERV makes funds available to those districts to provide needed resources and an immediate response to help reestablish a safe environment that is conducive to learning. The additional funding will allow school administrators to help focus on those in need as a result of the recent shooting at Granite Hills High School.

Project SERV was created with a $10 million appropriation from Congress last year. Guidelines for the program are still being developed, but draft guidelines for grants under the program recommend that the Department of Education make Project SERV funds available for short-term assistance to school districts, as well as to support those districts in meeting longer-term crisis response needs. Project SERV is administered through the department’s Safe and Drug Free Schools Program.

The Grossmont Union High School District will use the Department of Education funds for the same purposes as the original grant received last month. These purposes include: security services, counseling services, support services and translation services to allow the district to respond to the needs of Spanish-speaking families.

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