MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It was a violent week in some Shelby County Schools and now the district said it was pushing forward with a grant to prevent violence in certain at-risk areas.
Conversations about school safety sparked this week, after video recordings of fights at White Station High School and Raleigh-Egypt High School surfaced.
The district said school fights were down 7% this year to date.
Still, the district said it was moving forward with a $4,194,582 grant from the Department of Education called “Project PREVENT.”
“These are intervention specialists,” explained Ron Pope with SCS Student Safety Thursday.
The district recently received the grant money and said it would go into effect next school year.
Dr. Lakira Boyd, Project PREVENT’s Federal Program Advisor said it would make two interventionists available to work with students at Craigmont Middle School, Craigmont High School, Kirby Middle School and Kirby High School.
The goal they said was to give students access to counseling for trauma or anxiety.
The program also prioritized conflict resolution.
SCS’s grant proposal said its focus was to cut down the amount of violence, gang involvement and substance abuse in the schools.
SCS did not have specific numbers available Friday regarding the number of violent incidents at these schools.
SCS said they were chosen based on neighborhood criminal activity and incidents in the schools.
Boyd said principals would refer students to Project PREVENT who are involved in minor problems in the school.
“And get those kids into their [interventionists’] offices, so that they can talk to them, put different interventions in place to figure out why are you doing the things that you are doing,” Boyd explained.
WREG spoke with parents at Kirby High School who were relieved to hear the news.
“They’re [students] doing their little gang handshakes,” said concerned parent Danita Bernal.
“There’s a lot of violence going on in the school,” said parent Valencia Calhoun.
