49-6-4302 - Tennessee school safety center. - Tennessee Statutes

49-6-4302. Tennessee school safety center.

(a)  The department of education shall establish a Tennessee school safety center to develop and evaluate training materials and guidelines on school safety issues, including behavior, discipline and violence prevention.

(b)  The Tennessee school safety center shall be responsible for the collection and analysis of data related to school safety, including alleged violent or assaultive acts against school employees and students. Analysis of data shall include the number of arrests, the charges and whether civil damages were pursued by the injured party or school system. The center shall make periodic reports to the select oversight committee on education on the status of school safety efforts.

(c)  (1)  The Tennessee school safety center, within the limit of appropriations for the center, may establish grants to LEAs for the development of innovative violence prevention programs, conflict resolution, disruptive or assaultive behavior management, improved school security, peer mediation and training for employees on the identification of possible perpetrators of school related violence.

     (2)  The grants provided for in subdivision (c)(1) shall be distributed as follows:

          (A)  Funding would be available to each LEA in the same percentage that the LEA's share of basic education program (BEP) funding bears to statewide BEP funding.

          (B)  Funding would be subject to a twenty-five percent (25%) match by the LEA, adjusted for the LEA's fiscal capacity under the BEP formula. The match requirement could be satisfied by local or contributed funds or by personnel or other in-kind expenses assumed by the LEA.

          (C)  State funding would also be subject to submission by the LEA to the school safety center of a proposed plan of expenditures to accomplish one (1) or more of the provisions specified in subdivision (c)(1) and approval of that plan by the center. The center should not unreasonably withhold funding, but should allow LEAs adequate flexibility to experiment so long as the basic requirements of this section are satisfied.

          (D)  Any funds appropriated for this program in any fiscal year and not expended shall be carried forward for such purposes in future fiscal years. Any allocation for an LEA that is not applied for or is not successfully applied for in any fiscal year shall not be carried forward for the benefit of that LEA in subsequent fiscal years, but shall be carried forward for future expenditures under this program in future fiscal years.

(d)  LEAs are authorized to act in partnership with local law enforcement agencies for the purpose of hiring school resource officers under the state grant program set forth in § 38-8-115.

[Acts 1996, ch. 814, § 1; 1998, ch. 912, §§ 2, 3; 1999, ch. 129, § 2.]