The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE), Office of Safe and Orderly Schools, is seeking competitively written proposals to provide school districts with an opportunity to initiate or enhance their School Resource Officer program. In accordance with the provisions of Mississippi Code Annotated § 37-3-82, there is hereby established the Mississippi Community Oriented Policing Services in Schools (MCOPS) grant program in the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) to provide funding, pursuant to specific appropriation by the Legislature and, to assist law enforcement agencies in providing additional School Resource Officers to engage in community policing in and around primary and secondary schools.
The Program's goals are to increase the number of School Resource Officers (SROs) by:
None is available.
Items that could be considered safety equipment include but are not limited to:
The MCOPS grant is available to all MIssissippi local public education agencies (LEAs) that maintain or wish to develop a campus police department or LEAs that partner with county/municipal law enforcement agencies to deploy SROs.
Applications are to be submitted by February 12, 2024. A similar deadline is anticipated, annually.
Funds are subject to appropriations by the state government. This grant will be awarded in the amount of $10,000 per officer per year at a minimum to be matched from local funds on a 50/50 matching basis. The grant period is from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.