West Kentucky Educational Cooperative STOP the Violence: CARE, CONNECT, COMMIT

The Western Kentucky Educational Cooperative (WKEC) is applying for a Category 2 STOP grant for eleven small school districts in eleven rural western Kentucky counties that have high percentages of unemployment and poverty and have become transient and disconnected due to a series of devastating tornadoes that ripped through the region on December 8, 2021, leaving many families homeless, displaced, unemployed, and grief stricken. Many of these families were forced to move to different schools and communities in the area leaving their schools, friends, and familiar places causing stress, anxiety, and anger. This has led to an increase in discipline, mental health issues, and truancy as schools, parents, and communities work to rebuild amid the rubble and bring stability and support to the 12,605 students in these districts, particularly students and families who are homeless, transient, limited English speaking, mentally ill, disabled, migrant, or in foster care. STOP and CONNECT will equip students, educators, SROs, community partners, and parents with the skills needed to be resilient and resourceful in order to reduce the threat of school violence and increase the safety in these schools as students learn how to connect with their feelings, friends, community, and futures in a safe, positive school environment.

WKEC’s program includes all five areas of the STOP grant. WKEC will hire a coordinator/counselor and school climate specialist/evaluator and use existing staff and resources to plan, implement, evaluate, and sustain the program.

WKEC will provide training for:

A. Behavioral threat assessment (BTA) teams using the National Threat Assessment Center model and bi-yearly threat assessment survey data completed in the districts;

B. School counselors on social/emotional initiatives and career planning;

C. Evidenced based strategies including PBIS to all schools.

D. Mentoring programs using the Big Brother, Big Sister model; and

E. SROs to create a WK SRO Association with training from an experienced SRO, trained at the Kentucky Center for School Safety.

The ARS system will allow for local threat reporting while also having features that allow students who feel misplaced to connect with counselors, teachers, friends, and mentors from any of the 11 school districts in order to keep them connected and engaged and to allow the families to have support links, newsletters, and alerts on local, regional, and state resources that will educate students, teachers and parents on the Internet and social media as we all work together to keep our children safe.