The San Marino Unified School District was recently awarded a $405,872 grant to replace all of its existing surveillance cameras by the U.S. Department of Justice’s office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, through its School Violence Prevention Program.
This program was made possible by the Students, Teachers and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018, which gave the DOJ’s COPS office authority to provide awards directly to states, units of local governments or Indian tribes to improve security at schools and on school grounds in the jurisdiction of the grantee through evidence-based school safety programs and technology.
Collectively, the program will award up to $73 million in grants to recipients for the 2023 fiscal year. The duration of each award extends three years, with a maximum federal share of $500,000 per award and a local cash match requirement of at least 25%. The funding is geared toward various school safety measures, including coordination with law enforcement training for local officers, implementation of deterrent measures, technology for emergency notification and any other security improvements deemed essential by the COPS office.
In SMUSD’s application, the district requested — and was granted — funding to replace 130 surveillance cameras with ones that operate on a cloud-based system to enhance situational awareness and foster increased collaboration between schools and local law enforcement. The estimated total cost for the project is $595,279. SMUSD also leveraged school safety expertise from the FBI’s Joint Regional Intelligence Center, or JRIC, and garnered support from community partners, such as San Marino Police Chief John Incontro, and clinical and forensic psychologist Tony Belize — both of whom wrote letters of support for the grant.
Nationwide, 1,022 applications were submitted to the program. Out of these submissions, 206 applications were funded, with an average award amounting to $334,000. In California, only 16 school districts were selected as recipients of this award.
SMUSD Chief Technology Officer Stephen Choi presented the grant award to the Board of Education at its Nov. 14 meeting, where the news was well received.
“These cameras are the newest, next-generation and best-in-class in terms of providing enhanced safety,” said Choi, who noted that while SMUSD will continue to have the same number of cameras after they are replaced, the update will greatly benefit the San Marino schools community.
“Our current camera system is outdated,” he added. “It wasn’t designed to be reviewed in real time. It was a camera system designed to roll back the video to last week to see if something happened then. Today, newer cameras are designed so that we have access and visibility in real time, and I’m very excited about that because the camera system is central to our safety.”
Once the award is officially accepted, the district will have to register on various federal systems to manage the grant. The total award amount of $405,872 will be accessible to SMUSD for up to three years, in which the district will work to procure, implement and draw down on these funds, as well as submit the required quarterly financial reports.
Additionally, the funding of this grant not only covers the camera equipment, but also its maintenance, upkeep and licensing. Beyond the three-year timeframe, Choi said SMUSD would have to look to outside sources for updating costs.
The cameras SMUSD is interested in installing districtwide are by Verkada — the same brand the SMPD uses — which the district has been piloting on a small scale going back about two years. Since then, Choi said five Verkada cameras have been tested at multiple sites with promising results.
“I want to express my gratitude for continued support from our district safety partners, including the San Marino Police Department, Dr. Belize and JRIC, which underscores the importance of collaboration between our schools, law enforcement and the community at large in creating a secure and conducive learning environment for our staff and students,” Choi said.
Superintendent Linda de la Torre applauded Choi for helping to secure this funding for SMUSD.
“I know he spent an untold number of hours on this project to make sure that the application was as solid as it could be, so kudos to Dr. Choi for all of his hard work,” de la Torre said. “Without him, we wouldn’t have been able to pull this off.”
Board Clerk Jane Chon also thanked Choi for bringing this grant to the district.
“I think one of the criticisms that always comes up is that San Marino Unified doesn’t really go after grants … because we didn’t qualify, we didn’t have the capacity, the grants weren’t applicable to us or there were strings attached, so thank you for finding this and for getting this,” Chon said. “This is a huge piece of what we need to be doing.”
First published in the Nov. 30 issue of the San Marino Tribune
