Tens of millions of dollars in state grant funding will be disbursed across the commonwealth to promote school safety and mental health – with millions set to go to Luzerne County.
The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime & Delinquency has listed the maximum allocations for its School Safety & Mental Health grants for the 2026-27 grant cycle. These allocations, totaling as much as $138.78 million statewide across as many as 775 grants, are to be disbursed to school districts, vocational schools, charter schools, and intermediate units that apply with qualifying projects.
The grant is not competitive, with each school’s allocation being determined by a set formula. School districts are set to receive a base grant of $100,000 with additional funds corresponding to districts’ adjusted enrollment statistics for the 2024-25 school year. Vocational schools, charter schools, and intermediate units can receive a fixed maximum of $70,000 each.
Under this formula, the commission is set to allocate as much as $3.41 million to schools based predominantly in Luzerne County. The maximum allocation for each Luzerne County-based school district is as follows:
• Crestwood: $217,478
• Dallas: $206,548
• Greater Nanticoke Area: $206,152
• Hanover Area: $198,151
• Hazleton Area: $663,802
• Lake-Lehman: $167,756
• Northwest Area: $139,370
• Pittston Area: $243,933
• Wilkes-Barre Area: $490,904
• Wyoming Area: $188,696
• Wyoming Valley West: $335,276
Bear Creek Community Charter School; Luzerne Intermediate Unit #18; and the Hazleton Area, West Side, and Wilkes-Barre Area career and technical centers are all eligible for at most $70,000.
The expressed priority of the program is to ensure that all schools “at a minimum, meet a basic, Level 1 standard of safety for students and staff,” with that Level 1 criteria having been revised in the 2026-27 state School Code.(New requirements include that schools have suicide-prevention policies, have policies addressing student cell-phone use, and that school cameras be functional and placed in critical areas as identified by a physical-security assessment.) State law requires that a school must meet these baseline standards before they can use the funding for other projects.
Thirty-three specific permissible uses are listed on the commission’s application guidelines, including restorative-justice initiatives; positive behavior support programs; security-related technology, such as metal detectors and surveillance equipment; counseling services; violence-prevention curricula; school-security hires; and partnerships with youth–service non-profits.
Several uses are explicitly disallowed. These prohibited uses included the purchase of retractable “safety batons,” seemingly describing nightsticks; the purchase of books in the series “Framework for Understanding Poverty;” the purchase of handcuffs; and the acquisition of AR-15 rifles or other long guns.
Officials for some school districts in the Wyoming Valley have discussed ahead of the school year how recent grants have benefited their students. Crestwood, for example, is set to use PCCD grant funding to help fund an estimated $180,955 initiative to install new doors in the high school wing of its secondary center. The new high school doors are to be steel and outfitted with enhanced safety features such as smaller windows practically impossible to shatter in a way to use for breaking and entering.
Several members of the General Assembly have published statements celebrating the grant funding. Rep. Brenda Pugh issued a news release Friday lauding the funding as vital support to students’ mental health. She noted that school districts in her state House district, which includes Dallas, Lake-Lehman, Wyoming Area, Wyoming Valley West, West Side CTC, and Luzerne I.U. #18, have together been given maximum allocations exceeding $1 million.
“I have heard school administrators say that limited funding prevents them from providing the mental‑health and behavioral supports students need,” said Pugh, R-120, Dallas Twp. “Investing in safe learning environments isn’t optional, it is essential for student success.”
LIU #18 Executive Director Anthony Grieco issued a statement Monday afternoon about the announced PCCD grants. He wrote that the grant program helped the LIU promote student safety and thanked members of the General Assembly for their support in securing this critical source of funding.
“The health, safety and welfare of our students and staff is priority number one each and every day,” Grieco wrote. “Their commitment (i.e. the commitment of General Assembly members) to providing competitive dollars to our local School Districts, Career and Technical Centers and the Intermediate Unit, for both physical and mental health safety, provide the necessary resources to allow administration, staff and school security officials to ensure a safe, secure and supportive environment throughout the school community.”
The projects the grants fund must have begun no earlier than this July and must have an end date of June 30, 2028, though school governing bodies can apply for extensions. Applications for PCCD 2026-27 School Safety & Mental Health grants must be sent through the commission’s Egrants system and the application deadline is Oct. 16.