State grants benefit area schools

Nov. 24—Some area schools have received an early Christmas present in the form of grant money to assist them with capital projects, deferred maintenance and technology needs. Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth announced last Friday that $179 million had been awarded to 327 schools across the state as part of the Alabama Lieutenant Governor's K-12 Capital Grant Program.

State Sen. Keith Kelley, R-Weaver, said Friday that this one-time grant program was due to a surplus in the education budget.

"During the legislative process when we realized we were going to have some surplus in the education trust fund there were a lot of different ideas and a lot of people positioning themselves to try to capture the bulk of that money," Kelley said. "We felt like that we needed to have a process for that instead of a free-for-all, so we got together and developed a skeleton of criteria to try to administrate as evenly as we could in different areas in the state based on need."

Kelley said that legislators wanted to make sure the surplus went to capital improvements so that the facilities for the kids were taken care of. Kelley teamed up with local state representatives to form a team to help with the grant process. He called the area school superintendents in his district and wrote letters of support on behalf of the various schools' needs.

Each school had to specify a plan that met the grant's specific criteria, Kelley said.

"It's a situation I think that's going to allow a lot of schools to help them over a hump where they kinda got in a bind," Kelley said, "A lot of them have some deferred maintenance and those types of things. It will be very, very helpful."

"I pushed pretty hard on this thing because I didn't want us to get left out. In my district which is District 12 the total award was $4,885,000," he said.

Kelley said not all grants were awarded because certain criteria had to be met.

"We provided the money from the Legislature for this grant program for this one time money then the Lieutenant governor's office facilitated the criteria and the selection process," he said.

Kelley said the grants will definitely help the schools.

"It's an opportunity to take care of some immediate major expense needs that will allow them to free up some other resources for things directly with the kids," Kelley said.

According to the Lieutenant Governor's Office, 80 percent of the grants were awarded to schools where more than half of the students are considered at-risk.

Anniston School System

Anniston school Superintendent Dr. D. Ray Hill said that Anniston High School received $820,000 and Anniston Middle School received $215,000.

"We're elated to actually get that," Hill said Tuesday.

Hill said that when the school system found out the grants were available, a team was put together that identified critical needs.

"We put down what we needed, some of the things we knew we were having a difficult time paying for in our schools so we were excited," Hill said.

"We didn't know what we would receive but we just put in the things that we thought we needed to have right away that they could fund, and just so happens they pretty much covered most of that from what I've seen," Hill said.

Hill said some of the improvements at the high school are security measures, such as more walk-through metal detectors, hand-held metal detectors and maybe a vestibule in the high school that would help the school when people enter the building.

"But the biggest thing was changing all the doors to be more secure and locked," he said. Hill said there are 80 doors at the high school that need to be addressed.

At the middle school the improvements will include improved lighting, walk-through metal detectors, new touchless fixtures in the restrooms and other security improvements.

Hill said that other improvements include upgrading bandwidth and wifi.

"The biggest thing with wifi and students having laptops is the security side, monitoring that, so we have a few things in there for that that we'll look at," Hill said.

"It's a big boost," Hill said.

Staff writer Bill Wilson: 256-235-3562. On Twitter @bwilson_star.