Gun violence is one of the biggest and most complex issues facing American schools today. Despite all the efforts to make schools safer and reduce gun violence, K-12 campuses and colleges are still seeing incidents at an alarming rate.
As 2025 has come to a close, it is clear that there was a decrease in school shootings this year. This is great news when looking at school shooting numbers overall. However, there were still, at most, 233 shootings in K-12 schools in 2025, and several other shootings at colleges and universities.
Several grant opportunities that help schools and districts fund their security efforts either started or continued in 2025. These include:
- Homeland Security Grant Program
- School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP)
- Secure Schools Grant Program
- Nonprofit Security Grant Program (For religious schools)
- School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV)
- Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Program
- Strategies To Support Children Exposed to Violence
Several states also have grants. Schools or districts seeking financial assistance to implement security measures or improve safety may want to search for state-specific grant programs.
Securing Schools with Technology
Many schools and districts have made efforts to upgrade their security in 2025. Schools have installed metal detectors, improved access control, integrated gun-detection AI into their security camera systems, and improved their Emergency Communication Systems.
With any technology implemented, it is important that relevant security, staff, and administrators receive proper training on its use and protocols to ensure its efficacy. Security technologies can be an important tool in preventing shootings through early detection, but trained professionals are ultimately the ones who intervene when an incident does occur.
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