Warren County School District is beefing up some security measures thanks to state grants.

State Sen. Michele Brooks (R-50) announced grant awards this week from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s School Safety and Security Committee.

In all, $2.6 million in grants was awarded to 24 districts in northwestern Pennsylvania, with Warren County School District receiving $212,000.

There are two distinct grants within the program, according to Coordinator of Grant and Foundation Development Matt Jones. “There’s a meritorious grant and a competitive grant.”

Districts that made proper application for the meritorious grant received an award based on the number of grantees and the size of the district.

For Warren County School District, “the meritorious grant is for roughly $45,000,” Jones said. “Roughly $25,000 of that is going to maintain our current level of SRO coverage in the district.”

The remainder will purchase large screen monitors.

The personnel whose responsibility it is to monitor surveillance cameras on school grounds have numerous images — sometimes 30 to 40 — to watch. Currently, they have to do that with many images on small screens.

“This will help them keep better track of cameras and what’s going on,” Jones said.

The district also received $167,000 in the competitive grant, he said.

The district will bolster its radio capabilities with that money.

“We’re buying nine repeaters to be installed in school buildings,” Jones said. “Those will be used to boost reception for the handheld radios that we bought last year.”

Those radios are compatible with the new county-wide police and fire radios.

Jones said the radios function in the buildings, but their reception and reliability noticeably improve when a vehicle with a repeater in the trunk — Warren County Sheriff’s Office vehicles have them — is in the parking lot.

“We knew that reception in the buildings was an issue,” Jones said. “We asked if the concept of putting repeaters in the buildings made sense.”

The repeaters should help boost signal for any responder near one of the schools.

“It should improve general coverage,” he said.

“The safety of our children, schools, and overall communities is paramount,” Brooks said. “I would like to thank our schools for submitting such strong, solid applications for school safety grants.”