‘Students Never Forget': Principals Call for Help After School Shootings

On a bright and sunny day in mid-June, a group of 16 school leaders arrived at the U.S. Capitol with a sole objective: to garner more funds and resources to support schools that have experienced a school shooting.
This group, the Principal Recovery Network, is uniquely poised to make these demands to legislators-each of them have experienced a school shooting, or the aftermath, on their campus. Several of the principals in this group have lost colleagues and students to such violent incidents.
The network wants a “substantial” increase in funding for Project SERV, a short-term grant provided to schools after they experience a traumatic incident. SERV, which stands for School Emergency Response to Violence, provides both money and crisis-response experts to schools after an incident of violence on campus.
Schools can use the SERV grant to hire additional counselors and mental health service providers, as well as increase the presence of law enforcement on campus in the immediate aftermath of a violent incident. The SERV grant, though, is time-limited.
“Expanding Project SERV is another ask we have for Capitol Hill,” Johnson said.
Beyond SERV, the school leaders want legislators to provide more funding under Title II and Title IX, which, they said, could help with more security measures on campus, as well as expand mental health services for students. In this video, members of the Principal Recovery Network discuss how these additional resources can help schools recover and heal after a violent incident.