Act Now: Schools Can Apply to Get STOPit Solutions’ Award-Winning Safety Platform at No Cost

“Don’t wait. There are students who need this right now and students who will need it more than ever when school returns to ‘normal’ from COVID-19.”

–Chris Moddelmog, Executive Director, Smoky Hill Education Service Center

The nation’s Educational Service Agencies (ESA) provide schools with important resources by creating efficiencies and opportunities through strategic partnerships. Not only do they help member districts create financial strength by improving their purchasing power, but they also make it easier for schools to apply for a wide variety of grant funding opportunities available nationwide. These grants are often used to pay for priorities like school safety and student mental health programs. In fact, many ESAs are right now working with partner schools to apply for federal STOP School Violence Act grants that will cover the launch of STOPit’s anonymous reporting platform in schools at no cost to the district.

Among them is the Smoky Hill Education Service Center, which represents public and private school districts in 25 Kansas counties. The ESA and STOPit have already pooled their grant writing expertise to obtain funding to set up the app in 50 school districts. STOPit recently spoke with Smoky Hill Executive Director, Chris Moddelmog, to find out more about this opportunity and what his stakeholders are saying about the grant application and implementation process.

STOPit: What have you heard from your schools about working with STOPit?

“The feedback has been fantastic, from the introductions to the technology to the experience of getting to know more about the organization. Members of the STOPit team are easy to get in touch with and they’re always open to our ideas about the best ways to implement the solution in the schools. All of the schools I’ve talked to say it’s been easy to work with STOPit.”

STOPit: What were your goals for working with STOPit? What benefits did you hope it would bring for your school districts? 

“First and foremost, student health and wellbeing,” says Moddelmog. “We wanted to provide them with a solution that would make a difference. No learning can take place in our classrooms if the students are anxious, fearful and depressed. STOPit’s solutions and the services they offer to counselors and school resource officers are great, and we’d like to make them available to all of our schools. 

I’d also like to use the data collected by the system to learn more about the specific kinds of issues that are being reported in the schools,” he says. “This information will be valuable to our school districts and help us work with them to deliver exactly the kind of help our students need.” 

STOPit: What makes Educational Service Agencies so well-positioned to help schools implement high-level resources like STOPit’s anonymous reporting app and other services?

“For schools that need help with instructional strategies or accessing tools like STOPit, we have those consultants on staff and can send them to schools to get that work done without additional financial or staff burden. We’re also nimble and can sometimes allocate resources more effectively than a small school district can,” says Moddelmog.

“We have close working relationships with our districts,” he continues. “They get calls from everyone under the sun trying to sell them something. We promise our districts that when we bring them something, we’ve answered the questions, ‘Is this something our districts really need and will it provide real value?’ We vet the companies and only suggest opportunities after we’ve conducted due diligence to be able to confidently recommend the service and/or service provider. That’s why we feel completely comfortable recommending STOPit.”

STOPit: ESAs can take advantage of the STOP School Violence Act to acquire federal grants for STOPit services, but time is of the essence. What should ESA administrators be doing right now to ensure their schools can acquire these funds?

“When we partner to apply for STOP School Violence Act grants, the process couldn’t be simpler for schools. Once a district has selected the specific menu of STOPit services that suits its needs, STOPit writes the grant, submits the application, sets up the technology, trains school staff to use it, and helps build excitement for it throughout the student body and community.”

Moddelmog concludes, 

“Don’t wait. There are students who need this right now and students who will need it more than ever when school returns to “normal” from COVID-19. Students and staff will come back and we’ll be dealing with something that they’ve never dealt with before. Schools can either contact STOPit directly to set up a time to demo the app, or they can call me first to talk about the success we’ve seen and our experience.”

Contact STOPit today to learn more about their anonymous reporting platform and how you can work with your regional ESA to implement anonymous reporting in your district, for free.  

The deadline to contact STOPit to affirm interest in this opportunity is May 15. The deadline to submit a grant application for the current grants cycle is June 9, 2020.