Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series of stories about the Lawrence County and Laurel school districts’ Safe School/Healthy Students project.



Laurel and Lawrence County school districts are partnering with law enforcement and juvenile justice entities and public mental health agencies to create safer and healthier learning environments for students in pre-school through 12th grade.

They are uniting under the banner of the Crossroads of Hope Safe Schools/Healthy Students Project, which received a $1 million grant from the federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative.

“Crossroads of Hope came from I-59 and Highway 84,” said Blackledge. “We consider them the crossroads that link Jones and Lawrence counties.

“We come together in hope of making Lawrence and Jones counties a safe place for children to live and attend school,” added Blackledge. “Our primary partners are the Laurel and Lawrence County school districts. Jones and Lawrence County Law Enforcement, Pine Belt Mental Healthcare and the Southwest Mental Health Complex.”

The goals Safe Schools/Healthy students are to:

• provide and maintain a safe learning environment through increased law enforcement, community involvement and increased support for youth and their families;

• reduce the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs by utilizing a resource officer and developing a cadre of trainers for evidence-based drug prevention activities;

• increase and strengthen the support structure of positive behavioral, social, and emotional growth through a community-wide comprehensive infrastructure to deliver services to students and their families;

• improve student and family access to high quality mental health services through a school-based system that ensures early identification of students and families and the provision of prevention and early intervention services for all students needing mental health services and;

• develop a plan and continuum of services for identifying and serving children and families in need of services through community and parent liaisons and collaboration of appropriate support agencies.

Project coordinator Abby Cothern said Safe Schools/Healthy Students will address everything from bullying and teen moms to tobacco and drug use and mental health issues. “A lot of work has gone forth to get us to this point,” said Cothern.

At a recent meeting of the project’s core management team, Cothern said it is good to finally have bodies to work with. “How wonderful it is to see a group of people from Lawrence, Jones and Laurel work together for the betterment of students,” she said. “Now that we have gotten people together, student’s lives can be touched, lives can be changed.

“I’m really excited about the training that will be taking place in the next few weeks and the sharing between the school districts, law officials, early childhood educators and others.”

Blackledge and Cothern acknowledge that getting to the point where they could actually put people in place to expedite the projects specified in the grant was a lengthy process. Although the grant was awarded to the team in 2008, a lot of changes and additional paperwork had to take place before they could establish a leadership team.

First of all, the Lawrence County School District was not included in the initial grant. The initial districts were Laurel and the Jones County and Wayne county school districts.

“They both pulled out for whatever reason,” said Lawrence County School Superintendent Tony Davis. “The grant kind of laid idle there for a while.”

Davis said one day he heard a young lady who had worked in the Lawrence County School District, speaking about the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative grants. He made a comment that he would be interested in getting a grant and as one would say, the rest is history.

“We’re delighted to be a part of this endeavor,” said Davis. “For some reason, there is a percentage of students, for whatever reason, fall away from the pack in our schools...What can we do to get those children back into the pack. We don’t want any child to fall through the cracks.”

Laurel School District Superintendent Dr. Glenn McGee added: “It’s nice to see community working toward the education of school children. I’m just elated. The district will enhance it and do what we can to make it work.”

Davis noted that in addition to being proud to be a part of such an undertaking, he’s extremely proud that “government dollars helping us out.”

Since 1999, the U. S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice have awarded more than $2.1 billion in Safe School/Healthy Students grants. The grant for the Laurel and Lawrence County project is just one of four such grants awarded to Mississippi school districts since 2001. Starkville, Jackson and Monticello also received grants in 2008 and Vicksburg was awarded a grant earlier this year.

In applying for the grant, the grantees proposed an integrated, comprehensive, community-wide, and community-specific plan to address the problems of school violence and alcohol and other drug abuse. Applicants are eligible for four consecutive years of funding.