NEW BERN, N.C. (WNCT) – The North Carolina Department for Public Instruction’s Center for Safer Schools announced it was awarding more than $74 million in grant funding to more than 200 schools in early November.

The funds were split into two categories: for school resource officers and for safety equipment and training.

Craven County Schools said they hope to use that money to support their school resource officers.

“Our primary goal is to use that money for school resource officer positions. Of the $680,000 we were fortunate enough to receive, about $550,000 of that will go to SRO positions, funding them, their salaries and all of that,” said Craven County Schools Director of Safety and Security Nick Lucas.

In regard to safety equipment, Lucas said he hopes to add more cameras and radios to their security support system.

“The other $137,000 or so will go towards safety equipment for the school systems,” Lucas said. “So, one of the things we’d like to implement, and we’ve been planning this for some time, we’d like to implement magnetometers at all of our secondary schools, which essentially is a walkthrough metal detector, for lack of a better term. We’re doing a lot of work just to enhance our safety, our comprehensive safety overall.”

Because at the end of the day, students who feel safe at school do better in the classroom, Lucas said.

“They shouldn’t have to worry about are they safe in their school system, that’s our job to do and we take it very seriously, and we put a lot of effort and time to making sure they have a safe environment,” said Lucas.