Pennsylvania handed out $8.4 million in school safety grants Thursday.

The money, separate from the $60 million allocated during the year’s budget, will aid 269 different school or law enforcement entities with reducing violence in and around schools, whether with school resource officers, training, metal detectors or ID systems.

“Parents and students deserve to have confidence that our classrooms are safe places for children and teachers,” Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement.

Lawmakers, security and schooling experts laid the groundwork for the distribution of $70 million in state school safety funding Wednesday at the second meeting of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s School Safety and Security Committee.

The General Assembly allocated the funding under this year’s budget with a wide list of uses, from installing metal detectors or security cameras to providing training for teachers or ordering a threat assessment.

The Senate Appropriations Committee met at Temple University Tuesday to analyze the Philadelphia Healthy and Safe Schools Initiative that has kicked off in two inner-city elementary schools, Bethune and Kenderton.

Under Act 44, Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine will work on implementing reforms at two K-8 schools in Philadelphia that take into account students’ mental health.

The Wolf Administration hosted a press conference Tuesday morning to discuss a federal change that now expands access to more types of milk for students. 

In the past schools needed a waiver to obtain one-percent flavored milk instead of just skim milk.

For the 2018-2019 school year schools are no longer required to gain a waiver to access one percent milk. The Wolf Administration is hoping to get the word out so schools will take advantage of the new flexibility.

At a press luncheon Monday, gubernatorial hopeful Scott Wagner continued his campaign narrative that he, and not Gov. Tom Wolf, will be a true champion for public education, while criticizing media coverage of issues he sees as trivial.

Since June, his campaign has seized on two sets of remarks, one from Wolf himself, the other from a top aide, to claim that the governor wants to shift all school funding through the 2015 fair funding formula.