Just go get it!

“My Principal may not approve my request for funding for this..”. “Our District has enacted a freeze on funding”. “We don’t have the funds to have this now”. Sounds familiar? This has never deterred me. There are always opportunities to secure the funding for whatever you think might assist your students in excelling! I have even concluded that it is not necessary for me to request budgetary consideration from my school anyway because whatever the amount, it would more than likely, not be enough to even make a significant difference, given how expensive it is to educate children.

As recent as 2011, most states across the nation have decreased school funding budgets at startling rates! According to the Huffington Post article, “K-12 Education Funding: Most States at Levels Lower Than Pre-Recession, Cut Spending This Year”, -- Emmeline Zhao, 2012.  Forty-Six states were studied and, of those studied, thirty-seven of them (states) cut funding after adjusting for inflation. Of those, nineteen actually cut funding by more than five percent. This is why you are getting the types of responses that you are getting to your requests for money!   “They ain’t got none”!  Really! But, guess what?  All is not lost. There are plenty of funds out there. Sometimes it’s as easy as just asking for it and there it is. I lucked upon my very first grant. I was at dinner for the Trustees of a major performance venue on the affluent North Suburban Shore of Chicago and found myself sitting next to a couple who was very interested in my Teaching in the inner city. After I explained to them that it was very difficult to do what I would like to do with my students given the five thousand dollars that I had to share with two other colleagues in my department, she explained to me that her daughters choir had a budget of Fifteen Thousand Dollars yearly.  Just the CHOIR? After an exchange of business cards and about thirty days, I presented a check in the amount of Fifteen Thousand Dollars to my Principal for the express purpose of growing the technology for MY program. Her husband was also a Trustee for a major Chicago Area granting concern. You never know who you’re sitting next to at a power meal. I was able to renew for another fifteen grand the following year! Then more budget cuts eliminated my position and I was forced to another school within my district and guess what?  I was able to get another fifteen grand for a similar program at that school too from the same agency! FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!

Just recently, I was granted Ten Thousand Dollars from an entity called The Creative Schools Fund for a program that I created for my students’ growth.

So, it can happen as simply as being in the right place at the right time, applying for a very structured Program Grant, or using funding sources like GoFundMe. There’s money out there.  You just have to do a bit more homework.

I ran across a Federal Grant Opportunity called GEAR-UP that really struck me as interesting. Their mission is to increase the numbers of Students who graduate from High School College and Career Ready. GEAR UP provides six-year grants to states and partnerships to provide services at high-poverty middle and high schools. GEAR UP grantees serve an entire cohort of students beginning no later than the seventh grade and follow the cohort through high school. GEAR UP funds are also used to provide college scholarships to low-income students. Then I thought, “how fabulous would it be to track a group of third through eighth graders all the way to the front doors of a college or university and beyond? It is a very complex program but it would necessitate a very resourceful group of Teachers putting a regimen of preparation programs like the fantastic programs that Lumos Learning (lumoslearning.com) has. Incorporating proven products like the ones that Lumos Learning has adds strength to your proposal! Lumos Learning offers programming, tools and enrichment peripherals that add depth in practice, opportunities to report progress back to parents and strong administrative monitoring capability which can be used to assure its success during school the school day and during after school programs. Carefully thought out curriculum enhancements and strategic monitoring assures that the students will make gains enough to lead them in to some very aggressive high schools that are there waiting for them. Once there, the High School arm of the Grant Programs gives the Students the benefit of organizing themselves through programs like AVID and/or the rigor of matriculating through a series of AP class experiences.  Then, by the time they are High School Juniors, they actually take classes a few days of the week on a college campus!  Perhaps, the same campus that they will transition into from High School.  They might even graduate from college earlier than anticipated because of the fabulous program that you put together for them ten plus years ago!  How fabulous is that?  All along the way, there are these wonderful community based programs and agencies that are just waiting for you to put something like this together so that they can provide the tutorial and mentoring services that they offer.  This would add the community partnership strand that large granting concerns require.  Oh, the possibilities!

So, GO FOR IT!  It’s the least you could do as you go beyond the call of duty to promote the growth of your students!  They deserve it!  Don’t they?

Don A. Huddleston, M.A.

Educator/School Administrator