Kenston School District Play Blue in Motion Community Day!

Back in 2010, the Insight Team had the privilege of working with the folks at Kenston Local School District in Ohio to complete a needs assessment for, write, and submit a Carol M. White Physical Education Program (PEP) grant. We were thrilled when Kenston’s grant was awarded for the full requested amount of $677,706 for Year 1, and $53,894 per year for Years 2 and 3!

Kenston’s program is known as Play Blue (Promoting Learning for Active Youth). The district has put the funds to great use through district-wide programming that includes an ongoing process for involving district staff and community members and partners in decision-making, implementation of wide-spread physical activity and healthy eating policy changes, and brand new age-appropriate fitness centers at each of their five school buildings.

Policy changes include instituting use of uniform assessments for Physical Education district wide, implementing “Brain Breaks” (breaks for physical activity during core academic classes) for all grades, and numerous changes in Food Service. Impressively, Kenston’s Food Service participates in the Farm to School program and purchases primarily locally grown produce, makes available and clearly labels foods for students with special dietary needs (including but not limited to Gluten-Free and Vegetarian options), and has ensured all beverage and food vending options are in compliance with recommendations made by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

The fitness centers serve all 3,100 students in the district in grades K through 12. Centers include a mix of standard cardiovascular fitness equipment (treadmills, stationary bikes, ellipticals, etc.), exergaming equipment (physically active video games), and strength training equipment (sand bells, climbing walls, obstacle course elements, Railyard, etc.) appropriate to the grades of the students served by each.

As part of the Play Blue initiative, Kenston held the 1st Annual Play Blue in Motion community wellness day on April 15, 2012. The event was planned as a way for local community residents and families to see all of the new fitness equipment, learn more about the program, and pick up some healthy tips for themselves. Kenston even had  a special appearance by 1996 US Olympic Gold Medal gymnast Dominique Moceanu. The event brought together members of the community, families, students, and local businesses and turned out to be a great success!

Kenston put together a nice slideshow from the Play Blue in Motion community day, which had over 1300 attendees! Watch it here:

 

You may be wondering, “But does it work?” The answer is a resounding yes! Kenston is reporting a tremendous increase in the percentage of students who are active for at least 60 minutes every day.

Great job, Kenston!

 

Police Athletic League PEP Grant Video

Insight has the privilege of serving as the grant evaluator for the Police Athletic League’s (PAL) 2010 PEP Grant entitled PAL PEP!. Over the past two years, we have been thoroughly enjoying collaborating with the great folks that work for PAL and watching the already-strong programs they offer expand and evolve to include solid, comprehensive, and FUN physical and nutrition education components. PAL’s Harlem Center has partnered with the Public School 180 (the school with the greatest number of students taking part in program activities), at least 11 other neighborhood schools, Harlem Seeds, FC Harlem, Bike NY, Healthy Schools/Healthy Families, NYC Police Department, the Office of NYC Councilwoman Inez Dickens, the NYC Department of Health, and others to operate a PEP project that includes an afterschool program, a summer program, and an innovative lunchtime physical education program. Evaluation results to date have consistently shown that the percentage of students who are physically active for 60 minutes daily, achieving age-appropriate cardiovascular fitness, and enjoying and increasing their engagement in physical fitness activities has increased and continues to rise!

Check out the video about their program that the PAL team put together! It includes commentary from the Assistant Principal of PS 180, PAL staff, and active kids participating in PAL PEP!

 

The PAL PEP! program is designed to give students from Central Harlem opportunities to take part in a variety of activities designed to improve their health, increase their physical fitness, and develop lifelong healthy habits.

The Police Athletic League also recently did a flash mob with participation from about 200 kids and adults in support of another project. Watch it here:

 

 

“Do I Need a Consultant to Apply for a Grant?”

Honestly, the answer is probably no, you do not need a consultant to apply for a grant.

I’ve never seen a grant that obligated the applicant (through the application guidelines or the program requirements) to utilize a consultant. There’s no special certification or particular program of education needed to be a grants consultant. While some tools exists, there aren’t even tools that are “must haves” for this field beyond the basics of a computer, the internet, and basic word processing and spreadsheet software, and a heck of a lot of time.  Why, then, do we even exist? Do we serve any purpose at all? Of course I feel that we do. Our value is similar to that of most consultants: this is what we do all day long, so we know the field.

It’s not that grants are so complicated that the average person can’t figure them out, it’s really just that the average person doesn’t always have time to devote to the work of researching grant opportunities and writing grant applications and usually isn’t familiar enough with the field to know what’s out there, where to look, and how the various funding processes work. That’s where consultants come into play.

Do grants consultants know all there is to know about grants? Absolutely not. Unfortunately, the grants field is not always a clear one. Even those of us doing grants all day every day for years do not have all of the answers. There are many, many grant funders and even many more funding streams in the US. All of this involves countless individuals who participate in the program development, application review, and program oversight and evaluation processes along the way. While there are similarities among the many grant funding streams, each works a little differently. A consultant with a strong background in funding research who has applied to many funding streams multiple times is going to be able to offer the applicant solid direction and valuable input throughout the grant identification, application, and implementation and evaluation processes based on knowledge and experience, but cannot know every possible caveat or potential outcome for every program. There are simply too many variables. This is also why no grants consultant can guarantee with 100% certainty that your grant will win if the grant program is competitive.

So what are you paying for and why? Why take the risk of investing in a consultant if you don’t even know if you’ll win the grant? If you hire a grants consultant, you’re paying for time and knowledge. You still have to participate in the process no matter what, and your time contribution may be significant depending on the application, but it will be notably lessened with a consultant’s assistance. This frees you up to do all of the other things you’re supposed to be doing all day, like your regular job and meeting your home and other personal obligations. Our client contacts tend to be highly productive, intelligent, and resourceful folks that simply don’t have the time to devote to writing applications alone, learning how various grant programs work, or designing appropriate program evaluation plans. Basically, our job is to lighten their load by helping out with the grant work and advising them based on what we’ve seen over the years. While consultants don’t know everything, simply working regularly in the field provides a wealth of knowledge about basic grant processes, how to obtain information, program histories and current funding availability, and specific program rules—both publicly released and otherwise. A good consultant should be able to improve your chances of winning grants—in the immediate and long-term. Even if you don’t win the first grant the consultant writes, simply working with the consultant through the process should demystify the process some so that moving forward you have a better sense of how to grants work and what is required for success.

Is it possible to just go it alone? Absolutely. You can apply for and implement and evaluate grants without assistance if you have at least the minimum resources needed to do so.

So what are the crucial, minimal resources needed to be successful in the grants arena?

• A computer with the internet and word processing and spreadsheet software
• Solid writing skills
• Time management skills and the ability to adhere to deadlines
• Organizational skills
• Time
• Basic knowledge of the requirements of the program you are applying to or implementing funding from (At barest minimum, this would mean knowledge of the RFP for research applications, implementation, and evaluation, plus knowledge of any evaluation guidelines established by the funder for implementation and evaluation.)

If you have more resources than the above—for examples, in depth or historical knowledge of programs, particularly strong writing skills, a good editor, an evaluator or assessment professional, or a coalition of organizations or individuals that will support you throughout the process—you’re likely to increase your chances or level of success. A good consultant—and do be sure to get a good one with experience in the area you’re focused on, if you’re going to invest the money—can help here.

Three Weeks Left in the 2011 PEP Application Period!

2011 PEP applications are due three weeks from tomorrow. How are you doing? Where are you at in your proposal development process? Maybe you’re wondering where you should be at by this point. As long as you submit by 4:30pm Washington, DC time on May 13^th, it doesn’t matter terribly what your process looked like for getting to that point, but if you’re looking for direction, here’s an idea of what you should be doing in the final three weeks.

 

At this point, you should have already:

• Created a grants.gov account for the applicant agency or updated the existing account. If you haven’t done this yet, go to http://grants.gov/applicants/get_registered.jsp today. Account set-up can take one day or several weeks, and submission through this system is required in 2011.
• Gathered data and information to substantiate the need for your proposed project. Need information must include but should not be limited to School Health Index (SHI) scores for Modules 1-4 for each school/building participating in your project if you are a local educational agency (LEA) applicant or a community-based organization (CBO) with a school partner. If you are a CBO with no partnering school, you need to conduct another formal need assessment and include those results in your application.
• Met with key project team members and stakeholders to determine the direction your project will take in order to address needs identified.
• Made at least an initial contact with any project partners.
• Begun collecting sales quotes and other cost information and started assembling your budget narrative.
• Downloaded the grants.gov application package, familiarized yourself with how it works and what you will need to do to load the package, and begun filling out the required federal forms.

*Any tasks above not yet completed should be taken care of immediately.

 

This week you should:

• Gather any outstanding need data.
• Finalize your project design, including determining your project timeline.
• Finalize your management plan. Ensure adequate time will be committed to overseeing the implementation of the project!
• Finalize your partnerships and request any signed partnership agreements or letters needed.
• Gather any outstanding budget information and complete a full draft of the budget. Check to see that your proposed match meets the matching requirement. (For information on the matching requirement and calculating match, see pages 21 and 22 of the RFP.)
• Full draft your narrative.
• Continue working on federal forms and assurances and draft the required national evaluation participation commitment letter. Print completed items and obtain superintendent or executive director signatures. Scan them in and upload them to your grant package. Even though grants.gov provides an electronic signature, the actual signatures are also required per the RFP.
• Request any appendices items needed from others such as job descriptions, resumes, and the indirect cost rate proof.

 

Next week you should:

• Collect any outstanding appendices items and load them on to your grant package.
• Meet with key team members to review the budget and make any need budget revisions. Finalize your budget by week’s end so that you have time to fill out the federal 524 budget form, enter budget numbers in the federal 424 form on the grants.gov package, and complete your narrative ensuring it fully justifies all items in your budget.
• Collect any outstanding letters, partnership agreements, forms, and assurances with signatures and load them on to your grant package.
• Revise your narrative.
• Write an abstract.

 

The final week you should:

• Have another person read your narrative to ensure clarity, then finalize your narrative. Remember the narrative is limited to 25 double-spaced pages using 11- or 12-point Times New Roman, Courier, Courier New, or Arial font with one-inch margins. (Arial Narrow and Times Roman are no longer allowed.)
• Complete the Screening Form included on page 113 of the RFP and load it on to your grant package.
• Load all remaining documents to your grants.gov package. Remember only PDF files will be accepted.
• Submit your grant early. If you can submit two or more days before the deadline, that is ideal. Grants.gov has a multi-step process for accepting applications that involves applicant receipt of a total of four confirmation emails. It can take up to two days to receive all four emails. If all emails are not received, or an email is received stating there is a problem with the application, you will only be able to go in and fix and resubmit the application if the deadline has not yet passed. Hence, you should aim to submit two or more days early if at all possible.

 

Good luck!!

 

Three New OSDFS Technical Assistance Webinar Opportunities for Potential PEP Grant Applications

The Dept. of Ed has announced the following:

The Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools will be conducting three  technical assistance webinars designed to assist applicants to better understand various aspects of the 2011 application process for grants under the Carol M. White Physical Education Program (CFDA 84.215F).

 

The first two, held on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 are identical and provide basic information about PEP.  Select the one that best fits into your schedule.  In addition, if you would like more information about SHI, BMI, HECAT, & PECAT,  you may also want to attend the webinar on Thursday, April 21, 2011.

 

You will find specific information related to these conference calls pasted below, or  you can access the information on our website at: www.ed.gov/programs/whitephysed/applicant.html.

 

 

PEP TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE WEBINAR SCHEDULE

 

 

1. 1. Technical Assistance Webinar for 2011 PEP Applicants – Basic Information

Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Time: 10:00 am, Eastern Daylight Time

Meeting Number: 745 723 332
Meeting Password: OSDFS

——————————————————-
To join the online meeting (Now from iPhones and other Smartphones too!)
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/j.php?ED=145829037&UID=0&PW=NYmY5MDUxZGZi&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: OSDFS
4. Click “Join Now”.

——————————————————-
To join the teleconference only
Please dial in using the information below:
Dial in number: 1-800-593-9940
Passcode: 5625816
——————————————————-
For assistance
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/mc
2. On the left navigation bar, click “Support”.

 

 

 

 

1. 2. Technical Assistance Webinar for 2011 PEP Applicants – Basic Information

Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Time: 2:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time

Meeting Number: 744 238 674
Meeting Password: OSDFS
——————————————————-
To join the online meeting (Now from iPhones and other Smartphones too!)
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/j.php?ED=145828192&UID=0&PW=NMDkxZTQwNjc2&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: OSDFS
4. Click “Join Now”.
——————————————————-
To join the teleconference only
Please dial in using the information below:
Dial in number: 1-800-593-9940
Participant code: 5625816
——————————————————-
For assistance
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/mc
2. On the left navigation bar, click “Support”.

 

 

 

1. 3. Technical Assistance Webinar for 2011 PEP Applicants – SHI, BMI, HECAT, & PECAT

Date: Thursday, April 21, 2011
Time: 3:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time

Meeting Number: 749 562 391
Meeting Password: OSDFS

——————————————————-
To join the online meeting (Now from iPhones and other Smartphones too!)
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/j.php?ED=145828252&UID=0&PW=NNThkMThjYmU0&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Enter the meeting password: OSDFS
4. Click “Join Now”.
——————————————————-
To join the teleconference only
Please dial in using the information below:
Dial in number: 1-800-593-9940
Passcode: 5625816
——————————————————-
For assistance
1. Go to https://educate.webex.com/educate/mc
2. On the left navigation bar, click “Support”.

 

 

NOTE: The opinions expressed herein may not always reflect the views of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools or the U.S. Department of Education and should not be viewed as an endorsement..   If you think ED’s SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOLS NEWS would be helpful to a friend or colleague, please send them to: gov/news/newsletters/listserv/preventioned.html .   To access the OSDFS web site please go to: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osdfs/index.html. .

 

 

 

SAVE THE DATE - August 8-10, 2011 ~~ OSDFS 2011 National Conference entitled Making the Connection:  Creating and Maintaining Conditions for Learning

 

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