2015 U.S. Department of Education Funding Forecast Updated (December 30, 2014)
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has updated its Forecast of Funding Opportunities under the Department of Education Discretionary Grant Programs for Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 several times since the beginning of November. The last update occurred 12/30/2014, although communications with grant Program Managers have shown that not all information has been updated yet. Be sure to visit the link to the Forecast to get the full details, but also contact the Program Managers to confirm all information prior to acting. The Forecast is an evolving document, and the federal budget was just settled in mid-December, so there hasn’t been time for it to be fully reflected on the Forecast yet.
We’ve broken down some key takeaways from some of the grant programs we specialize in here:
- Carol M. White Physical Education Program (PEP) – We’ve hear back from ED and there will not be a new PEP competition in 2015 despite indications to the contrary on the current Forecast. For more information and alternative grant opportunities to consider see are 2015 PEP grant update post.
- Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Programs – This program will fund “down the slate” in 2015. 2014 applicants should pay attention to updates on the program and be sure the email they used for their project is still in use and frequently checked. Awards will be made on or before 9/30/2015.
- School Climate Transformation Grant – This program will fund “down the slate” in 2015. 2014 applicants should pay attention to updates on the program and be sure the email they used for their project is still in use and frequently checked.
- Project Prevent Grant Program – This program will fund “down the slate” in 2015. 2014 applicants should pay attention to updates on the program and be sure the email they used for their project is still in use and frequently checked.
- Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools TA Grant Program – This program estimates 5 awards in the amount of $500,000 based on the Forecast.
- Full-Service Community Schools – This program’s information was previously updated with 10 awards with an estimated average size of $500,000 expected. Per our communication with the Program Manager, while down-the-slate funding is not yet indicated on the Forecast for this program, ED has not yet determined whether new awards will be made down the slate or if a new competition will be held in 2015.
Although there are no estimated dates for the programs mentioned it is helpful to see what programs ED expects to make awards for in 2015. As updates happen, we’ll be updating our blog as well as InsightGrants on twitter.
Featured Grant Opportunity: Whole Kids Foundation School Garden Grant
School gardens have been proven to be educational and positive for students. Giving kids the chance to learn about the science of growing food and being rewarded with healthy offerings from their hard work can go a long way with nutrition education. The Whole Kids Foundation, in partnership with FoodCorps, is offering funding opportunities through its terrific School Garden Grant Program to make this a reality for your school, or help you keep your existing garden growing.
The program is open to K-12 schools, or a non-profit working in partnership with a K-12 school, to support new or existing edible gardens on school grounds. Applications are due by October 31st, 2014. Awardees will receive a $2,000 monetary grant.
For all the details on the program and to access the application, visit the Whole Kids Foundation website.
ED Press Release: U.S. Department of Education Announces Awards of Over $70 Million to Improve School Climate and Keep Students Safe
The U.S. Department of Education has announced funding awards through four new grant programs designed to help keep students safe and improve learning environments. These programs are School Climate Transformation grants to school districts, School Climate Transformation grants to states, Project Prevent grants to school districts, and School Emergency Management grants to states. To see the list of winners for each program as well as detailed information on the program initiatives view the US ED press release.
The Insight Team would like to congratulate two of our clients who were fortunate to be awarded funding in these important new programs. Cleveland Hill Union Free School District, NY, was awarded a 2014 School Climate Transformation Grant for LEAs. Cleveland Hill’s Year 1 award amount is $222,037, and the five-year award is anticipated to be $1,095,493. New London Public Schools, CT, was awarded a 2014 Project Prevent Grant. New London’s Year 1 award amount is $616,131, and the total five-year award anticipated to be between $2.5 and $2.9 million.
Featured Grant Opportunity: School Justice Collaboration Program: Keeping Kids in School and Out of Court
The Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention is offering a federal grant opportunity, titled School Justice Collaboration Program: Keeping Kids in School and Out of Court. The OJDDP is partnering with the Department of Education and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for this program.
The goal of the program is to enhance collaboration and coordination among schools, mental and behavioral health specialists, law enforcement, and juvenile justice officials at the local level to ensure adults have the support, training, and a shared framework to help students succeed in school and prevent negative outcomes for youth and communities.
Further Information on eligibility from grants.gov:
This initiative includes two categories, and the eligibility differs for each:
• Category 1: Local School Justice Collaboration Program. Applicants are limited to local juvenile and family courts (including rural and tribal juvenile and family courts) that can verify that they have a partnership—with a local education agency (LEA) that has applied to the Department of Education’s School Climate Transformation Grants-LEA (SCTG) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Now Is the Time Project AWARE–LEA programs. Additionally, applicants must partner with local law enforcement (via subgrants) as part of their collaborative effort. To meet these eligibility criteria, applicants must provide a letter of commitment or agreement, as described in the RFP, and the Grants.gov tracking numbers for the SCTG and Project AWARE grant programs applications. Awards under this category may be made only to juvenile and family courts in communities that have been awarded Department of Education School Climate Transformation Grants. A factor that will be considered in selection is whether an application also provides a plan to collaborate with the LEA on SAMHSA’s Now Is The Time Project AWARE-LEA program.
• Category 2: School Justice Collaboration Program National Training and Technical Assistance. Applicants are limited to nonprofit and for-profit organizations (including tribal nonprofit and for-profit organizations) and institutions of higher education (including tribal institutions of higher education). For-profit organizations must agree to forgo any profit or management fee.
When is the Deadline? July 21st, 2014.
Where Can I Get More Information? Visit the grant program page at grants.gov
Why Isn’t Your District Applying for School Climate Transformation Grants for LEAs in 2014?
On 5/13/2014, we published a blog post about one of the US Department of Education’s new school safety grants: School Climate Transformation Grants for LEAs. Applicants can request up to $750,000 per year for up to five years for projects that, “develop, enhance, or expand systems of support for, and technical assistance to, schools implementing an evidence-based multi-tiered behavioral framework for improving behavioral outcomes and learning conditions for all students.” This is a terrific opportunity for Local Educational Agencies such as school districts, charter schools, and consortia of LEAs to obtain funding for programs and resources that support positive student behaviors, social and emotional development, and mental health for students!
If these are areas of need in your schools, here are the top 6 reasons you should apply to this program in 2014 rather than a future year:
- Student needs won’t be resolved without intervention! Every student deserves a safe, comfortable, equitable learning environment that is supportive of his/her success. Apply in 2014 because your students shouldn’t have to wait any longer for an improved school climate–and can’t afford to.
- Approximately 118 awards are expected in 2014! While 5-10 years ago it might not have been terribly uncommon to see a grant program make 100-200 awards, those days are pretty much gone. In recent years, programs making 50-80 awards are thought to be making a lot of awards since most programs make under 50 awards in a given year, and many make far under 50. Apply in 2014 because based on the anticipated number of awards alone, your odds of winning will be significantly better than for most current grant programs.
- If this grant is offered again next year, more likely than not ED will only be able to make about half as many awards (or fewer) unless substantially more funding is allocated. In other future years, the number of new awards may be even smaller. Since this is a five-year grant program, this year–the very first year of the program–is likely to be the year we see the most new grants funded for several years since ED will have to use a portion of the funds allocated each future year to fund the continuation awards in addition to any new awards. In some future years, ED will be funding multiple years of continuation awards. For example, in 2018, ED will be funding awardees in Year 2 (2017 winners), Year 3 (2016 winners), Year 4 (2015 winners), and Year 5 (2016 winners). Continuation awards are typically committed before any new awards are made, as is fair. Whatever money remains in the allocation is available for new awards. In some future years, there may only be enough remaining for a small number of new awards or none at all. Apply in 2014 because it is likely fewer new awards (if any) will be available each future year, as the program will be supporting significant numbers of continuation awards.
- Applications are due 6/23/2014! While that’s less than a month away, if you begin working this week and work very diligently until the deadline, you still have time to put together a strong application. This is especially true if you recently applied for the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling grants due 4/28/2014 or a similarly-focused funding stream, since much of the need information is likely to be the same. You may be shying away from this application based on the fact that it’s due right as school is wrapping up for some districts and after school has closed for the summer for others. Here’s the thing: many schools are thinking that way, and June and July deadlines for US ED grants sometimes have few applicants for that reason! Apply in 2014 to seize the opportunity to be one of what is likely to be a relatively small pool (comparatively) of brave applicants who apply for a grant at the start of or during their summer breaks and capitalize on increased odds of winning as a result!
- This program is new this year! As programs age, they tend to evolve. While that is usually in many ways a really good thing, from an applicant/awardee standpoint, it often also means more rules and requirements during both the application and award periods. Apply in 2014 to take advantage of what are likely to be the least demanding application and award period reporting requirements!
- You can be one of the first! If you have an interest in serving as a leader for other schools in your county, region, state, or the nation, this grant offers you a great opportunity to do that in the area of behavioral health–one of the areas for which until now schools haven’t received much funding at all in recent years despite great need. Due to support by both the President and Congress, that’s about to change. 2014 will be the first year of award for this program, as well as for Project Aware (due 6/16/2014), Project Prevent (due 6/30/2014), and School Justice Collaboration Program: Keeping Kids in School and Out of Court (due 7/21/2014). Apply in 2014 to this and/or any of the three other new school safety grants to be leader and a model for other schools in improving student behavior and mental health to improve student safety and achievement!
School Climate Transformation Grants for LEAs are Now Open!
Another new school safety grant has opened! The School Climate Transformation Grant for LEAs program provides competitive grants to local educational agencies to develop, enhance, or expand systems of support for, and technical assistance to, schools implementing an evidence-based multi-tiered behavioral framework for improving behavioral outcomes and learning conditions for all students.
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) states that projects should: (1) build capacity for implementing a sustained, school-wide multi-tiered behavioral framework; (2) enhance capacity by providing training and technical assistance to schools; and (3) include an assurance that the applicant will work with a technical assistance provider, such as the PBIS Technical Assistance Center funded by the Department, to ensure that technical assistance related to implementing program activities is provided.
When is the Deadline?: Monday, June 23rd, 2014.
Who Can Apply?: Local educational agencies (LEAs), or consortia of LEAs. An LEA is a public school district or a charter school or cooperative education board designated as an LEA by state law.
Award Information: Range of awards are $100,000 to $750,000 per year for up to 5 years. Applicants may not request more than $750,000 in a single program year. This program does not require matching funds. 118 awards are expected to be made in 2014!
Where Can I Get Complete Details?: The application is available at the School Climate Transformation Grant page on ed.gov
Other Important Information: There are TWO versions of this grant: one for SEAs (State Education Agencies) and one for LEAs! Both are due June 23rd. The information contained here is about the LEA version of the grant. If you are an LEA looking to apply for this school safety funding, be sure you are looking at the ED information on the LEA version of the grant and accessing the LEA RFP and grants.gov application package!
Applicants who apply for this grant AND Project AWARE and coordinate with that effort and discuss the coordination in their applications can receive competitive preference (bonus) points. Applicants can also receive bonus points under the same Competitive Preference Priority by coordinating with other similar efforts in addition to or instead of Project AWARE. See the RFP for details!
Clarifications on the Project Prevent Grant
The RFP for the new US Department of Education Project Prevent grant can be found at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/projectprevent/applicant.html. All Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) interested in applying should begin working on their applications using the RFP ASAP!
Additionally, we have heard back from the Program Manager, Earl Myers, Jr. From our emails with Mr. Myers, we’ve confirmed:
- The award range of $250,000-$1,000,000 is per year.
- The anticipated average award is $487,500 per year.
- School safety personnel (like School Resource Officers) and school safety equipment (like new doors, locks, security cameras, etc.) are NOT allowable expenses under this program.
- Awards are anticipated by the end of September.
- Applicants should tentatively plan for a project start date of 10/1/2014.
- LEAs may apply as consortia if they wish to with one LEA serving as the lead applicant and all participating LEAs complying with all program rules, requirements, and data collection. Mr. Myers reminds us of the following important requirements for consortia applicants, “Under EDGAR 75.127, eligible entities may apply as a group (consortium) with one LEA serving as the lead. However, each member of the group must follow the legal provisions found in EDGAR 75.129 relevant to how to do so. These provisions include:
‘75.129 Legal responsibilities of each member of the group.
(a) If the Secretary makes a grant to a group of eligible applicants, the applicant for the group is the grantee and is legally responsible for: (1) The use of all grant funds; (2) Ensuring that the project is carried out by the group in accordance with Federal requirements; and (3) Ensuring that indirect cost funds are determined as required under §75.564(e).
(b) Each member of the group is legally responsible to: (1) Carry out the activities it agrees to perform; and (2) Use the funds that it receives under the agreement in accordance with Federal requirements that apply to the grant.'”
Good luck to all applying!
New School Safety Grant–Project Prevent–Opened Today!
One of the brand new ED School Safety Grants the Insight Team has been watching for, Project Prevent, opened today. Applications are due 6/30/14.
This program is focused on supporting schools in communities of high violence or schools with high violence in them through mental health professionals who provide students with counseling and referrals to partnering community agencies, training for staff, and proven-effective violence and risk behavior prevention and reduction programming. The Federal Register Notice seems to indicate that violence includes community violence like shootings, as well as domestic violence and other child abuse issues.
Local Educational Agencies (public school districts and charter schools that are designated Local Educational Agencies by their states) are eligible to apply.
Awards are for up to 5 years. The award size is $250,000-$1,000,000 (probably per year but the Federal Register Notice isn’t entirely clear about that; we’ve submitted a question). There is no matching requirement. About 20 awards are anticipated.
Applicants proposing to serve one or more high-poverty schools (schools with student populations with 50% or more of the students living in poverty based on free/reduced lunch numbers or other poverty indicators acceptable through the ESEA) can qualify for three bonus points via Competitive Preference Priority 1 provided they indicate they are responding to the Priority in their abstracts and list the high-poverty schools participating in their projects in their narratives. Also, Competitive Preference Priority 2 allows for three bonus points as well if the district is coordinating with a federally designated Promise Zone.
We’ve asked the contact if the grant will fund school safety staff such as School Resource Officers or school safety equipment such as new doors, locks, and cameras and are currently waiting to hear more on this.
Here’s the link to the Federal Register Notice, which actually provides tons of information on the program: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/04/29/2014-09604/applications-for-new-awards-project-prevent-grant-program
The full RFP should be available tomorrow via grants.gov.
School Climate Transformation and Full Service Community Schools Grants will probably also be released later this week or next week. We’ll keep you updated on those right here on the Insight blog.
If you’d like to apply for this grant with Insight’s assistance, please contact us ASAP and we’ll send information on the cost of services. Given the limited number of awards anticipated, we’ll support a limited number of applicants to be fair to all. Further, two months is actually not long at all to prepare an application of this magnitude, and the program will likely be very, very competitive. Anyone looking to apply will want to start ASAP to have the best possible chance! Good luck!
Featured Grant Opportunity: Captain Planet Foundation Ecotech Grant Program
The Captain Planet Foundation is offering a competitive grant program in partnership with the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. Awards are made for the purpose of engaging children in inquiry-based projects in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) that use innovation, biomimicry / nature-based design, or new uses for technology to address environmental problems in their communities.
Award: (16) $2500 grants.
Who Can Apply? Schools or non-profit organizations.
When is the Deadline? Applications opened January 15, 2014 and will be accepted through May 31st, 2014. Awards are for projects to be conducted in the Summer and/or Fall of 2014.
Something Cool or Unique About This Opportunity: Considering it is the Captain Planet Foundation, everything about this grant is cool. Check out some of the examples of Ecotech projects previously funded on the Captain Planet Foundation page.
Where Can I get More Information? Get full information at CaptainPlanetFoundation.org and grant guidelines here:
http://captainplanetfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/CPF-Guidelines-EcoTech-GrantsFINAL.pdf
2014 PEP Grant Awards Are Coming Soon!
Yesterday we started hearing about schools being notified by members of Congress that they had won 2014 Carol M. White PEP grants! If you applied for a PEP grant in 2013 and scored highly but did not win, it’s possible you may be selected for a 2014 award since the US Department of Education (ED/US ED) is funding down the slate this year rather than holding a new PEP grant competition. This means new applications are not being accepted in 2014, BUT new awards will still be made. The pool of eligible applicants in 2014 includes all 2013 PEP grant applicants who did not win an award in 2014. Applications are not re-scored, however, and awards are made based on reviewer scores, so those who scored well in 2013 will be in the best positions for 2014 awards.
If you have been selected for an award in 2014, you may or may not hear the news first from your House Rep and/or Senator. Not all members choose to contact their constituents. Either way, if you’ve won an award this year, ED will email and/or mail your organization an official Grant Award Notification (GAN) document in the near future.
The full list of 2014 PEP grant winners should be out very soon now that Congressional notifications have begun. We’ll post it here when it’s available. Good luck to all 2013 applicants in the running for 2014!
